The Right Way
January 29, 2010 by allshoremedia
I attend 4-5 basketball games a week. Every game I attend I make sure I get there at least twenty minutes early. I do that for a very simple reason. I want to watch teams warm up. I look for certain things. You would be amazed at what you can learn watching kids warm up.
There’s usually two stages to the warmups. The first is usually twenty minutes or so before the game and the players are on their own. What a great opportunity to work on what you are looking to do in the game. That’s my first opportunity to observe a player. Is he standing around just chatting, throwing up an occasional shot and then going back to his conversation? Or is he practicing his ball handling or working on his free throws. You can pick out the kids who care pretty early on if you pay attention. I watched a kid the other day stand in the right corner and take shot after shot from the same spot. He never moved. The game came and went and he never took a shot from the that spot. In other words, he wasted his time.
Then there is the formal team warm-up ten minutes or so before the game. You know the routine. Layup lines, go to jump shots, maybe a three man weave. A good team is like a good boxer. You should work up a good sweat during warm-ups. You should be patting your teammates on the back, get them as pumped up as you are. You should be elevating on your layups, elevating on your rebounds. You should be getting ready!!!!
I watched a team last week WALK through their warmups. Walk!!! The players were walking to get rebounds, barely trotting in the lay-up lines. Jump shots were taken without any focus and nobody attempted a free throw. These kids were not ready to play. The game began, the team fell behind 12-3 and the coach was screaming at his players during a timeout. Hey Coach. That’s on you. If your team doesn’t warm up properly shame on you. Get an assistant out there and get them going. The game didn’t get much better from there. If a team doesn’t warm up well before a game it’s a pretty strong indicator that they probably don’t practice during the week very well either.
Watch the good teams. Watch CBA warm up. This isn’t about who has the most talent. CBA has talent AND they do things right. I remember 10 years ago watching CBA warm up at one end and watching the other team warm up at the other. I turned to my friend and said” CBA is getting ready for this game, I have no idea what that other team is doing”. In what was supposed to be a close game and should have been a close game turned into a blowout.
Watch good players. They take the warmups seriously. I went to see a player recently. After ten minutes of watching him warm up I had seen enough. He never spoke to his teammates, never broke a sweat and spent most of the time looking in the stands. If he looked closely he would have seen me shaking my head. Behind me were two college coaches. They left after the first quarter.
Bottom line. It all counts. The practices, the warmups, the body language. All of it. The next time you go to a game watch the teams warm up. You can spot the better teams and the better players long before they toss the ball in the air.