FRANCESCO NANNI – PALLACANESTRO TRIESTE (ITALY) ASSISTANT COACH – EPISODE 829

Website – https://francesconannibasketball.com/

Email – fr.nanni@gmail.com

Twitter – @franz_nannibk

Francesco Nanni was just hired as an assistant coach for Pallacanestro Trieste in Italy.  He previously coached for Scafati Basket in the Italian A2 League.  Nanni has worked with some of the top prospects at the youth level in Italy, as well as being well-regarded for the quality of his content sharing on various social media platforms. Nanni uses an approach that combines the best of the European style with evidence-based learning concepts.

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You’ll want to take some notes as you listen to this episode with Francesco Nanni, assistant coach for Pallacanestro Trieste in Italy.

What We Discuss with Francesco Nanni

• Falling in love with the game in Italy watching the FIBA World Cup in 2006
• Getting into coaching at the age of 16
• Studying the game as a player when he realized coaching was his future
• “We have to connect with people first.”
• The focus on player development in Europe, especially at the younger ages
• The cooperation at all levels to share the game in Italy
• “I don’t consider myself a great creative coach, but I think I’m very good at like adapting stuff.”
• Teaching more implicitly without giving players all the answers
• “In the pros, you have to win games. You have to win games if you want to keep coaching.”
• Stress being effective on the first action
• Adding constraints to drills
• Giving players options to choose from instead of dictating just one solution
• Helping players feel comfortable speaking up and sharing their opinions
• “We have to walk the path with them.”
• “Every player wants something different. And it’s up to us to try to understand what they want.”
• The trade off between unpredictability and control
• “We need to develop players who are able to create advantages for themselves.”
• Why 1 on 1 is such an important part of skill development
• Using the concept of “striking distance” when attacking a defender

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THANKS, FRANCESCO NANNI

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TRANSCRIPT FOR FRANCESCO NANNI – PALLACANESTRO TRIESTE (ITALY) ASSISTANT COACH – EPISODE 829

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here without my co host Jason Sunkle this afternoon, but I am pleased to be joined by Italian professional basketball coach Francesco Nanni. Francesco, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod

[00:00:14] Francesco Nanni: Hi, thank you for having me, Mike. It’s a pleasure to be here.

[00:00:18] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely thrilled to have you on. Looking forward to diving into all the things that you’ve been able to do in your career. Let’s start by going back in time to when you were a kid. Tell me a little bit about some of your first experiences with the game of basketball, what you remember from when you were younger.

[00:00:33] Francesco Nanni: So I didn’t come from like a basketball family. Basketball is not huge in Italy and my family, like my parents have never seen a basketball game, but it was the summer of 2006 and there was the FIBA World Cup where Italy was playing the team USA and team USA had like a young Carmelo Anthony. Young LeBron and Italy was like kind of competitive.

They were up like 10 in the third quarter and I remember the people around me like saying it was a big deal and the U. S. was obviously the better team and stuff like that and we had a young Marco Bellinelli than then become. End up like an NBA player and he was like scoring and he had like this huge style.

He had like long hair. It was very skinny. It was like, not looking like me, but like I never played basketball before, like on a aesthetic side. I said, Oh, that’s a really cool guy. Like it sounds. Like a very, a sport that was very cool cool people play basketball. And then I went on, I was on, on the, on the seaside in Italy.

I went on like random playground. I started shooting and I was terrible. And I started playing basketball that winter. And you know, I played at a like decent youth level, but I was never good enough to, to even thinking about playing professionally or at any level. So I said, you know what, I think it’s better if I start coaching, maybe I can stick into basketball better this way.

And that I ended up coaching since I was like 16 years old.

[00:01:56] Mike Klinzing: So how do you get into coaching once you realize, Hey, my future to be a national team player in Italy is not there. I’m probably not going to ever be able to make any money as a professional player. I wanted to get into coaching. Who did you reach out to?

Who did you talk to? How did you just go about making that happen?

[00:02:11] Francesco Nanni: So that’s a fun story because I think it is an inspiration for other coaches. Like, actually I wanted to become a coach because my first coach was. amazing and an amazing mentor and like an educator before a coach. So he wanted to make every guy feel appreciated.

And since I was not very good in basketball itself, the first year that I playing, but you know, I was trying to understand, I was trying to study basketball, let’s say. So he was asking us players a lot of questions and I started to answer like, Hey, What was supposed to happen here? Okay, freeze. What is the space?

What is the problem right now? Like, I started answering a lot. And after a while, basically to make me shut up and say, okay, for just now, you don’t answer anymore because you’re already thinking as a coach. And that made me at the time, it made me feel so valid. And so recognized. And I said, okay, that’s what I want to do.

I’m going to become a basketball coach. And it all started from there.

[00:03:06] Mike Klinzing: It’s an interesting way of getting into it and obviously having somebody validate what you do and recognize the value that you’re bringing. Obviously, that inspired you at that particular point. And so as you’re continuing on and you’re getting more into coaching, what was the part of it that you liked the most?

Initially, I mean, beyond obviously you had a love for the game of basketball, but what aspect of coaching was it that really, when you think about it, really drove you to stay, say, Hey, I want this to be my profession.

[00:03:39] Francesco Nanni: You know, I think, and it’s funny because the answer and what I love in the beginning is far different than what I love about coaching right now.

Like in the beginning, I think I felt the twinning of like, Hey, the X’s and O’s, and I still love those, but like, Hey, I’m going to. I taught at the time that as a coach, you can trick your opponents into something. Like, you can win the chess match if it was a chess match of a basketball game. Like, I felt very smart at the time.

I was a very not like high confidence kid. I said, Oh, okay, I’m going to, I’m going to do this and that. And then it’s like, after just a few. Like the first year that I started coaching, I said, okay, this is not what we’re doing here. It’s like, it’s completely different. We have to connect with people first.

