DYAMI STARKS – SIX PRIORITY CATEGORIES THAT COLLEGE COACHES VALUE – EPISODE 1244

Website – https://dyamistarks.com/

Email – dyamistarks@gmail.com

Twitter/X – @dyamistarks

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Dyami Starks is one of the Midwest’s premier basketball trainers.  His approach to training combines professional-level insights with data-driven development strategies.  Starks also serves as the player development coach for All Iowa Attack, the director of Starks Elite AAU program, and as an assistant women’s basketball coach at The College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota.

Dyami was a Division I standout at Bryant University and enjoyed a professional career that included stops in Australia, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Latvia.

On this episode Mike and Dyami discuss the metaphorical totem pole of recruitment, and how college coaches prioritize retaining their current players and recruiting the transfer portal over pursuing high school talent, thereby reshaping the recruiting dynamic. We look at the misalignment between what players think college coaches value and what the coaches actually value including the following six categories.

1. Mental Capacity
2. Intangibles (e.g., leadership)
3. Skill
4. IQ
5. Strength & Conditioning
6. Instincts

Dyami explains the critical idea that effective leadership on the court does not solely rest on a single individual; rather, it thrives when all players embody leadership qualities, allowing them to elevate one another.. The discussion extends to the significance of athletes understanding their roles within a team framework, fostering mental resilience and adaptability. Ultimately, Dyami advocates for a holistic approach to player development and why players need a deep appreciation for teamwork and leadership.

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Be sure to take some notes as you listen to this episode with Dyami Starks, trainer & player development coach for All Iowa Attack.

What We Discuss with Dyami Starks

• The necessity of cultivating multiple leaders on a basketball team, highlighting that leadership should be a collective responsibility rather than a solitary endeavor
• The challenges and intricacies associated with recruiting, particularly in the context of the transfer portal and the evolving landscape of college basketball
• Prioritizing mental capacity and emotional intelligence, as these attributes significantly influence a player’s adaptability and success on the court
• The importance of leveraging player behavior and actions is stressed, where coaches and trainers should reinforce desirable behaviors consistently during practice sessions
• A focus on strength and conditioning is essential for athletes, as it not only enhances performance but also builds confidence through physical resilience and adaptability
• Encouraging communication among players and fostering an environment where athletes feel empowered to express themselves vocally during practices and games
• Basketball IQ encompasses understanding the game at a conceptual level, while instincts involve executing plays based on intuition
• The importance of multi-sport participation which can enhance overall athleticism and reduce injury risk among young athletes
• Players must learn to apply their knowledge in dynamic game situations effectively
• Emphasizing unselfish play to foster a winning culture

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The modules cover things like writing emails to coaches, building an effective highlight tape, using social media well, planning ID camps and visits, and navigating application strategy.

You’ll get templates, checklists, and an outreach plan to communicate confidently, learn how to compare financial packages, and avoid common missteps. By the end, you’ll have a prioritized school list and a decision framework you can use to land your best-fit opportunity.

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THANKS, DYAMI STARKS

If you enjoyed this episode with Dyami Starks let him know by clicking on the link below and thanking him via Twitter.

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TRANSCRIPT FOR DYAMI STARKS – SIX PRIORITY CATEGORIES THAT COLLEGE COACHES VALUE – EPISODE 1244

Narrator

00:00:00.240 – 00:00:21.080

The Hoop Heads Podcast is brought to you by Head Start Basketball.

Dyami Starks

00:00:21.080 – 00:00:40.980

I think of leadership as if I can have five leaders on the floor. We’re in good shape.

Don’t think about I have to lead you because that leads to come on guys, that leads. Kind of like a me versus them kind of thing. Or I’m in front of you leading. No.

All five have to be leaders and sometimes leaders take a step back and let others shine.

Mike Klinzing

00:00:41.940 – 00:02:09.580

Dyami Starks is one of the Midwest Premier Basketball Trainers. His approach to training combines professional level insights with data driven development strategies.

Starks also serves as the player development coach for all Iowa attacks, the director of Stark’s elite AAU program, and as an assistant women’s basketball coach at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota.

Diami was a Division 1 standout at Bryant University and enjoyed a professional career that included stops in Australia, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Latvia. Are you or an athlete you know Planning to go D3? Check out the D3 recruiting playbook from D3 Direct.

Their playbook gives you a clear step by step roadmap to the recruiting process, what coaches value, key milestones from early high school through application season, and how to build a targeted list of schools that fit your needs. The playbook demystifies researching D3 programs and how to stand out without chasing every camp or showcase.

The modules cover things like writing emails to coaches, building an effective highlight tape, using social media well planning camps and visits, and navigating application strategy. You’ll get templates, checklists and an outreach plan to communicate confidently. Learn how to compare financial packages and avoid common missteps.

By the end, you’ll have a prioritized school list and a decision framework you can use to land your best fit opportunity. Click on the link in the Show Notes to get your D3 recruiting playbook from D3 direct.

Darrell Nelson

00:02:13.340 – 00:02:22.130

Hey, this is Darrell Nelson, overseas pro player and author of Tour de Hoops. Bigger Than Basketball and you’re listening to the Hoop Heads podc.

Mike Klinzing

00:02:26.280 – 00:03:31.010

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Be sure to take some Notes as you listen to this episode with Yami Starks, trainer and player development coach for all Iowa Attack. Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads podcast. It’s Mike Cleansing here without my co host Jason Sunkle tonight.

But I am pleased to welcome back to the Hoop Heads pod for his second appearance, the Dyami Starks basketball trainer, Dyami. Welcome back, my man.

Dyami Starks

00:03:31.410 – 00:03:36.770

Awesome. Good to be back. It’s fun. I had, I enjoyed the first, so I’m looking forward to getting some interesting topics.

Mike Klinzing

00:03:37.170 – 00:04:17.060

Absolutely. We got a lot of good things on the agenda tonight and we’re going to talk about the transfer portal.

We’re going to talk about college recruiting, we’re going to talk about nil. We’re going to dive into basketball training and how you can help yourself in the best way.

If you’re a player, if you’re a parent, if you’re a high school coach, an AAU coach, how can you help your players? We’re going to dive at this from all different perspectives, but let’s start.

You mentioned to me before we jumped on that there’s a totem pole of how college coaches are looking currently at the recruiting landscape. So why don’t we start there, Walk us through what that totem pole looks like, what it means for each of the different groups on that totem pole.

Dyami Starks

00:04:17.380 – 00:07:42.720

The, the easiest way to think about recruiting in this chaos is to delineate how coaches think into five categories and they kind of work their way down and it’s, it’s pretty simple to understand how we got here. Right. Like transfer portal, nil, rev share, et cetera. New rules coming down the pipeline.

So realistically, the top of that totem pole is not even other players. That’s recruiting your own players. Right. A lot of coaches don’t even know from year to year who’s in the portal. It’s shocking. It’s a surprise.

I mean, sometimes you do know. But  even if you do know, I, I like to think about Iowa State on the women’s side. Right.

 losing their almost entire roster and obviously losing a monster in Audi Crooks. Right. You got to imagine that Bill finally was working really hard to recruit those players to stay.

I mean, they were top 10 to start the year, obviously, ups and downs and some things happen. They all do.

But then when, when, when kids are exiting on that bad note, you got to recruit them to come back and convince them to come back. So that’s brand new. That’s something that’s happened the last three to five years.

I think we all have postseason meetings and kind of go over those aois and poes that we want our players to come back stronger with. But now it’s convincing you and ultimately talking about promotions and raises in these conversations. So that’s number one.

And all of that’s happened, frankly during March when you should be focusing on your next opponent.  you should be focusing on postseason and the most exciting time of the year.

And instead coaches have to have those conversations with their players during those stretches. So I mean, that’s, that’s the absolute pinnacle of the totem pole.

So you can imagine if we’re just working our way down, high school players aren’t thought of. It’s just, it’s just the nature of the beast. And  the, the other four are kind of follow down from there.

You, you, then you go into the portal and most coaches are going to look for the best possible players. You see, Oklahoma State just picked up Liv McGill, probably the best available point guard in the portal, right?

So when you look in, in the portal, the number one thing coaches say is point guards and bigs. Point guards and bigs. Point guards and bigs, right? And that’s a, that’s on both sides.

So when you’re, when you’re, when you’re trying to look across the aisle or look at your level bcs kids, you’re. It’s a bidding war, right? So that’s, that’s tricky. And you’re probably not getting your first or second choice outside of those blue bloods, right?

So then from there you start to get creative and dive into the film.

I think Fairfield had a funny tweet that they said he, one of the grad assistants had to watch a thousand plus players and, and, and, and truth be told, you’re probably watching film on players that you don’t even know if they’re in the portal.

You’re looking at trends and who’s coming in and who are they recruiting that could probably beat them out and who’s not playing as much and who’s coming off injuries. Like you’re, there’s no stone unturned, right?

So now you’re looking at kids in the nooks and crannies or even, even D2 kids now are starting to get looks at the Division 1 level.

So I always joke with our players, like, hey, if you don’t get your dream school out of high school, D2 and junior colleges and even some mid majors and low majors are like an extension of aau, they’re showcase grounds. I say that tongue in cheek, of course, but that’s kind of third on your totem pole.

And then you get into your upperclassmen, like 2027s are going to be very important this summer. And then there are underclassmen. So one thing I’ll tell kids is that if you’re top 10, you kind of. You kind of cut through everything, right?

You’re a top 10 player, you’re a top 20 player, five star, you’re going to be priority. But even some of the five star kids that I’m working with now, they’re like, hey, I haven’t heard from my coaches in a while.

I said, yeah, because they’re worried about those other four spots.

Mike Klinzing

00:07:43.840 – 00:09:35.830

Yeah, it’s really interesting. The coaches that I’ve talked to, I think that a lot of them have adapted to the idea of recruiting players out of the portal. Right.

I think that coaches see that there is a tremendous benefit, if you can do it well, to recruiting experienced players, players who have proven that they can play at the college level into their program.

