Jogging along at a brisk 10:34 pace, Wade interrupts himself to say hello to an ROTC cadet walking to class. Then he’s onto another topic, spitting out stories between breaths.
I think that’s Eliud Kipchoge’s walking pace (not hating that much, Wade’s “brisk pace” is also my Zone 2 pace).
Some decent quotes in that story, but I’m left with not much more knowledge on what Wade is actually about as a coach.
NC State very well may come out and bury VCU, but as of halftime they are up by 4, despite VCU shooting 31% (25% from 3). VCU shot 24 of its 36 from 3, rushed their offense most of the half, and just settled; they finally started getting in the paint near the end of the half. I don’t know…after a quick start they looked pretty mediocre as a team.
I know. It is one half of one game, but I wasn’t super impressed. Like us, they haven’t had a real test, and I am not certain VCU at home even counts.
I expect them to come out in the second half and play much better, but it makes me wonder a little why they are no. 25. BTW, they appear to be very vulnerable on the offensive glass.
Edit: Definitely not “mediocre,” but good, and I am not sure about great, yet.
I think Wade’s point about not being able to improve guys more than 3-5% is probably right.
BUT, you have to consider the counterfactual. You can also ruin players, making them 20-30% more crappy than they are coming out of high school. Don’t fact check this estimate. That’s the risk if you just give up on “culture” (which is a term that does need to be unpacked, but you know).
I think actually creating a culture that players buy into can help avoid the ruining part and help them maximize to the 3-5% ceiling. Culture can create some habits and foster a willingness to keep pushing.
Obviously, fit with scheme and system will help maximize some of that, too.
We’ll see if Wade’s theory of the case plays out …
Having never played sports at any competitive level, I think about it in terms of a work setting. The company with great talent but not much culture might perform well, but I’d rather stay at a place where I’ve bought into the culture.
Yep. I’ve always told my friends that the talent sets the median expected outcome and the coaching sets the variability around it. And that variability can be quite dramatic (I disagree that it’s only 3-4 points upside per Wade).
The annoying this is I kinda, sorta, slightly agree with Wade.
Not so much that culture is totally bs, but that we ascribe a lot of undefinable things to it. We need to explain why organizations win, so it must be culture because it can’t just be “oh, there are really good players on that roster”.
Bill Belichick had a great culture of accountability when New England was making the playoffs every year and winning six Super Bowls. But the last few years in NE and UNC, he’s had a terrible culture. Or maybe he just stopped winning games.
Is that 3-5% an annual increase? Does it compound?
Maybe I’m just too dyed in the wool for Tony, but I personally witnessed what I felt like were way larger increases over the course of a couple years under the Bennett regime.
As a coach I don’t agree with what Wade is selling, at least not in how he’s selling it. I think you need to take a deeper dive into meaning of the world culture.
It’s easy to misinterpret the meaning of the word. Often in sports you hear that word and there are visions of tight knit groups and the brotherhood and a near cultlike following. While that is a version of culture I don’t think that’s what most coaches are seeking or talking about when they reference the term.
Culture in terms of team athletics is more often defined as setting a series of expectations of what is acceptable and what is not. I’m willing to bet Wade does that. I cannot imagine he is letting guys slide on things, not meeting a standard that he has set. Within those standards that’s where the improvement on player development happens. Is it 3-5%? Who knows, that’s a completely arbitrary made up number.
A conference typically ends with an overall range of 20-30 points of net rating from the best to worst team, while the range of coaching ratings in a league is something like 2-4. This strikes me as a reasonable contrast. Acquiring talent is overwhelmingly more important than coaching that talent, but at the extremes the coaching part can make the difference between winning a championships and finishing third or fourth in a league.
Yeah I agree the culture is a thing. I think what he was getting at is that there certain coaches that don’t have a strong culture other than talking about culture. Every organization generally wants accountability, results and hard work. It’s how you get there though.
The culture at NC State seems to work for them (for now). Swagger, confidence, high intensity, “us against the world”.
You don’t hear a ton of culture directly from Odom but seems to leak out in some of the interviews. Seems to be a good balance of letting players play and coaches help shape the edges - mutual respect between the two. Really liked Ugo’s Proving Grounds snippet of always having a coach willing to work out with him and then in the post game, Odom’s belief in him to shoot the three.
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