We have to get the buy in from the players. But like right now, I think my answer is completely different. Like the human level, like the connection that you get with the players, with other people in the staff is amazing. And obviously, then there’s like, the chess match combined, like, it’s the same as if we’re playing chess.

Now I have to convince my tower, my, my knight to do exactly what I want them to do. But I have to convince them, I’m not simply going to move them.

[00:04:53] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, that makes complete sense. I think it’s funny the number of coaches that we’ve talked to on the podcast that have sort of mentioned the same sort of pathway in terms of what’s important to them as a coach where it starts out and they’re into coaching because they love the game of basketball and they’re diving into the X’s and O’s and they want to be able to outthink the other coach and they want to be able to win that battle.

And sometimes they forget to look at their players as human beings and they do oftentimes to mentioned, Hey, I think of them almost as, I thought of them almost as chess pieces early on that they weren’t really even people. They were just kind of things I was moving around out there on the court to try to get me to my goal, which was to try to win games.

And then just like yourself over time, they start to realize that you’re not going to get everything out of your players. If you don’t build that relationship and take the time to be able to invest in them, how many years, how long did it take you to start to realize that that human part of it was really important?

[00:05:52] Francesco Nanni: So honestly, there is two separate answers to this because I started coaching young kids. And so with the young kids, like I was, I think, kind of good already, like, and okay, my goal is not to win immediately here. This is one of the things that I think is more positive in Europe compared to what I’ve heard from people in the U.S. Like our academy model. It’s very based on the idea that a, if I’m the under 12 coach or under 13 coach, my goal is not to get them to win the middle school title or something like that. But I want to make them the best player as possible for my under 17 coach, under 19 coach for the professional team.

So that was clear in my mind, but at the same time, I was also being an assistant with the older level with like under 19, and then we started doing some tactical stuff over there. And I feel like once I was, I started coaching at 16 and when I was 19, I was still spending a lot of time trying to come up with creative ATOs and stuff, but it’s still fun.

But I understand completely that it was more about the connection and the people and that part of the job.

[00:06:55] Mike Klinzing: Where did you go? Early on in your career to learn more about coaching, to learn more about the game. Were you talking to other coaches that you were in direct contact with that were part of the staffs that you were working on?

Were you watching video? Were you reaching out to other people? Where were you getting your to be able to improve at your craft?

[00:07:18] Francesco Nanni: That’s interesting. So I was lucky in a way I was in a very specific, a very particular situation because my town was a very, it’s a basketball town in Italy. It’s one of the few cities where basketball is more popular than football, for example, soccer, what you would call soccer.

And so I was, but there was at the same time, there was not like a big youth academy because. There used to be 20 years ago. Now it’s not there anymore. And so they give me the keys of like two very good, like very young, but very good team, like under 13, under 14, but they had the best players in the academy.

And so I was a head coach immediately and I had to come up with ideas and experimenting and like failing. But at the same time, I learned a lot by The Italian Federation organized this like regional selection of players. So once every two weeks you get together and there is a staff composed by like young coaches, like me at the time I was like 18, 19 when I started and like older coaches in the Federation, the assistant, for example, of the youth national team and stuff like that.

And those were like great occasion to share. And to meet coaches and to speak with people and to see the model of the Italian Federation, which as maybe I don’t agree with everything right now, but it’s very interesting for me that there is, there was at least a clear idea of this is the way we want to do things.

And this is what we’re trying to share by going around in different regions, in different parts of the region to try to organize practice to. Let’s show this to younger coaches and younger players.

[00:08:57] Mike Klinzing: As you’re getting into your career, what’s the feedback from your parents? Obviously they’re not basketball people.

It’s becomes, it’s probably becoming clear to them that, Hey, this is the direction that Francesco wants to go. What, what were the conversations like with your family?

[00:09:12] Francesco Nanni: So I have to say they were very, very supportive and that, that’s incredible has been incredibly helpful for me. The only moment where we had like a serious conversation, it was not like conflictual event or anything, but like after high school, I needed to decide what I wanted to do coaching.

And at any time, like I’ve coached for like three years at a time. Because you finished high school at like 19 and I was not making like a real money. I was there, but like some like pocket money that were helpful. And if I would have been like going away for the university, like in a different city, and then you have to find a place to live over there.

Maybe you don’t have a car because it’s a bigger city. It would have been tough to like, keep on coaching in a different place and still starting at a decent level. So I say, Hey, I want to stay here. I want to keep. in this town to keep coaching. I have my groups, I have my kids and they told me, okay, that makes sense.

But like, why you should still studying. And so like, I, I picked like very randomly one university course. I have a bachelor degree in economics right now. And I am not proud to say that I don’t remember anything that I’ve studied. Like I could not pass a single exam right now, maybe like management, but like maybe and so, yeah, I took that.

I think it was a good advice because. At the time, I didn’t know what, I didn’t know what coaching was really like, like the life of a professional coach was not something that I had clear in mind at the time. And same to this day, as long as I like, I joking that I don’t remember anything, but like that bachelor degrees allow me maybe one day if I’m, I will get tired of coaching to like enroll in a master’s degree or like find a job, like participate in some like you know.

Open how do you say it in English, like open a vision for people that are only open to people with a bachelor degree.

[00:10:59] Mike Klinzing: Understood. Yeah. It’s always good to have that degree in your back pocket. Right. Yeah, exactly. All right. So as it becomes clear that this is going to be your career and you’re with your academy, And you’re working with both young kids and you’re getting an opportunity to work with some of the older groups as well as an assistant coach.