I think what a lot of coaches are having difficulty with is that first tier of the portal, right where it used to be, that especially at the Division 1 level, not that you aren’t recruiting all year, but you have windows where you can be out and you can be recruiting and you could be talking, you could be doing those things. And now you’re essentially recruiting 12 months out of the year because you’re recruiting your own roster over and over again.

And obviously you want to be communicating with your players regardless of whether they’re coming back. They’re not coming back. But now it’s just this constant. You’re on edge. You don’t know, is this player coming back? Are they staying?

Do we want them to stay? Do we want them to go? How important are they to our roster?

And I think that’s the one area that coaches are really having to figure out, what does that look like for me to recruit my own players? Because so many coaches, I feel like, right, they built a program, they’ve built a culture.

And most coaches would tell you and would believe that they’ve built the kind of culture and team and program that they think kids want to be a part of and will want to stay once they’re there. And so the idea that a kid is rejecting that culture or that program or that coach, sometimes that’s hard to take.

And it’s hard to even accept in your mind that I have to put in all this time to recruit somebody who I already recruited. I already, I already got him in the door. I think that’s where coaches are struggling a lot, Diami.

Dyami Starks

00:09:36.070 – 00:12:00.330

Big time. Big time. And, and there’s so many factors within that. You could start with the age of coaches like you.

I don’t know if it’s an advantage or disadvantage to be an old, an old soul, right.

I mean, if you’re, you’ve been around the game for a while, it’s probably harder to adapt, but it’s also a lot easier for you to be a little bit more transactional, I think, because of your experience and pedigree. Right.

So if a kid is wanting to leave or you hear these stories of I want a million dollars and I average two points a game, older coach is going to say, okay, see you. Right. Younger coaches are going to say, no, please. You know that.

So I do think that when you, when you look at the blue blood programs, especially at the highest level, the older coaches are going to be probably a little more successful, have a higher chance to be successful because they can really just rely on reputation. They probably have large budgets so they can pivot a little bit quicker.

And if the kid doesn’t want to listen and do their own thing, like we said, see you later.

But I also think that younger coaches have a big advantage as well because they’re the ones that can adapt and relate and enter this period with a fresh eyes fresh mind and not really come into it with this curmudgeon attitude of you’re walking here and it’s like you go to Nova and it’s like Jay Wright’s preaching jump stops and the kids like, where’s my $3 million? Right. Whereas Young coaches probably have a little more mental energy to do both. And so I it’s.

It’s kind of eye of the beholder on that piece. The other thing I think about is geographics, too.

I think when you look at our demographics, like if you look at kids in the Midwest, Midwest values, they’re far more likely to stay put. They’re not kind of in the hoopla of the east coast or the west coast co swag. They’re kind of in the Midwest. I’m here.

I’m used to being inside eight months of the year because there’s snow. There’s still snow outside where I am right now. Like so.

So when adversity hits or when you’re kind of thinking about staying closer to home or were you thinking about the Midwest? Like Big Ten basketball is really, really, really good, right? On both sides, there’s less of a reason to leave. And I think that coaches are.

I actually had a coach, I had so more on the women’s side. I had a coach tell me that they’re recruiting heavily out of the Midwest in the twilight of their career.

Coach has been around for 30 plus years and  all Iowa attack fits in that. North Tartin fits into that. A lot of the UL programs, Under Armour programs that we have are very, very strong.

Minnesota by itself on the girls side has five circuit teams in the state. I don’t know if you saw the graphic too. About 15 players on the women’s side from Minnesota were in the sweet 16, led the country.

I mean, nobody would have guessed that, right? You would have thought the Frozen Four, maybe not the Final Four.

Mike Klinzing

00:12:00.570 – 00:12:00.970

Right.

Dyami Starks

00:12:00.970 – 00:12:23.330

Anyway, I say that because I do think that you’re going to.

It’s going to be a while before we see trends of what the behaviors of players will be, but I do think that coaches are going to recruit their, their regions very strategically.

And I think that depending on your age, it’s going to determine if you have the energy to pivot or if you’re going to be able to establish that culture. And ultimately that’s going to keep your kids around.

Mike Klinzing

00:12:25.170 – 00:14:02.640

Being said, you have talked to a number of college coaches and you got their feedback on what they’re looking for in a player, right?

Regardless of a player coming out of the portal, player on their roster, high school player, whatever it is, there are six things that they came to you with that they said, these are the things that we are looking for.

And I know this is something that I’ve preached on the Hoop Heads podcast and it’s something that I think sometimes gets lost, especially the younger and the less aware of the basketball world. A player and a parent is. There’s a misconception about what a college coach is looking for in a player.

You talk to a parent, an average parent at an AAU game, what are they worried about? How many points of my kids score? That’s the most important thing. How many shots is little Johnny, little Susie getting up in the game?

That’s the most important thing. That’s what people think. I would bet if you took a survey at a big giant AU tournament, 75, 80% of the people would come back with.

Coaches are looking for people who can score. And we know that’s not the case. So I Want you to go through.

Let’s first give us the six things and then we’ll go through them one of a time, one at a time, kind of break them down in terms of what you see, what that means to you, and then how you, as a trainer or for somebody out there who’s listening, who wants to incorporate this into what they do. How can we help players to improve in each of these areas that are the real areas that college coaches are looking for?

Dyami Starks

00:14:03.040 – 00:16:40.000

Yeah, absolutely. So first things first, a little context. These six things kind of arrived on both sides of the can like you had on. On my end over many years.

I’ve always, and it’s part of my job, wanted to know, like what. Let’s cut through the fluff and let’s find out what coaches really look for. Right?

And I, having played at that level too, like you kind of bring in your own experience and background. And on the other side of things, I asked coaches like, give me the truth.

I mean, it’s like you go on Twitter, coaches are guilty of this too. They say, I’m looking for body language.

And then you go and you watch some of these major programs on TV and kids are throwing chairs and cups and cursing out their teammates and getting in fights. Like, you ain’t looking for body language. Right. So I don’t blame parents for not knowing. Right.

Especially when we’re in this hoop culture of all the highlights and courtside films and whatever else you’re getting. Your stuff posted is all about score. Right? So y. That’s what led to kind of these six things. If you say, and it’s, it’s not meant to be too reductive.

I think that anything that you can talk about, any nuance or detail will fall under one of these six things. But, but surely this list could expand or change. And so the six things are simple. It’s mental capacity.

Everything from your, your short memory to your mental toughness to your ability to handle adversity. So that’s a big umbrella. Big, big, big umbrella. Your next one’s intangibles. We all know that.

Your leadership skills, things you can’t measure, your body language, etc. The next one’s your skill. That’s self explanatory. I think skills exploded in the last 15 to 20 years. Basketball. Your fourth one is IQ.

I think that’s self explanatory. Something that doesn’t get taught enough at the grassroots level. We can dive into that one. Strength and conditioning. It’s an interesting one.

Strength and conditioning is also a big umbrella. I think a lot falls into that. I’d love to talk about a couple things on that one. And then instincts.

Instincts, to me was something that I put in front of coaches because I think that a lot of coaches, if we’re being honest here, would certainly like to bring in players that they don’t have to do as much work to coach and teach for. That makes sense, right?

So, like, if I don’t have to teach you how to shoot, to cut, to read the defense, to run ball screens, whatever it is, if you just have good basketball instincts, it’s one of those things, like you know it when you see it. So I said like, how do we develop these things? Talk to me about how we can break that down. How important is that?

So those are kind of the six things, and so we can go anywhere you want with that. I pulled coaches.

I. I kind of asked them what just kind of ranked them one through six, and pretty much unequivocally, most coaches had the first three, and 100% had the number one answer, which is mental capacity. So if we want to start there, we can. If you want to go to other ones, we certainly can, too.

Mike Klinzing

00:16:40.480 – 00:17:59.810

So let’s start there. But let me throw a caveat at you when it comes to that one.

So when I look at the list and I’m thinking about the types of players that you want, to me, there’s a combination. Whenever I talk to a coach and I ask them about, hey, what kind of player do you like to recruit, right? What.

What intangibles are the things that are important to you? What are the things that you’re looking for in a kid? And I usually couch that with.

I know that a kid has to have a requisite amount of skill and ability to be able to play at whatever level. If I’m talking to a Division 3 coach, they have to have a res.  they have to have the.

The degree of skill that’s required to play Division 3 or Division 2, or Division 1, whatever it is, and then you can kind of get into some of these other things.

So when you think about the mental capacity piece of it, and you kind of juxtapose that with skill, to me, those two things kind of have to go hand in hand because you could have a kid who. He’s a really good listener, maybe he’s a really good student, and he could pick up, hey, I could run this play. I could do this.

But if he’s not skilled, a program’s not necessarily Going to want him. So to me, it’s almost like those two things go hand in hand. Am I thinking about that differently than kind of how coaches presented it?

Or just walk me through the sort of the hand holding of those two areas.

Dyami Starks

00:18:00.530 – 00:19:52.890

Yeah, you’re spot on. I think all of these topics kind of weave together and hold hands, if you will. But those two. That’s exactly right.

I think most coaches had skill, either 2 or 3. And skill. Skill is you hit it on the head. Like there’s a prerequisite level of skills a player has to have.

And one of the things at the Division 3 level that I’ve heard a coach say is that I really don’t need a player. Like, we don’t have to give them a bunch of skill workouts and drills and formats. Just put a ball in their hands.

Like, you want to know a good ball handling drill, Just run up and down the court dribbling. Like that’s why you need to do all these fancy things and give you a list of stuff, right?

So, like, even at the Division 1 level, we’ll see the same thing. I mean, if you come down to our practices at Attack, there is nothing flashy or fancy, right? It is just.

And you watch Caitlin Clark’s game too, right? Best player Tech’s ever had. Everything is simple, right? Everything is simple. And if you don’t take that left hand away, it’s a long night. So how.

How often do you think she had to work on her game to the point where she could do those things at that speed? Well, if you’re dicking around with the ball and doing a million things, it’s not going to work.

