Coaching Toolblog

The basketball equivalent of the chicken/egg debate is the debate over which is more important–practice or games? From many people’s perspective, it is a no brainer–the games are more important. We think there is a little more that needs to be thought through than meets the eye. As a matter of fact, I am going to make the argument that from a team perspective, the team is better off if a player must miss a game.

Sometimes a coach will tell the team that it is better for an individual player to miss a game than a practice just to drive home the importance of being at practice. It is important that all players feel that practice is important to the improvement of the team. The first way (but not the only way) to show that something is important to you is by being there. There is the obvious numbers argument that practice for an individual is more important than the games. After all you only need five bodies to play a game, but you need ten to practice and be able to scrimmage. Finally, and probably the best argument, if a player is not at practice, how will he or she know the plays, game adjustments, defensive schemes, etc…

The opposite side of the coin is that if your trainer, or a doctor, says that for whatever physical reason, the player does not have enough to give to both practice one night and then play in the game the next night. At that point, the coach who believes that practice is most important must make a choice to stick to his or her guns on the practice issue or to allow the player to miss practice and then play in a game. Depending upon the specifics of the no practice/no play rule, a player might be able attend practice, but not participate in drills or scrimmage.

Not an easy call by any means, but definitely one that needs to be thought through and decided upon, then put in writing before the situation presents itself. Leave a comment and tell us what you think and while you are at it, check out the rest of our site at The Coaching Toolbox