How do you start to find and develop your own sort of philosophy? Because obviously, again, you’re learning as you go along and you’re starting to, as you said, you’re watching, you’re observing the coaches that you’re working with. And there’s things that I’m sure you’re seeing that you’re like, yeah, this is exactly what I would do.

And then at some point you start to look at it and say, maybe I might think about doing something a little bit different. So. How did you go about sort of establishing your own style, your own thought process as a coach?

[00:11:48] Francesco Nanni: Yeah, I think it’s interesting. I think a lot of the time, like, we grow by differentiating ourselves from somebody else.

Not, not by, we don’t, how can I phrase this in a good way? We don’t start our creative process from an idea, but at least for me, like sometimes I start my creative process in terms of like basketball. Okay, I don’t like this, because I kept playing at like lower level until I was 19 years old. So the first year that I was coaching, I was still playing.

And I remember, like, obviously those were like, not high level coaches, but not for their fault. They were like part time people, like former parents of some kids or something like that. So it’s not their fault. I’m not diminishing them, but like I say, Hey, this stuff is very boring. It’s repetitive, it’s not fun for a player, and it’s not challenging.

So I want to do something completely different. And so, okay, let’s say that we are working on a pick and roll situation and this way I don’t like it. So how can I find a way that I like it? And I’m not the most creative person around. I don’t consider myself a great creative coach, but I think I’m very good at like adapting stuff.

And that can make me sound like a terrible person because if you’re coaching together, for example, you would come up with like a very creative idea that I would never come up with. And I would come with you and say, Hey Mike, this is great. Now we can change it in these five different ways. And you’re like, Hey, like, why do you want to change this?

My idea is nice. Like I do it like with all the good intentions, because maybe I would not have been able to come up with those ideas. So like, I always started with something that I’ve seen around from a that I didn’t like, and that I wanted to change. And I, so, When, when later I discovered a tier of the constraint led approach, it’s something I was not, I cannot claim that I was doing exactly that, but the idea of like using different constraints and different rules or like putting different defenders in different position to change a specific situation was something that I was doing.

On my own, like on a lower level, maybe to try to change the drills that were presented to us when we were playing. I don’t know if it makes any sense.

[00:14:00] Mike Klinzing: No, it does make sense. I think what’s interesting is, and tell me if this fits sort of into what you’re saying, but I know for me, when I’m thinking about trying to put together a drill and I’m working with a specific player, or maybe I’m working with a team, what I find is that I’ll go into it kind of like what you’re describing, where maybe there’s.

An already established drill or maybe it’s something that I’ve already done and I’m able to kind of think it through on the court and see it and visualize it and change it and maybe get the players to do X, Y, or Z. And if I try to do that same thing, like if I sit down at my kitchen table and I try to sketch it out.

It doesn’t work quite as well for me. Like I find I’m better kind of on the fly on the court, which is kind of what it sounds like you’re talking about, where you can see something and be like, Ooh, I see what’s trying to happen here. And I think we can do the same thing, but tweak it to make it a little bit more fun or a little bit more where it’s going to translate better for players in terms of their learning.

Is that what you’re kind of describing?

[00:15:06] Francesco Nanni: Yeah. I think it’s something like that. And like, I used to do that also on paper, especially if especially at the beginning right now, like I still have my practice plan, but I’m not one of those coaches that has like every single drill in his library in my folder and I want to become more organized.

I want to become better at that. Actually. Like I’m speaking in these days with like an American coach that I’m going to probably work with next year. And he’s impressing me with is like organizational things like, yes. Everything summarized in spreadsheet and it’s super organized and like, I’m very hopeful that I’m able, I’m going to be able to like pick his brain and like pick his mind on that because that is not the way I work, honestly, and I need to improve on that.

But yeah, it’s exactly what you’re describing and one actually critique that I was having from my former assistant coaches that were friends of mine is that I was changing sometimes the constraint too fast. the rules too fast because I wanted to try different things and now I think I’ve become a little bit better at it, like to give the players the time to like marinate in their own problems.

[00:16:11] Mike Klinzing: Right, they have to be able to have time to think through, right? A lot of times I think one of the things that we as coaches have to really be conscious of and I know that I’m guilty of this and I’m sure lots of other coaches are as well is you kind of always want to jump in and solve that problem for them and say, Hey, what’d you see there?

And then give them like two seconds to answer. And then you’re answering it for, for them before they even have a chance to really process it. And I think that’s kind of what you’re describing there. And I it’s, that’s part of the art of coaching, right? Is knowing when to ask a question, when to put the players in a situation and then kind of let them work through it and figure it out and give them.

The guidance, but not necessarily give them the answer. And I think that’s where, again, when you start talking about small sided games and you start talking about teaching through the game and making the practices more game like, which I know is something that you believe in, that that’s where you get that learning to translate into actual gameplay, as opposed to when we’re just constantly giving players answers, then they never have to think for themselves.

[00:17:17] Francesco Nanni: And that is where, like, I was speaking with this, with our common friend, Chris Oliver, and my favorite, like, niche of this basketball world is actually to try to apply the small sided games, this idea of like teaching more implicitly without giving them all the answer, but to a professional team. Compared to a youth team.

And I think it’s very fascinating because with a professional team, obviously the pressure of winning is way more important. We know with young players, we can say that like development is the goal and winning is just a result of that. But with the pros, you have to win games. You have to win games if you want to keep coaching.

And I think it’s fascinating because there’s still that part where you don’t want to give them all the answer and you have to let them work the solutions out a little bit. But also, sometimes you have maybe only two days to prepare a game. So, okay, maybe this, like, zone offense that we want to implement, we’re going to implement it with less freedom than we would do if we had, like, all season to prepare for it, you know what I mean?

Like, or the same for defensive adjustment, like, okay. Now we’re going to tell you that this player only go right. And please act on that. Don’t overthink it.