So, like, there’s a prerequisite level of skills, but there’s also an intensity that you have to apply to those skills. And I think that if the more you complicate it, you kind of get lost, if that makes sense. So there’s a fine line.

The mental capacity, which is that handholding piece you’re talking about is not only how do I use these skills, but what happens if these skills don’t work? What happens if I have to adapt? What ha. How do I use these skills in real time? How do I use these in the off season, right?

Like, when my coach can’t work with me, am I able to think for myself and go out there and do what I need to do? So, like, mental capacity really can weave itself through all of these categories.

But you are spot on that the, the skill and mental capacity piece, those came up the most. When you talk to coaches, here’s something.

Mike Klinzing

00:19:52.890 – 00:22:11.510

That I think is interesting too. When it comes to a player coming out of high school. So generally speaking, no matter what level a player ends up playing at, they probably are.

Unless they’re again at a boarding school, a prep school, they’re at a high school powerhouse. Most often the player who is going to play at the college level is probably the first or second best player on their team.

They’re probably the first or second option in their team’s offense. They’re probably, in other words, a star in their environment.

And then when they get to college, I think part of mental capacity is being able to make the adjustment of I’m a freshman, the coach probably isn’t just going to give me the ball and say, hey man, go do your thing, do whatever it is that you do, and we’re just turning the keys over to you. There are very few players at any level that get the opportunity to do that.

There are some NBA teams that don’t even have a guy that just hits the ball and gets to do whatever they want. So I guess my point here is, is that players who are high school players, that are stars have to come into the college level.

And suddenly now it takes some thought process and some self awareness to understand that in college or in high school, I might have been putting up 28 a game. Can I still be an effective player in college where I might only be averaging seven points a game?

But maybe it’s my ability to distribute the ball, maybe it’s my ability to defensive rebound, maybe it’s my ability to guard on the perimeter.

Whatever it is, how can I adjust and adapt and be happy and be productive and still work hard and do all the things that you were describing a second ago.

When I’m in a role that I’m probably unfamiliar with because I’ve never been in that role my entire life because I’ve always been the best player on whatever team I’ve been. So to me, I think that’s a huge adjustment.

When I look at players that have gone and that I’ve watched in high school and then I see them try to make the transition to college, I think that ability to transition from star to role player from a mental standpoint is one of the most difficult transitions that players have to make.

Dyami Starks

00:22:12.230 – 00:25:02.000

I couldn’t agree more. All right, so the you said the key point happiness. Like are you happy to do those other things?

So the younger you can teach a player, train a player, condition a player to find Joy in those little things, they’re going to pop on the screen. Gabriel Haquez from UCLA is the prime example of this. Like this kid’s number one skill is just play hard. That’s it, right?

She’s not the best shooter’s, not the best ball and not the best playmaker, not whatever. But when she rebounds, it looks like she’s having the time of her life. When she cuts, it looks like her her life is on the line.

It’s when she plays, anything she does, she’s doing to the nth degree and that matters. I was talking to a player that’s considering actually going to UCLA next year and she was saying do they develop well?

And I said, absolutely, they develop well. But here’s the thing. Did Gabriel Haquez just become a lottery pick? I mean, prior to the season, she wasn’t even considered a first round draft pick.

Now she’s the second player drafted from that stud star studded UCLA team. She didn’t magically just become more skilled. She didn’t magically just become a better shot maker.

 she, she was able to contribute to the best team in the country on a team full of loaded players. And how do you do that? The very things you just said. She finds a lot of joy and passion in those little things and she did on the biggest stage.

So that doesn’t start at 19, 20, 21 like you, you, you got to build that into players in fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh grade, whenever they’re, they’re learning how to play. And so I always start with four factors of winning to kind of help give, give clarity to kids on these things.

Rebound, defend, take care of the ball, make open shots. Rebounding is always first. Basketball is a possession game. So like, if you can win the possession games.

And like I think we talked about this before, like, my college coach gave me one of the coolest things ever. He said, when you look at the rebound differential, it kind of matches the box score or the final score.

And it’s not, there’s exceptions obviously, but it’s, it’s pretty much true. If I win by, if I win the rebound battle by 10, we’re winning by 10 points. It’s a possession battle. Right.

And most teams aren’t shooting one point per possession. Right. That’s a really good, efficient offense. So the more rebounds we get.

That’s why you see offensive rebounding teams, they’re the best transition defensive teams because they’re winning possessions and making you take the ball out, drawing More fouls, getting to the free throw line. That’s Gabriela Hawkez. That’s the whole UCLA team. You watch the Final Four. It was pretty ugly games. You have to be able to value those possessions.

And then defense speaks for itself. Make open shots speaks for itself. And take care of the ball speaks for itself.

So, like, if you could teach kids to find joy in those things, everything else becomes easy. I always say I can teach you the flashy step back, James Horton or Tyrese Maxey or whatever type stuff you see on tv.

That stuff’s pretty simple, but you’re exactly right. The amount of stuff that  the amount of times you’ll do that stuff in games at the next level is slim to none.

Mike Klinzing

00:25:03.200 – 00:25:52.600

But what does that look like from your perspective as a trainer? Obviously, you’re having a conversation, right, with kids, but that doesn’t get across in one five minute conversation.

That’s a repetitive, hey, I value rebounding or I value the extra pass, or I value getting on the floor, I value sliding your feet and getting in front of somebody. What does that look like for you as a trainer, as you’re trying to repair kids at all different age levels?

What are the conversations that you’re having with them? What are things that you can do with them on the floor when you’re.

If I’m coaching, let’s say I’m an AAU coach and I’m listening to this, what can I do to help my players to more. To put more value in those other things other than just scoring, which is going to then get me the attention maybe from a coach that I might want?

Dyami Starks

00:25:53.160 – 00:28:17.840

You have to leverage their behavior. It’s the perfect question, Mike. Like you have to leverage their behavior, you have to leverage their goals and what makes them tick, right?

So like if a player says they want to be a Division 1 player, then you have to tell them what it takes to be a Division 1 player and what it takes to win at Division 1 level, right? So let’s start simple. Every Division 1 coach wants to win games, right?

Whether they want to climb the ladder, help out kids, transformational, transactional, it doesn’t matter. They need to win games. And those four factors of winning really anchors that point home.

So right, right there, a kid can’t argue with that when you’re trying to tell them rebound, right? So when you say leverage their behavior, it’s like, okay, well, if you want to be at the Division 1 level, here’s what it takes.

You don’t have a say so in that. So when we’re in workouts, we always reference that, right? Like what you prioritize will show up. Right.

Is like what you allow will fall by the wayside. So if I allow a kid to just dribble, dribble, dribble.

If I allow a kid to just come to the workout and  think about whatever shots we’re going to take, moves we’re going to make, cones we’re going to dribble around, whatever, they’re going to play like that in game. But if every drill, we’re anchoring them to those four things, like one of the, one of the best drills we do, we do a lot of multi layer stuff.

I never like doing like single layer drills. So if we’re doing a, a ball handling drill, let’s actually get up and down the court.

Even if we’re in a half court, I’ll tell them to start a little bit higher. Think about your spacing, think about other people on the floor. Think about this.

And usually you’re always getting that ball off of a rebound outlet or inbound. Right? So if we’re coming up the floor, I need you to think about what happened before that.

Because a lot of times when players try to translate these skills to games, they forget about those awkward, clunky kind of transitional pieces, right? And so you have to put them in that mind frame. So the easiest way to anchor them is to just think about rebounding. So leverage whatever there is.

They’re telling you, they’re telling you they want to be this. Well, then as a trainer, a coach, a parent, a mentor, whatever your job is to tell them, hey, this is what it takes.

So yeah, we can work on your step back, jump shot. Like we can work on your ball handling and all these different skills.

But you need to know you’re probably going to get one, two or three of those per game. But what’s going to happen before that is far more important. So you just reference that every time in a workout. You’ll be surprised. Kids are sponges.

Like they will literally apply that, but it’s on you to keep reinforcing that over and over again.

Mike Klinzing

00:28:18.240 – 00:30:47.710

Yeah, I think the repetition is key when it comes to being able to reinforce those messages. Like I said, one five minute conversation, kid will nod their head, huh? Yep, sure. Huh? Yep. I hear what you’re saying. And then that goes away.

So it has to be repeated over and over and over again. And then the coach’s actions have to show that those things are valued. Right.

If you’re coaching a team and your players rebounding or your players making that extra pass or they’re doing those things, like, those are the things that need praise, right? In practice, in games, in film study. Those are the things that you have to point out.

Those are the things that you have to look for so that your player understands that it’s not just me talking at you about, hey, you should do these things, or, hey, these things are important, but I’m actually valuing them in front of you, in front of your teammates. And then here’s how that translates to helping us win. And I think sometimes that gets lost.

And I continue to maintain that the education of basketball players and basketball parents is such a huge piece of getting this whole thing right and helping people to understand what it is that basketball is about. To me, and again, you and I think are wired in the same way from a standpoint of winning basketball to me is not difficult. It’s very simple.

And I could boil it down to, if you compete and you play together and share the ball, everything else kind of like you were talking about with the six things, right? I can almost put everything. Play hard and share the ball and play together.

I could put almost everything in the game of basketball underneath those three things. And my teams can win games.

And it’s amazing to me when you watch basketball, if you show up at a tournament, you watch kids play, it’s amazing to me how many teams, players, coaches, don’t seem to understand that that’s what the game is really all about. And you see lots of other things being coached. And sometimes, like, it’s just. It’s pretty simple, man. Like, your team’s got to play harder.

And if the ball needs one more pass, then you got to demand that the ball gets thrown one more pass to get your team a good shot. Because when you don’t, it affects so many. It affects so many other things.

And I think, again, coaches just have to look for opportunities to be able to demonstrate to their players that they value those things and then make sure the players understand how those things that they value translate into winning.

