I’m writing this after a scrimmage in the Summer on a Friday afternoon. As basketball ends for the season, there’s a chance to pause, reflect, and rest. Then thoughts turn to next season - An opportunity to begin again. In September, as a 16 year old walks into our 6ᵗʰ Form college with two or even 3 years ahead of them, what does it means to put them in the best possible position to be successful over that time? The potential of each individual player is different. Each year, maybe one of the class will be in a position to earn an opportunity to go to the States and pursue their basketball dream. Others will be looking at Universities in the UK, whilst a few may finish their formal education here and move onto something else, leaving basketball behind. So, what skills will they need to develop over the time they have with us? For clarity, I'm talking less about the basketball side of things. Of course this is important and at our academy we will dedicate hundreds of hours to individual work, team training and competition. But for the athletes I work with, there are two things about the process of developing basketball skills that make it less of an interesting topic for me to write about: Basketball skill development is an individual process, dependent on the current skills set, experience, position, and physical attributes of the athlete. There is no “one-size fits all” template to apply. The level of the young athletes that I work with is such that the process of developing skills like shooting, ball handling, finishing, passing, defending, rebounding, etc. within the context of the game is a fairly simple one. There’s no need to re-invent the wheel here. For me, there are some other areas that are more interesting and challenging to help young athletes develop. They could be described as physical, mental, and emotional fitness. On the physical side, I’m becoming more and more interested in what it takes to help a young athlete develop the cardio-vascular capacity to compete at a high level for a sustained amount of time. What are the measurements we could use here to determine a baseline assessment (resting hr, HRV, VO2 Max, yo-yo or other physical testing?), and what practices do we use alongside basketball training to help develop this physical fitness in a timely manner? Also, can we effectively utilise loading data through the season to actually make changes to what we’re doing? What is the value of weight-lifting during the season for these athletes? Is there a better way to develop strength, balance, and power? Then there’s the mental side of the game. Skills like resilience, composure, confidence, perseverance, equanimity, self love, acceptance, patience and awareness. These are all skills (among many others) that the young people I tend to work with really struggle with, not only on the court, but off it as well. Here’s where I like to draw parallels between what happens on the court and what happens in daily life, to try and help these guys see that their approach to training and competition, and the way they deal with challenges and problems on the court, is a mirror of how they look at life. At the end of the day: “How you do anything, is how you do everything” So as the scrimmage goes on and I sit on the sideline, here are the questions I have: How do we help a 16 year old athlete prepare physically to perform at their best in the 2ⁿᵈ half of the season? How do we help them prepare mentally? Consider that it's not “what happens” that's important, it's “what happens next?” How do we use the situation of the practices & games to prepare the athletes for the challenges of life? More questions than answers. More to come with some possible solutions, when I take time to write again. If you read this, I’d love to hear what you think.