[00:18:35] Mike Klinzing: No, that makes total sense. I mean, I think when you start talking about players being able to go through and learn from a coach, it’s the coach putting them in situations where they have to be able to, to figure things out.

And I think that, again, that’s a fine line. And it looks different, right? When you’re working that way with a youth team versus when you’re working that way with. a professional team. How do you, when you work at those different levels of kids, so when you’re working with your professional team that you’re coaching, and then when you’re doing a clinic with, with younger players, how does it work in terms of how you set up the drills and then how you approach getting them to understand the concepts that you’re trying to teach without explicitly telling them?

[00:19:18] Francesco Nanni: Oh, that’s a very interesting situation. The thing that I would say is that with the kids, sometimes we want them to explore also things that they’re not good at. And with the pros, that part is still over there. Like sometimes, especially if they’re like younger pros, let’s say like under 25, we want to push them like in areas where they’re not comfortable with, especially maybe during training camp, or if we have like a longer break during the season.

But most of the times with the pros, it’s about, okay, let’s say that we’re playing like a 2 on 2 situation. After, on a two side break. So we have an advantage, two side break, skip pass, if we’re able to punish it immediately, otherwise we flow into an action, a trigger. And with the young guys, it’s going to be okay.

Like, let’s flow into something, like you can flow into everything you want. And maybe we can have, okay, today we are working specifically on gets, it’s going to be one point more for gets action. Today is going to be… And with the pros, it’s going to be more, OK, this is the challenge you have. Maybe we put up the organization of the small sided games.

It’s going to be that every time we play with a different teammate and now it’s going to be, OK, who’s close to me? What am I playing with? What is the best action that I can pick to play with this person? So if me and you are playing, am I a big man? Are you a big man? Like I’m a good ballhandler and maybe a good shooter, but not a great ballhandler.

So it’s better for me to play like a get action or chase action instead of a ball screen like all those things. And we want them to go toward what they’re more comfortable with. I hope I answered your question. Correct.

[00:20:53] Mike Klinzing: No, that makes sense. I think. Part of that is, again, right, that puts the emphasis on the player understanding their own game, but also understanding how their teammate likes to play.

And then having to figure that out and attack in whatever way makes the most sense based on, again, who your teammates are and who your opponents are and how you’re playing within that particular drill. I know one of the things that you’ve talked a lot about and just in my… Researching and looking at some of the things that you’ve done that what you really like to do when you’re putting together drills is to create constraints within the drill.

And I think sometimes there’s some misconceptions about exactly what that means. So in your mind, when you’re designing a drill, and you’re trying to put constraints on a player or on the drill to be able to work on a specific. thing. Just maybe give me an example or two in your mind of what that means for coaches out there who are maybe thinking about adding this to their practice schemes.

[00:21:53] Francesco Nanni: Well, let’s say that we’re playing like 2 on 2, and our goal is 3 ball and off today. I’ll give you two constraints that are completely the opposite, and to make you think, how can we work for the offense? Like, one time we can say, okay guys, 2 on 2, the defense cannot go under the ball screen. So the defense can…go over, they can try to deny, they can try to, once they go over, maybe they can, they can trap, they can be more aggressive, they can drop, but they cannot go under. And with that, you’re going to see, you’re going to develop more specific abilities. Maybe sometimes you’re going to see a backdoor cut because the defense is trying to overplay, like to force To go over the screen and maybe they’re going to be, be able to make their backdoor pass or a curl around on the teammate, like some specific ability.

I don’t need to, to make the, the list of those. And something else that I like to do is, okay, we li we’re a little big into trying to prevent the difference for having an easy under. So what I mean is if I’m dribbling on a dribble end off situation, I don’t want to go toward my teammate, but my goal. My target is the defender and not only the defender, but I want to make the defender take a longer route to go in front of my teammate.

So I’m trying to go and to dribble and to get below his hip to screen him in the back pocket, in the jeans pocket. You know what I mean? I know exactly. Yep. Exactly. One drill that I love to do, that one constraint that I love to do is, okay, now if the defense goes under, you don’t have a re screen. You cannot play a re screen, a twist, I don’t know what’s your name for it.

So it seems counterintuitive because, hey, why are you taking away something for the offense? But it’s something that I do because I want them to stress to be effective on the first action. And they cannot rely on the re screen because a mistake that I see too many times, also with professional players, is that we play the end of very slowly, very lazy, and then the defense goes under and we have to play the re screen, which is good.

Okay, I love the re screen, but sometimes if we took that option away, we force the offense to… Develop other abilities. You know what I mean? And this is exactly the opposite almost of the constraint I said before.

[00:24:08] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. I think what you’re trying to do, right. Is get them to dial in and concentrate on that first action, right?

We want to execute that to the highest level that we possibly can. So that if we can score off that first attack or get a penetration or whatever it may be that we’re trying to, that we’re trying to get out of it to set up the second action or however it might end up being that we want them to be precise with that first action.

If they know that. They can get the second one, then it decreases the, I don’t know if the intensity is the right word, but it decreases the focus of attention on that first one.

[00:24:41] Francesco Nanni: We can say like the pressure on the first action, the pressure on the first action to be effective.

[00:24:46] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely.And then also what you’re also doing is when you take away one of those out, one of those options, now you’re forcing them to work on So you’re just saying, Hey, you can’t do this. So now we know we’re going to work on something else. And I think that that’s when you, when you go through and you do those things and you design that, and you obviously know what you’re trying to work on and whether that’s specifically to an opponent or whether that’s something that is based upon what you’re doing within your offense, you’re trying to give your players an opportunity to play in a live scenario, but.

You’re trying to take something away from them that forces them to, to do the things that you want to work on. Right? Because we’ve all been in drills and we’ve all been in situations where if you don’t take something away, then it just becomes a situation where. Okay. The player might be able to cheat the drill or play it this way, and then you’re not getting as much out of it.