Dyami Starks

00:30:47.790 – 00:30:59.870

Well, that’s the second part. So you’re exactly right. You need to attach reward systems, and you need to be very intentional how you attach those reward systems. Right.

Because dopamine is a powerful thing, right? Dopamine is the thing that makes us scroll in our phones.

Mike Klinzing

00:30:59.870 – 00:31:00.310

Yep.

Dyami Starks

00:31:00.310 – 00:33:33.960

Right. And kids are hardwired to chase those dopamine hits. So kids love praise. It’s common sense.

So if you attach that praise to a made shot what do you think they’re going to chase in games? One of my favorite things. So one of my parents actually put this on a. I got a gift of a.

 you get these coaching chairs, and you get to put graphics on the chairs. And she put on there. Of all the things she put on, she put, don’t chase makes. And I smiled because I said, somebody’s listening. That has become my.

My favorite phrase. And it’s organic, right? Like, I. I didn’t think about this in one of my workouts, I told our players, I said, hey, stop chasing makes.

And it’s very simple, right? So, like, if we’re chasing makes in a workout, you can imagine slower reps, sloppier reps, reps that are more comfortable.

We get into our shot in a. In a comfortable, smoother way, and then we get into a game, and we’re not ready to shoot quick, right? So it’s like just from that simple standpoint.

Don’t chase makes applies to everything, though, right? Don’t chase a perfect rep.

When you’re ball handling, if you’re not losing the ball, I tell my kids, if you take 10 dribbles and whatever bottom we drill we’re doing, you’re not losing it. Not hard enough, or you’re not going hard enough. Every 10 dribbles, you should be losing the ball somehow, some way.

Go watch an NBA workout if you don’t believe me. Go watch Steph workout. But I was like, don’t chase makes applies to all of that.

So to your point, like, if we’re rewarding kids, I want to reward you for proper mistakes, right? And so, like, if we’re in a game and you.

You turn down a tough shot to make a one more when maybe it should have been the other side or maybe you should have taken a shot, but you’re being unselfish, taking the one more reward that. And then tell them, hey, basketball’s game of nuance.

Like, next time, maybe you look like there’s ways to attach what you’re saying, the reward system. Like, there’s ways to do that over and over again where kids can start to teach themselves.

Don’t get them so focused on the end result, and definitely don’t get them focused on the wrong things. And the last thing I’ll say to that is when you’re teaching kids, like rebounding are these kind of more difficult things that don’t.

That aren’t sexy or stand out, right? That’s your job as a coach. Like, you have to go out of your way. You can clip up some film. You can reward it in practice.

You can talk about it before and after. I. I’ve heard some coaches that do things like that. They’ll. They’ll have like a. Like a. Like a note card or a.

A kind of piece of paper where players at the end of practice will write down what they thought were the most important things in that practice, and then they’ll compare them to what their value system actually is, right. To see if those things match up. And they’ll even reward that.

Like the kids, even if they aren’t doing them, are thinking the right things, they’ll reward that. It’s like, that’s your job as a coach, is to find ways to reward the stuff that doesn’t show up on highlight tapes.

Mike Klinzing

00:33:34.520 – 00:34:33.899

I love that. Making a connection. And I’ve never heard of anybody doing that, but I love the idea of, hey, write down what you think were the most.

What do we emphasize in practice today? And then you look at, well, what does player think we emphasize? And then what did we think we were emphasizing as coaches?

And if those two things aren’t matching up, then there’s something off. Either our delivery is off. Our communication is off.

There’s some disconnect between what we’re trying to accomplish in the practice and what the players think we’re trying to accomplish. If those two things are different. Tells me I got to go back and reevaluate what it is that I’m doing. I really like that idea.

That’s an easy one to implement, right? That’s an easy one to implement. I could start that with a team tomorrow. Hey, beginning of practice, I want you to go through and think what.

What is it that we emphasize all through practice? Think about what it is that we’re trying to teach you. What are we trying to do? We’re going to ask you at the end of practice.

Ask him at the end of practice. And then did it match up with what we were trying to do, what our goals were?

To me, man, that’s a simple way to just figure it out and see if there’s a disconnect or not.

Dyami Starks

00:34:33.899 – 00:36:09.170

I love that you can invert that, too. Sometimes it depends on how you think as a coach, but, like, you could invert and say, what are we willing to give up?

So, all right, you want to think about rebounding or defense, Whatever. One is easier. But, like, okay, let’s say rebounding, right? I love the debate of, do we send. How many do we Send to the glass offensively.

Because if we can send four monsters to the glass and stop you from running out in transition, I don’t have to worry about my transition defense. That saves so much practice time.

Because teaching kids how to offensive rebound or tag up is so much easier than teaching these whatever concepts you have for transition D. Right? But obviously if you’re sending four or five to the glass, you might be. So I love that debate.

Point is though, you might start with telling your team instead of saying, hey, get on the glass, right? Because kids they space out, they forget.

You might say, hey, we’re willing to give up a couple transition buckets as long as we get X amount of boards or get our 30% old board rate, whatever it is that actually makes kids not tense up and overthink. So if you want to look at it sometimes of like, hey, what are we willing to give up?

I like to think of zones like every coach wants to take stuff away or, I’m sorry, take everything away and whatever.

In the zone, I’ll say, hey, let them get that nail hole, catch and shoot a contested 15 footer, right, or let them get that short corner, whatever shot, right? If they make four or five in a row, great, we’ll address. If we can do a scout and a player loves that shot, great, we’ll adjust.

But we’re willing to give up two, three, four in a row. That gives so much clarity to players. So again, to your point, like, can we connect those things?

You can either start from this is what we want or you can start from this is what we’re willing to give up.

Mike Klinzing

00:36:10.230 – 00:38:41.840

Another thing too, right?

When you hear parents sit in the stands and something happens where a team gives up a corner three or they give up this particular play two or three times in a row, it’s exactly what you’re talking about. And this is why when you sit in the stand, sometimes you hear what people are talking about and they’re complaining about this or that.

You’re like, you’re not in the practices every day. You don’t know what the team is trying to accomplish.

You don’t know what your son or daughter is supposed to be doing, what’s their role in this particular play or this particular defensive scheme or whatever it is that they’re doing. And you may not understand what’s happening. And again, it’s an imperfect game, right?

Sometimes you can do everything perfectly the way you want and the other team makes the shot or the other team gets a stop or whatever it May be, but I think there is a great lesson there. And you do have to figure out what is it that we’re willing to give up? What is it that we’re willing to sacrifice in order to be good at this?

I think about early in the NBA season this year, right, when Steven Adams was still healthy with the Rockets, there was like the first maybe month or six weeks where the Rockets were number one in the NBA in offense.

Not because they had a good offense, but because they just pounded the offensive glass mercifully and they won that possession battle that you were talking about. And so if you get two, three, four shots in a possession, well, guess what? If I get four shots every possession, I only got to shoot 25%.

And that’s not a very efficient offense if I’m getting one shot of possession. But if I’m getting four, it’s pretty good. And so I think it’s, again, you got to look at as a coach, you got to look at where your strengths are.

What can we do? Well, what are we willing to give up?

And then as a player, you try to figure out what are those little skills that I can add that again, aren’t scoring? What can I do to help my team win that isn’t scoring the basketball? Because I, I don’t know what the stat is.

I remember there was a Billy Donovan tweet this year where he was quoted as saying, you have the ball for whatever, 4% of the game. What are you doing the other 96% of the time in the game if all you do is score and that’s the only thing you’re concerned about?

Well, you only have the ball in your hands for 45 seconds the entire game. What are you doing with the entire rest of the minutes that you’re getting? How are you being impactful in a game?

And that’s a conversation I know I’ve had with my own kids. Like, what can you do when you’re not scoring, when you don’t have the ball in your hands?

What are the other things that you can do that, that you can contribute? And it’s, but it has to be constant. It goes back to what we just talked about a second ago. It can’t be a one off. It’s got to be constant.

Dyami Starks

00:38:42.000 – 00:41:53.590

I, I, so I’d like, I, okay, so I, I, I like to talk about winning the lottery with rebounding sometimes or like getting deflections. Right? So like, what I always say is that the actual ball is like a ball of energy. Like when I get my Hands on it. Everybody loves to have the ball.

So I said, the easiest way to get the ball, guys, is a rebound. It’s not to wait for a pass. It’s not to crowd the ball or call for the ball or whatever it is or be the point guard. It’s like, go rebound, right?

So again, like, when you get a rebound, I tell my kids, like, you know why we feel like we have an extra, like, bounce to our step or we get it in, push faster, is because you’re the Only one of 10 players on the floor who got that ball. That’s like winning a mini lottery. That’s what it feels like. Same with the deflection. I always say this, too.

Like, you always get, like, Hannah Hill Doggo is, like, perfect example of this, right? So Hannah Hildalgo might be the most terrorizing defense. She’s like the. The. The mini Me version of Wemby.

With her defensive impact, she makes players afraid. If you watch the Vanderbilt game, like, there’s players holding the ball like this. Like, where’s she at? Where’s she at?

I’ve never seen a kid impacted that much anyway, so every time she, like. Like, she looks like a demon out there trying to get the ball right?

And I tell players, I say, hey, this is the equivalent of, like, we all grew up in gym class playing kickball or softball or whatever. I always love being in the outfield. Like, everybody likes to kick.

And I said, okay, what if I’m fourth and the three people in front of me strike out? That’s not fun. I just stood there and watched people kick and miss the ball. That’s not fun.

But if I’m in the outfield, I always have a chance to make a play on the ball. That ball could be kicked my way. Like, I’m always on my toes. I’m always ready. And if you go watch baseball. Yeah.

Guys in the, in the, in the, in the dugout are just sitting there, just chilling, just whatever. But guys in the outfield, they’re always watching and looking. And, yeah, so I said, like, if you can train kids to find joy in that, right?

That’s when you get Hannah Hildalgo just going crazy after every ball, and she’ll pick up fouls. So there’s our point, right? Like, do you think Neil Ivey is tripping about a couple fouls? She’s like, no, I’m willing to give that up.

I’m willing to give my player freedom and permission to go do those things. That’s. That’s definitely a discussion and that’s many years of them building that rapport together.

So if you can start doing that with kids, third, fourth, fifth grade, I always say this for. For younger levels, 40% of deflections lead to steals.

So anything under eighth grade, for the most part, there’s some exceptions, but anything under eighth grade, 40%, that’s almost half a division. So if you can get your hand on a ball, we’re out the other way getting layups. Who’s not having fun with that?

So, again, I say okay, if we can train a kid, that dopamine response, like, great deflection, or you can, like, say deflections in practice are worth two points. Or you can say offense, if the ball gets tipped, it’s minus two.

Whatever you want to do to incentivize your practices, you can train kids to be demons defensively, and then they’ll actually value that stuff more than scoring.

It’s easy to say great shot, but if you can turn that into a great crash or great tip or great whatever, like, all of a sudden, those kids, they’re going to value and connect those dots, as you’re saying. So when they get to the college level, they’re ready to go. And coaches love players like that.

Mike Klinzing

00:41:55.040 – 00:42:27.890

There’s a story that I’ve told on the podcast before about my own daughter. And we were sitting. This was. I don’t know, it was sometime last. Last year.

We’re sitting in the gym or we’re watching a game, and somebody on the court made a really nice pass. And I’m like, oh, that’s a nice pass. And my daughter just kind of looks at me.

She’s like, dad, she goes, the only thing you ever say anything good about is when somebody throws a nice pass. That’s the only time you really ever cheer or have a reaction. She goes, whenever there’s a good pass, you always react to that.

I’m like, I love passing.

Dyami Starks

00:42:27.890 – 00:42:28.410

Like it.

Mike Klinzing

00:42:28.410 – 00:43:05.580

To me, it’s the skill that is probably the least developed in players that is the most important skill, like I said, for sharing the ball and playing together.

And it was just one of those things that when she turned and said that to me, I was like, somewhere along the line, she listened to something that I’ve been saying.  it’s your point. Like, it.

That wasn’t me, like, one time saying, hey it’d be good if you were a good passer because your dad really likes passes. It was.

No, she had been with me, me coaching her, me sitting next to her watching games that she’s like, the only thing you ever react to is a good pass. I’m like, you’re probably right.

Dyami Starks

00:43:05.980 – 00:43:16.620

Yeah. And there’s, there’s going. I, I really feel this way. Right. If you, if you, if you can refer.

If I’ll reference Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping point book, which is such a good by like how trends start.

Mike Klinzing

00:43:17.130 – 00:43:17.450

Yes.

Dyami Starks

00:43:17.530 – 00:45:43.310

There’s, there’s always like. I think he said it’s. And I could be off on this.

But there’s like this like 13 tipping point where like when 13 of people begin to buy into something, it just, that’s when momentum shifts over. So like think about this now.

We be, we, we started this kind of skills era in basketball where everybody started getting skills trainers and whatever people teaching them how to dribble and do fancy stuff within the last kind of 10, 15, 20 years, if you will. Right. And, and, and fine. That stuff’s pretty fun and it’s pretty cool. But then like when that tipped over, we just, the pendulum swung way too far.

So now why can’t we do that with what we were just saying or what you’re saying with passing the ball? Like if you, if you, if you, if you go. I have my kids count passes. So like if you go and look at the average possession in AAU game. Oh, it’s bad.

Like it’s, it’s something like 2.2 passes per possession. It’s something like that. If I remember correctly from last summer. Right. You start looking at the best teams in college basketball.

It’s something closer to four. Now you can kind of filter that out. Like you’re in transition on a steal. Yeah. Don’t stop and pass because the Almond Mike said pass the ball.

Like go take the layup. Right. So we are counting like all those kind of like weird possessions. Right. Or an old board put back.

There’s no passing, but you can look at the typical half court possession. So like it’s kind of simple. Like you mentioned simplicity. Our practices are like five. Like we have a play called five pass ball five times.

Like it’s that simple. Because if you have five great players, great players. This is your point about a high school player. Forget college.

You get eight BCS level kids coming to play in an eybo practice or an eybo game team, whatever. Like all of them were the best player on their high school team. So what’s the easiest way to get them to jail and conglomerate and play together?

Well, pass the ball. Pass the ball. The ball is a Thing of energy. So if I get it, you get it. You get like all of a sudden and you reward that.

You get five great players who find more joy passing than dribbling. Now, it takes some time. It does, but it can be taught.

And if you could teach that with high level kids who are like motivated or always told to score and dribble and chase highlights and rankings, like if you can get them to pass the ball, you can get anybody too. You just have to stay. I, I love your word simple. Like that’s the word we use.

You just have to really preach simplicity and then just reward your kids when they do it.

Mike Klinzing

00:45:44.190 – 00:48:19.970

I think you said it earlier that you know it when you see it to some degree, right?

That when that clicks in, when somebody does those little things, when a team is willing to be unselfish and share the ball, you can walk into a gym and you just know what that looks like, what that feels like.

My son fell into a great AAU situation Diami for his junior year where just happened to go to a little open gym that turned out to be a tryout that we didn’t even know was a tryout. Before you know it, we were on this team and we had guys that several of them didn’t go on to play college basketball.

Got a couple guys playing Division 2, a couple guys playing Division 3, but just a good group of kids that were talented.

And I’ve never, as a parent, I didn’t coach the team, but sitting there watching, I’ve never been involved with a team where my kid was playing, where I honestly did not care if my kid was on the floor because I liked watching the team play because the ball moved. Every kid was unselfish. They didn’t care who scored. Everybody competed and did all the little things that they were supposed to do.

And so as a result, every kid looked better and rose up.

And we had college coaches that would come and talk to my son or talk to our AU coach and talk to me and they would say, we like coming to watch this team play because they play like a real basketball team.

So when we’re evaluating one of the players on this team, we have a pretty good idea of what that player would look like in an organized system as opposed to a system where it’s 2.2 passes and guys are fighting to see who can get the inbounds pass so they can dribble up. And we’ve all seen those teams too, right? Where just whoever gets the ball is dribbling up and they’re taking the shot.

And so I think it’s one of those situations where it starts with the player themselves and then who’s around the player, the parent, if they have a trainer, if they have a high school coach, AAU coach, whatever, it starts there.

And then whoever the coaches of the team that they’re playing on them in the moment, which again, could be their AU coach, could be their high school coach, what does that coach demand from them as a player? And then what do they demand from their team collectively as a whole? And like I said, I feel like the secret to basketball is not anything.

It’s not, it’s not a. It’s not a secret sauce. It’s play hard. It’s share the ball. And if you do those two things, you’re going to have success.

And like you said, you recognize that when you see it. But it’s not something that happens by accident. It’s something that’s done intentionally over a long period of time.

Dyami Starks

00:48:20.130 – 00:51:31.350

Yeah. So, okay, so I would feel guilty if I didn’t give actionable tips, unlike, especially with trainers and coaches. Right, but trainers is trainers.

Tough, tough word. Like I, I usually like to use the word coach because we are all coaches and trainers should view themselves as coaches. Right.

But when you are training a kid, first of all, I would say just stop the one on ones. Like do one on one training before or after the actual workout.

Like spend 15 minutes before your group workout or practice because you want to refine some things, mechanics, connect with the player. One on ones are great for connecting. I love that. They are not good for development though.

If you’re trying to get a kid better at basketball, you got to bring more bodies on the floor. You got to compete. That’s the number one thing you just said, is you got to play hard.

Well, how hard do you know how to go if you’re in the gym by yourself all the time? Common sense. You said move the ball, you going to pass the ball to yourself. Like, there has to be more bodies in there pushing you and reacting.

And that ties into all six of those things we just said. So, like, one of the things I always tell our kids is you need to visualize defense. I can’t babysit you with everything.

Like, I want to teach you basketball. I don’t want to repeat stuff and tell you to do simple things. Like, we always warm up with a simple front cut drill. Right. Front cuts are like.

Front cuts are the most underrated skill in my opinion. Right. Like what do we always tell people on defense and shell jump to the ball.

So if you can front cut and get in front of a play, it’s an easy pass, easy vision. Most of us can make it. It’s the easiest way. When you’re coaching young kids too, it’s the easiest way to get them a bucket. Right.

Teach them pace, teach them V, cut, all that good stuff, whatever. But if you can get players to just when I pass and I can see that opening in a front cut, because that’s when defense is relaxed.

You can get so many easy opportunities and we’re scoring without dribbling, right. It’s more passing. It’s Gabriella Hawkes effect, right, that we talked about earlier. So we start every day with that. I don’t have defense, though.

So we have two lines. It could be four players, eight players, 10 players, doesn’t matter. But what I always tell them to do is visualize defense. You’d be surprised.

You get fourth graders out there that are just like, guys, the defense is in front of you. You can’t throw a chest pass. And I’m like, I love it because I don’t have to tell them. So what they.

What we always do is like, we always say, okay, hey, if I’m standing in front of you, can I throw this pass in the middle part of my body? Chest pass is the most overrated pass to be taught. Right. I get it. You want to teach a kid how to snap the ball. Thumbs down. Fine.

Go count how many chest passes you’ll find in a basketball game. You’re not going to find many. It’s always outer third.

So my first thing I would tell trainers is like, every pass they throw, get it out of the middle part of their body. When you rebound, get the ball out of the middle part of your body. I one of my other pet peeves. And I get it, this might be.

This is only my opinion, but one of my biggest pet peeves is keep the ball high. Yes. There’s times to keep the ball high. You want a better way to say it? Keep the ball away from defense.

If I’m a big player, naturally that’s going to be here. But what if I keep the ball high, which makes me like, try to run up and down the floor like this. You’re off balance.

Try to handle the ball and pivot. You’re a little bit slower. So eventually that ball’s got to come down.

So if I just have bigs hold it here and they’re a non threat or they’re trying to go back up and finish something bad is usually going to happen, right? So, like, get the ball away from defense again. That’s usually going to be on that outer third. Outer third.