Whereas you put the constraint in place right away and now everybody knows, Hey, this is what has to happen. And everybody kind of dials in a little bit tighter at the, I think that’s what you’re getting at.

[00:25:47] Francesco Nanni: Yeah. Especially in like. Obviously with you, I explained the constraints a lot also because we are we are only in a phone call, it’s hard to explain on the floor.

But with my players, I wouldn’t say all the things that I said to you is going to be only, hey, now, dribble and off. The defense cannot, or either the defense cannot go under, or now you cannot play every screen. And like, we use the point system every time. In everything we do, we try to use the point system.

And obviously, depending on the team, I would try to intervene and give them an answer, give them a solution, or like, try to guide them to a solution in, in different timing. Again, like, here we come back to the idea of a what is the time constraint of the practice? So let’s say that we are with a professional team, and we are Thursday, we are playing on Sunday, and we are working against a team that we know they’re going to be super aggressive.

And we’re not being able to find a good solution. So I would intervene very early and say, Hey, this is not good. We need to find this. These are possible options that we can try to use. I will I’m trying to avoid as much as possible giving, Hey, this is the solution that we’re going to use, but present A wide array of options.

You know, it’s never only one thing that we can do. While if, for example, we are with a young team and we are, we are playing this to develop our dribble and off abilities, but we don’t have a game coming or we don’t really care about the game that is coming, I would let them marinate in their own problems for a while, and maybe after a while, when there is a couple of kids that are doing it in a good way, I will intervene and say, okay.

Please do it again and like show it to the rest of the group and use them as like a demonstration of the good action that we want to see.

[00:27:34] Mike Klinzing: That makes sense. How important are, I’m talking now maybe with your professional team, how important are the conversations between you and your players? in terms of being able to, in terms of being able to make sure that those conversations that you’re having with people on your team, that their input in terms of maybe some things that they’re seeing that they’re able to share with you, how important is, are those conversations and how you design your practices, how you design your drills.

[00:28:04] Francesco Nanni: So that’s super interesting because in many teams in Europe, players don’t have a voice. They don’t have the freedom to express. A lot of ideas or a lot of concern about, for example, I said that I said, Hey, today we’re going to do ice coverage in this situation. And if they feel it’s not going to work, they’re not feeling empowered to share that.

So the first thing that usually takes a while in the beginning of the season is to make them understand that we want them, we want their input, that we want. Them to speak and to communicate, not just communicate calling the screens, but like communicate with us, telling us what they don’t feel comfortable with and what they believe is going to work.

And I’ve felt that players have this, like, lack of trust toward coaches and in, I won’t speak about every coaches, but it’s a situation that happens a few times that there is this like vicious circle that the coaches don’t trust the player and the players don’t trust the coaches. And it goes on and on because.

Now, since they are like starting from a place of like non trust, they’re going to act on that. You know what I mean? Like they’re not going to behave honestly with each other most of the times. And then you give the other part reason not to believe in you. You know what I mean?

[00:29:31] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, absolutely. That makes that makes complete sense.

[00:29:35] Francesco Nanni: A stupid example is that a few years ago with the former coaches of mine, former head coach of mine we were asking for the players to give us some options. Hey guys, we are seeing this in the video room. What do you think? How do you think we can guard this action? Like, what are your ideas? And they were very quiet.

And they are like, these are like high, high level player, smart player, great persons. And after a while me as assistant coach, like I went to them and talk with them and say, Hey, like, We don’t really want to be that involved because we are afraid that like, if we decide, okay, let’s say that we’re going to switch this and if that’s not going to work, the coach is going to blame us with the owner or the press or stuff like that.

So, and in the moment that answer made me angry a little bit no, how can you believe that we are amazing guys, amazing coaches who would never do that. After thinking about that, like. It makes perfect sense. Like, considering the environment that they’ve grown up with for like 10 years of professional careers, I can completely understand what they were, where they were coming from.

So we had to, during the year, to fight this. And I can say that by the end of the year, the players were trusting us more and we were taking more collaborative decisions, but like, I think, especially in our context in Europe, and then I can say like, maybe in other places, it’s going to be different. I cannot speak for like, any level in Europe, but like, the first thing is that if we want the players to talk, we need to make them feel that it’s safe for them to talk.

And we have to accept that they’re not going to be right all the time. Like the players are going to mistake, especially if they’re a player that have grown up without the possibility of talking and of thinking. So, They’re going to tell you honestly, I think this is not going to work because this and that, and maybe they’re wrong, because they don’t know, like, maybe they don’t know that.

So we have to walk the path with them.

[00:31:31] Mike Klinzing: How important then to go along with that? I think of what you just talked about. And I think of myself and again, I played a long time ago, I’m 53 years old. And so my college basketball career here in the United States was from 1988 to 1992. So completely different era in a lot of ways.

But I know at that time, like the idea of me having a conversation with my head coach about Hey, what are we doing strategically or what do we need to work on in this drill? Like those conversations just never took place. And so I’m guessing this kind of goes back to a little bit of what we talked about earlier in order for your players to be able to have trust that they can.

Come to you and say, Hey, this is what I’m seeing. Or, Hey, here’s my input on this particular drill. Or, Hey, here’s what I think we should be looking for in this situation. There has to be a level of trust between players and coaches. So when you think about building that trust on the professional level, what does that look like for you building the relationship with your players so that you can have those honest conversations that you just described?

[00:32:40] Francesco Nanni: That’s very important and I don’t think there is like a single answer. I think that like every player is different as also like every coach is different. And sometimes players love to have a long conversation that you go to them before the practice and you. Talk with them about basketball. Some players like to be involved and like to, Hey, this is like every concept that we’re going to do during the year.