Mike Klinzing

00:51:31.670 – 00:51:32.310

Sometimes.

Dyami Starks

00:51:32.310 – 00:52:48.340

Heck, if you’re like a really crafty player and you’re low to the ground, maybe I bring the ball all the way down between my legs and then pivot away from defense and bring it back up. Like, let players be creative, but give them the guardrail so they can be successful. Right?

So, like, when you’re training kids and we’re talking about passing, don’t ever let them throw a pass from the middle part of their bodies. Always have them visualize somebody in front of them. And then if you can have them throw with that, we can, like, it’s very simple.

Have them throw with that. We can. Even if they’re sometimes going across their body, it’s a weird angle. It just gets them comfortable and repping it out.

And last thing I’ll say is encourage mistakes. Like, kids and workouts are so focused on getting that drill done. This is that. Don’t chase makes thing.

No, we want to replicate the rep we want to see in the game, right? So, like, in a game, I want to deliver that ball on time, on target, but it’s going to be tipped. There’s going to be this, there’s going to be that.

So I just want you to think about that thing in the game so that when it does happen, you’re able to respond quicker after a mistake. Or when a game is like, oh, that’s why he’s telling me to pass outside the body. Right?

Like, kids can start to take that on their own and really coach themselves. Is that not the goal? Like, I don’t want you reliant on me.

I’m going to give you those guardrails, you’re going to rep it out, and we’re going to have intentional reps with multiple bodies on the floor. Floor.

Mike Klinzing

00:52:49.460 – 00:53:12.340

It’s the think, right? The ability to think. Which goes back to the number one thing on the list, Mental capacity. Let’s go to number two.

And when we talk about number two, we’re talking about intangibles. We’re talking about leadership is the one thing that you mentioned in that category, but there’s a whole bunch more.

So when college coaches talk about intangibles, what are the things that they’re sharing with you that they’re looking for in players?

Dyami Starks

00:53:12.660 – 00:56:22.150

Passion. Passion’s, like the most used word, right? So, I mean, I. I brought up haz now for the third time, like, passion gets you drafted.

I don’t, I don’t know any other way to say it. Passion gets you drafted. It gets you from a non first round pick to a lottery pick. Passion gets results, right?

So, like, there is a fine line between passion kind of spilling over. This is kind of that Russell Westbrook effect, right? Like, but coaches always say this, I’d rather temper you down than build you up.

So let it fly, let it fly. There’s no guard rails, especially young kids. You want to show your emotions, go right ahead. I think most kids know, like, yeah, don’t yell at a ref.

Like, most kids know that they follow adult behavior. So if you’re yelling at the ref, they’re following you. That’s not passion. So let’s make that very, very clear.

Most kids, like, if they block a shot and want to flex, let them. There’s nothing wrong with that. Now if they’re standing over a kid, okay, teach them, correct them, that’s fine.

But it’s much easier to bring them down than to ramp them up, right? So I would say start with passion. That second piece is leadership. You could, you could have a whole pot on leadership. I’ll keep it very, very simple.

I think of leadership as if I can have five leaders on the floor. We’re in good shape. Don’t think about, I have to lead you because that leads to, Come on, guys, that leads.

Kind of like a me versus them kind of thing. Or I’m in front of you leading. No, all five have to be leaders. And sometimes leaders take a step back and let others shine, right?

If you look at any CEO of any company, not the smartest guy in that room, a lot of times, right? They know when to kind of shift the reins, at least good leaders do, and let other people shine.

So again, if we’re talking about play hard and be unselfish, well, yeah, like, you got five leaders on the floor. Imagine all five of them in sync, letting others kind of take turns to do their thing. That’s UCLA special team, right?

So intangibles really boil down to those things that, like, it’s built in the name we can’t measure. So just let it go, right? Passion is different for every kid. Let them go and explore themselves, right? And encourage that a young age.

And then if you can, always tilt it back towards your teammates. That’s why we talked about five leaders. You’re going to be in good shape. Let the kids just express themselves. Don’t try to put them in a cubby.

Don’t try to tell them to think about themselves. Another way you could do that is we said one on one training. Stop one on one training kids. Because how in the world are they going to understand.

Yeah, let’s talk mental capacity for a second. Emotional. Your eq, your emotional maturity ties into that, which also goes back to your intangibles.

If I can’t read the room, my body language could set somebody else off without knowing. And now we have miscommunication. And now I want the ball. You want the ball. No, you’re wrong. No, I’m right.

And then the coach is trying to string it all together at the next level. Guys, they don’t have time for that. No, it’s all everybody training the same way.

Otherwise you’re not going to win because you’re going to run into a team that might not even be as talented as you are and they’re going to kick your butts. So get out of the gym, get out of your head. Get out of those solo thing like the one on one workout. Sorry.

Get out of those one on one workouts and be around people. Soak in what you’re seeing around you. Be aware of what’s around you and then tie it back to that passionate leadership piece.

Mike Klinzing

00:56:22.870 – 00:58:25.280

Well, I think a passion and one thing I think about is a love for the game, right? And a kid who’s going to be willing to get in the gym and work on their game, whatever.

That looks like different levels, it looks different for different players. But passion to me is, am I going to go to a college program and am I going to invest in myself to get better?

When I think passion, that’s one of the things that I would think about as a coach.

And then the other thing, when I think about leadership and what you were talking about, being part of a team and being around people is using your voice. And I think about this with the training piece of it, right.

I think one of the things that you have to do when you’re coaching a group of kids is you can’t allow that gym to be silent. Kids have a tendency, right? They’re occasionally the kid who’s naturally loud and talking all the time, but most kids are for whatever reason.

And so I think as a coach, whether you’re coaching an AAU team, a high school team, whether you’re training kids, you got to get them to use your voice. There’s simple things just I’m getting ready to catch the ball and I’m getting a. And I want to get a shot. I’m just calling for the ball.

How simple the difference between doing that silently and just coming off and giving a target and saying ball. Simple thing, but makes a big difference. Just trains kids to use their voices.

And I think at the college level when you go and watch a college practice versus you go and watch an AAU practice or you watch a high school practice, like talking is a complete non negotiable at the college level. There is no college practice anywhere in the country where those players haven’t been taught or the coach isn’t demanding they talk.

Obviously there’s levels of teams that are connected and how much a team talks. But you will not go to a college practice anywhere in the country where there is not people talking or the gym isn’t loud.

Conversely, you could definitely go to high school and AAU practices or training sessions where the gym is quiet except for the voice of the coach.

And to me I think that’s an intangible that if a coach could recruit a kid who they know is going to use their voice, I mean that, that, that is super valuable because then the coach, like you said, doesn’t have to. It’s one more thing the coach doesn’t have to coach.

Dyami Starks

00:58:25.600 – 01:02:24.890

Yeah, it’s okay, spot on. Like there’s a lot there. So like note for coaches first coach through actions as much as you possibly can. So if you want kids to talk more, be quiet.

Like I, it’s like that’s like the number one thing. Coaches talk way too much. Like be quiet, get your points out in 30 seconds or less, right? Get it out. And, and, and try to.

I always say if you know your stuff, it’s five words or less, right? Like shooting, throw, ball and rim softly, right? Like that. That’s what it is. It’s like you don’t, don’t, don’t come.

 elbow and beef and eyes like no dough, ball rim softly like it’s like try to get everything short, simple, to the point so you create room for your kids to talk. Because if you’re going to ask them to talk but you’re the one talking a lot, their brains literally toggle to listen mode.

Or their brains just turn off completely and they can’t toggle back to talking. Even the most talkative people can’t do that, right?

If you’re sitting at a lecture in the classroom, the chances of you walking out of that and being a chatterbox are very low, right? So like you’ve got to create an environment through your actions that encourages talking, right? So do your part as coach. All right.

The other piece, like, I, I, I dive into with kids, like, I think there’s a lot of merit here. There’s a lot of room for growth. Is like, executive presence training.

Like, so it’s, it’s a weird one, but, like, when you watch kids like my, my girl Gianna Nkins from ucla, just first round draft pick, she is as quiet as they come. Scandinavia, northern Minnesota, like, like, we’re this very conservative Minnesota. Nice culture. Like, she is real quiet.

She came out of her shell in a major way when she got to the college level, to your point. So one of the things that we did early was say what you do. Okay? So, like, if I’m cutting, you’ll cut. If I’m diving, you’ll dive.

If I’m lifting, yo lift. If I’m guarding, yo, I got whatever. Like, simple things, right? Or in shell, drill, ball, ball, ball, gap, gap, gap. Help, help, help.

Like, make your kids say something every time the ball moves. Like, say what you do is the easiest way. That’s what you do. That’s the first thing you teach freshmen in college is like, say what you do.

It also gets them out of their head. Every college freshman’s confused. Like, what are the plays? It’s like, no, just go play. Say what you do.

And then when you need help, you can ask a question, right? But then once Gianna got old enough and she got to the college level, it became like, presence, right?

So, like, executive presence is I’m in a room and there is a certain way my body looks as I’m speaking or as I’m listening, right? And so you have more confidence in the words that you’re saying. You’re more articulate.

You know when to raise your voice and when to slow down and when to use this tone versus that tone. Like, that’s a skill too.

So I will say this, that if you go and watch some of those, those draft interviews, like, Olivia Miles had a really funny gaffe in the room where she said I had the highest IQ in the room. I didn’t mean it in a harmful way. And everybody started laughing because it was, like, authentic, right?

Like, executive presence training is not about being demonstrative. It’s about finding your voice. And so I would say for young kids, starts with say what you do.

Don’t teach a sixth grader how to walk into a boardroom and run a meeting. You don’t need to do that.

But if you practice that through high school and then you get to college, where you’re old enough, mature enough, and be around a lot of interesting people. Then you can start to hone that and find your presence, find your voice and find your tone, and it becomes authentic.

All of a sudden, you have this magnetism to you. So Gianna went from this, like, really quiet. I called her Raggedy Muffin. She would always walk to the gym. Her hair wasn’t done.

She was a Hooper, right? She didn’t care about her hair, how it looks. She had mismatching socks. Like, I always joked with her about that. I’m like, you, you my kind of girl.

Because you don’t want to get all dolled up, watch her on draft night. It’s like a completely different kid. It’s almost like she owned the room with how she moved and walked and talked and this and that.

So it’s really fun seeing kids go through that process. But to your point, if I can find my voice, be that leader and hone my passion, you’re going to go a long way. You don’t even have to be that talented.

Coach would love you.

Mike Klinzing

01:02:26.410 – 01:02:52.220

Makes sense. And I think it’s a great point in terms of. Just simplify it. Say what you do. You want to teach your coach.

You want your team to talk more, Say what you do. Simple. Again, you said less than five words. There it is. We just did it. All right, numbers four and six on your list, iq.

Instincts, first in your mind, tell me the distinction between the two. What’s the difference between those two things?

Dyami Starks

01:02:52.220 – 01:05:29.030

Yeah, you’re asking the right question. Yeah. Yeah, you are. Okay. IQ can be a little bit more formal. Okay. So, like, it’s interesting.

I. I’ll use the example, maybe, of when you put the best players at a Team USA tryout or a McDonald’s All American game or what. Like, you have the best of the best players or showcase, let’s say. Right. Typically, it’s not about how smart you are, why you make those teams.

It’s about, do you have that raw ability? Do you have that, like, oh, man, she pops, right? Pop is a big word coaches use. Like, do you pop?

Because if you look at the draft again, like, there’s a lot of players that are still raw, right? Or haven’t learned how to play yet, but they have that pop because it’s easier to hone. So I look at IQ like a kid who. Or.

Or any player, any level that really understands the game at a deep, conceptual level. Right? And this is where Europe kind of laps us. So, like, you go to Europe, your classic examples Like Ricky Rubio in Spain being this young prodigy.

That’s iq. Luka Doncic, right? Being taught.

Like they have these academies and we always talk about how they teach and practice more than we do in America, right? Like, that’s iq. They’re learning advanced professional level concepts.

And I always say this too, the US we’re not blowing teams out anymore in the Olympics. We’re not. We’re in these death fights with all this talent because these other teams have ridiculously high iq. You know what Americans have, though?

Instincts. That shot Steph curry took, that’s 100% instinct, 0% IQ. Like the past KD was wide open. The shot anyway. I mean, it’s pure instinct, right?

LeBron, good combo of both, obviously. But when it comes down to it like that, that famous block, his best player of all time on Andre Iguodala, that’s not iq, that’s instinct.

I’d argue that was a bad IQ play. What if you foul right at that moment, though? Or Kyrie Irving, the shot after where you hit that sidestep on. On Steph. Those are instincts, right?

So you can just very simply think of IQ as this formalized conceptual understanding of the game, whereas instincts are, hey, I’m just going to go make a play. I’m going to trust myself to go out there and do it. And sometimes that means you have to train how to read a ball screen, for example.

I have to train you. I always say three things. You got to arrive early, use deception to get there, and clear the screen by the.

With your inside foot so it we don’t have to go over those things. Just saying that if I can teach a kid those things, that’s iq, that’s formalizing.

But if we hone too much on that, now I got them thinking too much and now they’re not playing and flowing, reacting. So it does take time to teach those things.

Like you got to really know your stuff and give kids just enough so they can take that and then apply their instincts to it.

Mike Klinzing

01:05:30.140 – 01:08:29.550

Really good point. And I think you clarified it very, very well. Right? You have to build the basketball IQ more formally.

And then within the confines of my basketball iq, I have the instinct of when it’s the right time to apply that knowledge. So it’s like the IQ is I have the knowledge.

The instinct is the application of that knowledge in the right setting at the right time in a more natural and intuitive way. So that makes complete sense to me. All right, go to number five, strength and conditioning. Tell me about that one.

When Coaches talk to you about players being in shape. I just put an article on my website that conditioning is the most underrated skill in basketball. And I always think back to myself as a player.

I’m a 6, 3 slow non jumping white guy who played Division 1 basketball because I could run further for longer than most of the people that I was playing against. And so in the 38th minute of me on the floor, I was still going to, I was still slow, but I was still going the same speed that I was in minute one.

Whereas the guy who might have been quicker than me in minute one wasn’t as quick as me anymore at minute 38 because I just was in great condition and that allowed me to have an advantage that I wouldn’t have otherwise had.

And so I just think strength and conditioning is something that we know a lot more about it today than we ever have in terms of how important it is and the amount of information that’s out there. And yet in a lot of ways, because kids today aren’t just as naturally active in their life.

There’s a lot more scrolling on the phones, there’s a lot more looking at screens that it almost has to be more intentional. I remember this is probably like, man, it’s probably like 15 years ago now. Diami I was doing some basketball training.

This is when I first started doing a little bit of training and I was working with a couple kids and I looked over at the next court and I saw a guy doing like speed training, like working on kids form sprinting with I don’t know, like 8 or 9 year olds. I remember going, what, what is like somebody’s actually you’re paying somebody to teach your kid how to run.

I’m like, just throw them out in their backyard and let them climb fences and jump off the garage roof and throw apples at each other and do all the things that I did when I was a kid. And I’ve come to realize over the last 15 years that the reason why that business has exploded is because kids don’t do that natural.

The way that I developed as whatever level of athlete that I developed as, I developed it by jumping over the fence to get into my neighbor’s backyard. I developed it by chasing kids and riding bikes and jump and just doing all these things that kids today don’t get the same opportunity to do.

And I just think that with all the information that we have about strength and conditioning, it’s still something that I still think it’s an area that we’re not as good at. As we should be.

Dyami Starks

01:08:29.889 – 01:09:07.910

Yeah, yeah, you spot on. You’re spot on. So many directions here. So one, the multi sport piece, which I think ties a little bit on what you’re saying here.

So I always find this funny. Two things we said, multi sport and kind of play, as you’re referencing play. Okay. I do think there’s value to both.

So running around the jungle gym and playing tag in the sandbox and jumping over fences like that is athleticism. You are training athleticism.

You’re training quick twitch, you’re training endurance because you Lord knows when you’re playing bag, there’s no such thing as being tired. There’s not. You’re playing ding dong ditch. There’s no such thing as going half speed. Like, you’re gone.

Mike Klinzing

01:09:07.910 – 01:09:10.430

You better run, you better run, you better run.

Dyami Starks

01:09:11.630 – 01:14:16.270

And. And then multi sport piece, right?

The whole aspect of training different muscles or training different motions or training different movements can lead their studies like it leads to injury prevention. And swimming, such an interesting thing too, like swimming almost applies. It’s like the anchor for every sport.

You want to be a good athlete, you want to. The other one too, I heard, by the way too, is like certain parts of the body are good predictors of the best athletes. Big necks, big backs.

Anybody who has a big neck is usually going to be a good athlete. It’s weird. Go, go. Look at that. It’s true. And then big backs.

I was talking to the strength and conditioning coach here locally that trains Chloe Johnson. And Chloe is kind of my case study for strength and conditioning, by the way. So Chloe, number two player rated in 2028 out of Duluth, Minnesota.

Right. So not a basketball area. Her number one reason for that is because she valued strength and conditioning at a young age.

So I’m going to come back to Chloe, but I’m talking to her strength and conditioning coach and he says, you want to, you want to know the best predictor bad athlete is. Best athlete is. Do they have large lat muscles, large backs, large traps?

Because those are the guys that can really be stable and those are the guys that have great like, you talk about your spine mobility and core strength. Like you want to get in the weeds and some of that stuff. Backs tie it all together. So I thought that was fascinating.

Anyway, point is, you look at swimmers, big backs, big necks like they have, and they’re mobile and you’re in the water so your joints are clean. Like there is a lot of value to playing multiple sports. Soccer, we all know Hakeem Elijah, one Steve Nash piece. Right? Guys have great footwork.

So I’ll say all of that to say that there is no one way to do this. There is not a best way to do this. There’s a ton of studies out there. You can get lost in the information.

What I would just say is, hey, do what works for you. Just do it, okay? And so, like, if you really want to just start somewhere and keep it simple, I always say this.

Go do something that’s really fun and forces you to go at high interval speeds. Right? So I mentioned tag, right? I find this so funny. Load management in the NBA, everybody says we play too many games, right?

Kids play way too many games. There’s truth to all of this, by the way. I’m not critiquing these things. Have we. Have you ever heard of kids playing outside too much?

Have you ever heard of way too much recess? Have you ever heard of. You know what, Johnny? Today, I know you want to play tag with your friends, but you need to rest your knees for tomorrow.

You ever heard that before? No. Because it’s play. And I said, kids don’t get hurt that way. You talk about the jungle gym.

You want to talk about, like the most crazy contraption that we would put on a playground. Nobody gets hurt on it, right? It’s because play.

All of a sudden you start introducing these crazy adults on the sideline of games and you start introducing all these trainers and all these college scholarships and life periods and all. Yeah, 40 games of AAU in those environments. Yeah. They’re going to wear a kid’s body down because it’s stress, right?

So I think there’s a lot to be said about that. Like I would say multi sports is not necessary. If a kid like Chloe loves basketball. She has severe ocd. Basketball is her thing. It quiets her brain.

Why would I make her play soccer? Because all the other kids do. I’m telling you.

She would lose her mind and probably just sit in the middle of the field because she hates doing what she’s doing and her brain would turn off. She wants play basketball, let her. And with that, she took strength and conditioning very early. She started lifting in sixth grade.

Now you’ll hear all these stories. Oh, it compresses their spine and they don’t grow and it stunts their jump shot. She’s 6ft tall and doing just fine. Like Chloe is doing just fine now.

If it doesn’t work for you, don’t do it. Maybe you are the kid that wants to play soccer or gymnastics is another great one. Right.