And like, I want to share this with you because we can talk about it. Sometimes the players really don’t care about that. And maybe they simply like that you go to them and say, Hey, have you seen, I don’t know, that TV show yesterday? Or like, how is your daughter? How is your son? How is your wife? And, or like, Hey, have you seen the soccer match yesterday on TV?

Maybe like every player wants something different. And it’s up to us to try to understand what they want. I’ve coached players that were like great workers, but like, I don’t think I’ve had not, not a single, but like a lot of like basketball conversation off the floor with them. And the opposite, like, and I think as coaches, we need to understand what do the players need from us?

Some players. Want to be left more alone, not because they’re, they’re not friendly, but like they want their spaces. Maybe they have their family with them. They want to go home, stay with their families. They’re not going to be spending. A lot of time in the gym and stuff. I’m not giving you a great answer.

The answer is like, it depends. Like you have to find out . It’s the same like how can you make friends in in your life? Exactly. I don’t know, it’s different for every person, right?

[00:34:14] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think the key is right, what you’re saying is that you have to invest in the player. You have to know the player.

And then you have to try to give that player what they want, what they need in terms of building the kind of relationship that allows you to build the trust. And that looks different for every single player. And I think that’s a fair answer and that’s probably the right one.

[00:34:38] Francesco Nanni: Now that you’re mentioning this, like, I want to add something to finally make sense.

And. You know, every, almost everybody is a good person or wants to be a good person. The problem is that during a normal season, we are stressed. We are very stressed sometimes. And to keep doing the normal thing, the small things during a stressful time. So to keep asking, Hey, how is your wife? If maybe you, you know that that player is a very big fan of a specific soccer team, I don’t know.

This is the thing that happened in Italy. Like on a Monday after maybe a tough loss on Sunday of our team, like the serious team keep entering in the gym and say, Hey, I was I’ve sent it to your team one on Sunday. Are you happy about that? Yeah. Like. Doing the basic stuff under tough circumstances is the key and it’s not easy because sometimes we try, we tend to like close in each other, in ourselves when we’re not comfortable in the moment.

[00:35:37] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. I mean, it’s just a matter of, again, getting to the point where even when you’re under stress, when you’re facing adversity, that you can still have those types of conversations and still make sure that you can get everybody on the same page as you’re going through. And.

You’re in the midst of a season where you’re trying to win games and you’re trying to help players improve. And there’s, there’s a whole lot of things that are going on as you go through. And it’s just a matter of, can you, as the coach, maximize what you get out of your players and what you get out of your team?

And how do you go about doing that? And to me, that’s really, ultimately, that’s what coaching is about is, can I get the most out of my players? And can I get the most out of my team? And in the course of doing that, can I have an impact? on their life and, and build that kind of trust and have those kinds of relationships like you talked about.

And so as you’ve gone on in your career and you start out and you’re a guy that’s a young guy and you’re, you’re trying to figure it out. And as you go through and you’ve been in the business now for more than 10 years and, and thinking about just how you’ve grown, trust me. What do you think has been the area that you have What have you improved in the most since you first started?

[00:36:56] Francesco Nanni: Oh, that’s interesting. I think in the past five years, I completely shifted the way that I think about offense. And that helped me a lot. And like, I obviously have improved in my career, as you said, it’s been long. So I hope I improve in everything. Otherwise it’s a big problem for me.

Right. For sure. I feel that like, yeah, offense and skills development connected to the Apple, like. I felt that like, even without knowing the theory, I was doing some like modern stuff in skills development, like games based approach and then evolving to constraints led approach and stuff like that.

But I was starting from a decent basis, but like in terms of offense, I think until a few years ago I was very closed minded and then it really helped me a lot on like I think that now it makes more sense and it’s way more connected what I think about offense to what I think You know about life like as a, as a basketball, it’s like a complex system with multiple players acting together at the same time with more freedom.

And I always think about the trade off between unpredictability and control for the coaches. So like, obviously if you have, if you’re going to have like a very closed system, you’re going to be in control of almost everything and how much of that control you want to trade away. In order to become more unpredictable and that for me is like the crucial question that a coach should ask himself when he’s like trying to come up with an offense.

[00:38:22] Mike Klinzing: All right. So which way in an ideal world, because obviously some of what you do is dictated by who’s on your team, but in an ideal world, which way. Would you lean and could you put a percentage on could you put a percentage on it if you had to just estimate.

[00:38:37] Francesco Nanni: So percentage is tough, but what I would say is that I’m not against like starting with specific alignment.

Like you can call out your set for me. The key is not that. And I think there’s a big misconception when people speak about conceptual offense compared to traditional offense and conceptual has become a big term that doesn’t mean anything for me conceptual and I try not to use this word, but I try to speak about like structural freedom is that a this player.

It’s not only able to if you’re playing a picker role, I’m reading the defense and I can make different passes. And that is the same also in a side based offense, it was always that way. Now, in a, let’s say, open offense, what I want to do is, okay, let’s say that I come off a screen and I’m not able to shoot, I’m not able to drive immediately.

Now I can make different things. And this is the freedom we’re speaking about. And it seems harder than it really is, because what I really believe is that from one decision of a single player, then the others can act following that. You don’t need five players reading five things at the same time, and all reacting to like their own specific thing. But let’s say that I come off the screen and now I can either like play a dribble and off with the passer and that is going to be the signal for, I don’t know, the initial screener to come and set another picker rule. Or I can pass the ball to the initial screener, now it will flow into a split, split guard to guard screen.

So I try to put as many… Options for my players as possible to pick but then the rest of the team has to follow that. Do you know what I mean?