When I was in Australia my last year overseas, we had to do CrossFit. I was like the worst basketball exercise you could do. But I certainly learned how to do a handstand, and that was pretty fun.

I had the point doing it right. I have no idea if it translated, but it got my body moving in unique ways, and that builds confidence.

Last thing I’ll say on strength and conditioning is this, right? I don’t believe any kid is soft. I don’t. Don’t believe any player is soft. They just don’t trust their bodies in space.

So if you think about a kid like rebounding we were talking about earlier is like, okay, go grab the ball with two hands. Well, we just talked about it. If I have my hands above my head, I don’t feel really balanced. I don’t feel really comfortable in that space.

And I’m looking up. That’s where you might land on a foot, somebody might come down. I don’t know. It’s scary, right? So what do we do? We have to get our kids to fall.

It’s like riding a bike. Nobody says you’re going to keep the training wheels on until you’re 20. We got to take those things off. Take the training wheels off. Let your kids.

One of the best things you can do. So coaches, you can take this one with you. It’s simple. Let. Don’t ever call a jump ball in practice. Never let your kids fight for it.

And don’t let the whole. Like, we don’t want fake hustle where 50 kids are fighting for ball or all fight. No whoever to have the ball. Let them fight.

Let them fight for the ball and they’ll have so much fun doing it. By the way, I’ve never seen kids want to fight after that. Like they have so much fun doing the. Both teams, like get teaches them.

Like now you’re getting wrestling and  some.

Mike Klinzing

01:14:16.270 – 01:14:16.550

Some.

Dyami Starks

01:14:16.550 – 01:16:37.740

Some body leverage stuff. Some whatever you. All the functional muscles, like, let them fight rebounding war, right? We always say play it out of the met.

Don’t  he’s like, old boards, count out of the net. So if I score, go get your own rebound and keep playing, right? Because now kids are fighting for it after the net.

Now you’re teaching them never to stop playing. And there’s so many applications to that beyond just the strength and conditioning part, right? So there’s little unique things you can do.

You don’t have to be a bodybuilder or have a fancy gym pass or play Multiple sports or whatever. You don’t have to just find little things within the basketball court that forces them to use their bodies in those unique ways.

And they’re going to get hurt. They’re going to get boo boos. But I always joke with my kids. I have kids cry all the time because stuff gets hard. I say, are you dead?

Are you not here with us anymore? Have you moved on? And they laughed like no one here. I say, exactly. And if you do that enough. That’s my definition of confidence, by the way.

You want to talk about mental capacity and how that applies here. If I get hurt enough times, fall off my bike enough times, I mountain bike, Mike. Like, I. I love mountain biking.

It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. I question why I do it all every other week, but I have fallen on my bike so many times. And I just told the story to Chloe.

I said, probably every other day I fall on my bike. And you know what the first thing I do when I fall on the bike? She’s like, why? I laugh. I get up and I laugh. That’s embarrassing.

And all this stuff sometimes too. It’s funny, but I kind of laugh like the thrill of like, oh, my goodness, I want to try that again.

The first time I fell on the bike, I wasn’t laughing. So I said, you build that tolerance. And when I fall and I get back up now I’m confident because I don’t care if I fall.

Confidence doesn’t come from mastering whatever jump or technicals path I’m doing on mountain biking. Confidence doesn’t come from making 100 shots. Confidence doesn’t come from, I rebound every time and I’m the strongest player on the floor.

New confidence comes from failing, getting up, realizing you’re fine, and there’s no fear in doing it again. So I think strength and conditioning is so important. And the last thing, I lied, I probably have to throw this one out there too.

Go look at the SEC and go look at the bodies. And athletes like you want to compete against those like, naturally gifted. You got to do some extra time on your body.

At the end of the day, coaches want the biggest, fastest, strongest players. So make sure you’re doing whatever it takes to at least compete at that level.

Mike Klinzing

01:16:38.300 – 01:17:58.870

There’s no question you can go and look at the different levels of college basketball and look at the bodies. And there’s a reason why players get to the level that they get to. Some players have the capacity to be able to get to those levels.

Some players just don’t have the capacity to do that because of the physical gifts that you were either given or you weren’t given. And then some people obviously hone them to a degree which allows them to succeed beyond just what they were given.

And then other people get those gifts and don’t utilize them, unfortunately. And so. But I think the biggest point I take away from what you said is you have to do what you’re doing and get experience doing it.

And in getting experience doing something, you start out, you’re not very good at it, you fail, you fail, you fail, you fail. You figure out when you fail, it’s not fatal and you can keep going and you can get to what you need to do.

And I think that’s again, in anything in life, but particularly in basketball, whether it’s skill, whether it’s strength and conditioning, whether it’s talking, whether it’s intangibles, all those things is kids need experience, they need opportunities to try. When you give them opportunities to try, it’s not always going to go perfectly, but there’s a learning experience and everything.

And then ultimately you come out the other side in a better position. Before we wrap up, I want to ask you about nil. Give me the two minute spiel on nil.

Where we’re at with it, what advice you’d have for players that we talked about a little bit earlier, before we jumped on. Just give me the quick nil talk.

Dyami Starks

01:17:58.950 – 01:22:34.530

Yeah, there’s really three ways you can break it down. So when revenue share was passed this past year, schools had the budget to pay their athletes directly. That’s that $22.5 million pot we talk about.

So within that you have a percentage breakdown for every program. So like women’s basketball typically gets 3 to 5% of that. So if you look at that 22.5 million, that breaks down to roughly a million.

That’s some are more, some are less, obviously, but that’s school has full control of that money. From there, the other two get interesting. So you have nil name, image and likeness. There’s two ways you can break that down.

The school’s collective can help you set up nil deals.

So that’s when you have like boosters and companies and local businesses contributing to that collective, which are nonprofits, they get tax write offs and then they try to funnel that money to the athletes. The problem with the collectives and the ones tied to the schools, that’s where the ncaa, the NIL go.

The former clearinghouse, that’s where they can kind of rule on some of those. And then you’re going to see a lot of lawsuits. You’re going to see a lot of those deals struck down and players saying, no, that’s not fair.

I was promised this much money. But that’s where you kind of run into all the issues. Coaches over promising some stuff. And the NCAA says, nope, they’re not worth that much money.

You can’t just pay to play. Then there’s that last one of third parties. This is very interesting.

I had a person tell me the other day, a pretty reliable source that said 80% of payments you’re seeing for these players, whether it’s million dollar deals or half million dollar deals or whatever, those are not coming from Rev Share. Those are not coming from collectives, those are coming from third parties. So it could be your agent setting those up.

It could be these recruiting services that are funneling money. It could be a nonprofit, it could be an angel investor donating to your Uncle Mo’s car wash, right? That gets funneled back to you.

Like there’s all these kind of weird ways that are not illegal, but they kind of push up against the gray area. So it’s a mess. Nil is jumping. It’s like a compound effect of how fast it’s going and how much money it takes to buy players. Right?

The average men program has to probably pay and raise $10 million. That’s not coming from just Rev Share. It has to come from other areas. So now coaches are becoming the world’s best fundraisers, Right?

So that’s kind of it in a nutshell. All right, here’s my advice, players. It’s very, very, very simple. Fit has never been more important.

And Mike, I’ll actually say this, I’ll take it a step further. I think this is the single biggest recruiting advantage for high school players in the 20, in the 21st century. And here’s why.

Behind every big problem is a big opportunity, right? Okay, so we have a problem right now and there’s going to be more rule changes and more confusion. So stop thinking about that and just get better.

The biggest thing you can see in pro sports right now, the, the, the, the, the most valuable asset are these rookie contracts, right?

So when Patrick Mahomes first came to the Chiefs, when Victor Wyama is playing for the spurs right now, when Tim Duncan was playing for the spurs and he was drafted, you could afford to have David Robinson still play. You could afford to bring in Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill. You could afford to have all these Guys on the spurs when.

Watch what happens when Victor Wyama signs that supermax deal, which he will get paid. All of a sudden they got to say bye to a a Vassell, a castle, a fox. You get the point.

So this is a finite window where Victor Romanyama might have the most valuable contract in the entire NBA. Not just because he’s good, but because he’s cheap.

And so I say these rookie max deals you can get like he can’t get paid more than whatever it is now, 4 million, whatever it is. That’s how you should look at yourself as an incoming freshman.

You are incredibly valuable to a coach because first of all, high school recruiting will never go away. It never will. Might be bottom of the totem pole, but a coach cannot sustain a healthy program without some type of high school evaluation.

Even if they’re not like Patino says, I’m not recruiting high school kids. Fine. You still got to know who they are, right?

If you’re totally out of that space and you don’t have background info, you’re playing catch up every year in the portal. You’re rolling a dice. Some years will be good, some you won’t.

Like, you definitely need somebody on your staff that’s keeping an eye on the high school scene. So no matter where you are, whatever level, high school recruiting is important.

And if you can come in and pick the right fit and really be developed and all these things we talked about, right?

Passionate and leadership, and you’re focused on that, all of a sudden you’re coming into a winning program on a cheap contract and you’re contributing right away.

What do you think you’re going to be worth in year two as opposed to all of a sudden now you’re coming into year one and you got this big bag and you’re chasing these big deals and whatever else, what happens if you don’t play underperform or get hurt? What do you think your contract’s looking like in year two?

Not to mention, if you’re worth all this money, how many other great players are coming in? It’s simple. The math is very simple. Chase fit, get better.

Let everybody else chase that nonsense and you will make more money long term and you’ll be happier long term. Chase those rookie contracts, chase that right fit. The rest will take care of itself.

Mike Klinzing

01:22:35.890 – 01:23:36.830

Well said, Dyami. And I think that’s a great place for us to leave it. I want to say thanks to you for jumping on and joining us tonight. Really appreciate it.

And to everyone out there thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks. Your first impression is everything when applying for a new coaching job.

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Narrator

01:23:41.000 – 01:23:45.400

Thanks for listening to the Hoop Heads Podcast presented by Head Start Basketball.