[00:40:26] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, no, I understand completely. And I think what you’re talking about is you’re getting your players to be able to Read the game. And that’s where, again, you’re talking about as a coach, you have to cede control of, okay, the player is going to make this read based off this previous action.

And then people are going to react to that. And that’s not something that from the sideline that you can dictate. So let’s take that another step further. So obviously, if you’re going to have your team playing that way in a game, then you have to practice in a certain way so that players can make the reads that.

Again, you as a coach want them to make, right? There’s a, there’s, there’s a process of learning and understanding. Okay. When this action happens now, here’s some options. Here’s what I’m looking for. Here’s what I’m looking to read when I see my teammates doing this in this situation, and that’s not something where it’s not.

A continuity patterned offense where like, okay, I set the back screen. And then as soon as I set the back screen, I go here and I do this and I make this cut. This is more, I have to look at what my teammates are doing. So when you think about that in terms of, and again, I’m not asking you to give me like a specific drill, but when you think about overall practice design, what are things that are important to you in designing a practice when you start talking about that level of.

Seeding control in a game to your players. What does that mean for practice design?

[00:41:51] Francesco Nanni: Oh, that’s, that’s very interesting. And I’ll answer like this. I believe that the players should be able to experiment with different options immediately. Not, so I’ll, let’s say that we’re after this first screen, we can have these three options.

I would not work like, okay, now we’re going to practice for five minutes option A, then for five minutes option B, then for five minutes option C, and then we’re going to play all the options together. It’s going to be in the beginning with more freedom, even if we’re going to lose some attention to the details.

And then only if we feel we need it in a specific direction, we’re going to say, okay, stop. Let’s focus for a few minutes playing three against three on only that option B, for example. And I think that way we can save some times because sometimes as coaches, we want to go to hit all the notes. But if we start and we let them play with the freedom that we want to give them, maybe we’re going to realize that we don’t have to hit all the notes every day.

Maybe we have to hit just B and C today. And maybe next week, because we haven’t worked on that week before, it’s going to be A, we have to re go again at A for a second for a few minutes to get some more reps in that. And a little bit more, again, also the practice needs to be more flexible to understand what the player is needing in that specific moment.

But I would start putting different options. Because the pro of this offense is that you’re unpredictable. If you try to play this offense only constrained to one specific solution, then you’re going to see multiple problems that are not going to be the one that you face in the game. Because in the game, if, I don’t know, you’re going for a back screen, and the team is doing something, I don’t know, to take that away, We would try to play something else and to punish them by playing something else, not by working into what they want us to do.

[00:43:48] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, that makes sense. And I think when you start talking about being able to put players in the situation where they can make those decisions based on the constraints that you put in front of them so that you can help them to recognize and see situations so that when they get them, To those points in a game where they have to make those decisions, they’re going to be able to make good decisions.

And that’s ultimately what it comes down to is figuring that piece of it, figuring that piece of it out. When you think overall about just where European basketball is, and we look about the growth and you know, you mentioned back in 2006, here you are a young kid and you know, you’re watching international basketball and you’re, you’re seeing the Italian team play against the U S and we all know the way the grant, the game has exploded.

All over the world in the last 15 or 20 years, when you think about what you see in the European game, and you look at some of the people who are, who are being very innovative in terms of concepts and things that they’re bringing to the table, who are some of the people, teams. Coaches that coaches, when you have some spare time and you can check out some video or, or maybe go and actually see some of those people in person, who are some of the people or teams that, that you like to look at?

[00:45:00] Francesco Nanni: So I have, my pet peeve in the past five years has been the connection between the American game and the European game. So I’ve watched I love to watch Sergio Scariolo’s team, and Scariolo has been, if you don’t know, like, he’s been the, the listener does know, he’s been the head coach of the Spanish national team for many years.

He has won everything that could be won, and he has won, he has been an assistant with the Raptors for, I think, three years, and he has won an NBA title. And now he’s been back in Europe, and he coaches the EuroLeague team. And you can see that the stuff that he does has been influenced by the NBA game, but it’s way more European than American stuff.

And for me, it’s very interesting to watch or other example are this year in Europe, we had two American coaches, at least two that I was following closely. One was Matt Brace in Varese in Italy and Will Weaver, former a Sixers and Houston assistant in in France with Paris. And I love to watch their stuff and they’re not it’s not because they are better than other European coaches, but.

If you look at one of their games, you will come away with like, maybe 10 different ideas, 10 completely different ideas, and you will say, okay, you know what, like, three of these, three of these ideas are, I don’t like them. I’m never going to do them. Three of these are really, really interesting. Maybe five of them are I did my math wrong, are going to be like, kind of interesting, and maybe I can think about them.

Well… Sometimes when you see maybe like great coaches, but a little bit more traditional, you will come out of those games thinking, okay, I’ve seen good stuff that they executed at a very high level. But especially if I don’t have the chance to go literally in the gym with them and to hear how they teach it, how they, what the details are they’re putting their eyes on.

The games itself looks a little bit more traditional and something that maybe you have seen already.

[00:47:04] Mike Klinzing: All right. Let’s say you do find something that you like and whether it’s just something that you see on video or if it’s a it’s something that somebody shared with you in terms of X’s and O’s that you can put together.

But if you find, if you find something. In the coaching realm that you like, do you have a system for keeping track of all that stuff? You have a Google Doc, you have a, a Google Drive. How do you keep track of all the things that are an important part of who you are as a coach?

[00:47:34] Francesco Nanni: That’s a great, great question.  I’m not great at it, but I’m improving. I have an RD and our drive where I have everything. And the way I do it, I have like over probably like 500 clips on my, on my. My computer with like very, very long name and I tried to put everything on it because for a long time I was trying to organize them in folders and I lost track of it.

I always lost track or I stop and I start another project, but now like I save every clip under like, okay, a different, I have a system of like tags, but instead of using the tags, I put everything in the name, which is not ideal. I know, but it’s like set. Or ATO or like based out of bounds or sideline versus zone versus man.

But instead of having like a Google Doc, that might be a good idea. I simply have like a very, very long string. Okay, this could be set versus man. Stagger, picker, roll, and like, I named every concept so that like, now today I was speaking with my future head coach and I told him, you know I want, he told me to look for like post up situations, especially like interesting, like post up move after the ball has been passed in.

And the first thing I did, it was like, okay, type simply, okay. Post up reactions. And I have like 25 clips of like different moves. Some of them like were saved two times because I’m terrible at it.

[00:49:02] Mike Klinzing: It’s funny. I love asking that question because I feel like one of the things that we all do as coaches is we’ll see something and be like, Oh, that’s really great.

Or man, I really like that. And we’ll write it down or we’ll save it or we’ll, we’ll copy a file. And And then the challenge is always how do you then go back and kind of go through all the things that you’ve seen and actually pick out what you’re going to use, what may be valuable, and then how do you actually incorporate that with your team?

And I think it’s something that It’s probably underrated in terms of the learning process for a coach because I know it’s just like when you read a book that you can go back and read a book. And if I read the book once, I might get a couple of good ideas. But sometimes those ideas just fly out the window two weeks after I wrote the, after I read the book.

But if I go back and I reread it a second time or I go through and I take notes and I really am conscious about what I’m doing, I feel like I do a better job of being able to actually incorporate. Whatever I learned in the book, whether it’s into my coaching or just into my life in general, I think that it’s, it’s definitely something that coaches, obviously you go back 25 years ago and everybody had the three ring binder.

It was like, I’m carrying around 10 three ring binders with all these different diagrams and everything else. And now with being able to digitize it all, it’s always interesting to hear how different coaches are, are putting things together. So let’s talk a little bit about the video series that you did for Chris Oliver with Basketball Immersion and developing one on one skills.

First of all, why don’t you start by just telling us how And why one on one skills, why you feel like that’s such an important skill in the game, which obviously it is, but just give me your philosophy behind why you think it’s so important.

[00:50:46] Francesco Nanni: It, for me, is the foundation of everything we do at the youth level.

I feel that too many times and I was super capable of that. Coaches at a youth level, I mean, let’s focus on like under 14, 15, we focus so much on our team playing good team basketball, because we have these ideas sometimes of like passing being a symptom of, and in part it is, like, I can understand why, of like passing being a symptom of like players loving each other and passing the ball and sharing the ball is great.

And like, we put almost like a moral value on playing together. And again, I’m not against that, but I think that if we want to develop players, we need to develop players who are able to create advantage for themselves, and especially if we’re speaking about a team context, doing that As less time as possible.

So not by using like, in my video 101, you will not see like any complicated dribble move, dribble combo move, but it’s going to be more focused on like reading the defender or like quick decision on the catch or after a single dribble or after like a single dribble move to get the defense moving. And for me, that is the focus.

If you have players that are able to take an advantage, then you can use like cuts and passes and everything else to like keep the advantage going. But if you don’t have players that are able to have the skills to create an advantage for their own, even if one day you’re going to start implementing actions and dribble and off and pick a role and whatnot, you’re going to be in trouble playing.

[00:52:24] Mike Klinzing: All right, let me start by saying I love the idea of Attacking in a simple way and attacking without having to do what you typically see if you go on social media and you watch some training where it’s just, okay, this kid’s taking seven dribbles this way. They’re going between their legs four times.

And then finally, they’re spinning around and then they’re going to get a layup. Okay. Well, that’s great. But when I watch basketball, I don’t really see players who ever do that. And there are very few players who get the opportunity to have the ball in their hands and just kind of play with the ball and do whatever they want.

I mean, I don’t care what level you’re talking about. There are just very few players who get to do that. And I think that’s one of the things that I’ve learned from doing the podcast and talking to some really smart people. And it started with Mike Procopio, who used to work for the Dallas Mavericks.

And Mike does a great job. And one of the things that he talked about is that, The higher the level you go up in the game of basketball, the more specific your training, your skill development has to be because most of these guys, when they get to the NBA, or I’m sure they get to the highest levels in Europe, they have to be able to fill their role and they have to be able to do the things that they’re good at.

At a really, really high level. It’s not like every guy just is like, okay, Hey, here’s the ball. Go out and do whatever you want. There are only, there are only, only so many LeBrons out there that get to kind of dictate the entire game. Most teams are lucky to have one guy like that. And a lot of teams don’t have anybody that you just want to give the ball to.

And so instead what you’re talking about, which is what I love is, can you be a guy that can catch the ball and. Can you attack and create an advantage? Can you use maybe an advantage that your teammate got for you? Right. Where it’s a long close out or right. It’s a long close out of the guys coming out of the gap or whatever the case may be, you’ve already been given an advantage.

Now, can you take further advantage of that? So talk about how you have sort of incorporated that thought process into some of the one on one things that you like to teach.

[00:54:37] Francesco Nanni: Yeah. So I go back to one thing that you said, because for me, it’s crucial is that. If we want, especially at the lower level, because as you said, with older players, with more advanced players, we become more specific.

And the good thing that we need to do at the lower level is to try to find a common theme and to make situations where even if we practice with like fewer dribble or like in dynamic catch and go situations, we want to teach our players. Concepts and ideas that are useful also when they’re going to need to dribble to be able to play on one on one of the dribble because even like at a younger level, somebody’s going to bring the ball up and like play a one on one of the dribbles, maybe to start a possession.

And the key that we try to do is I always speak about, for example, this is one of the concepts I love, like striking distance. You know, if we are two boxers, And I cannot punch you if you’re too far away from me. And with younger players, sometimes you see that they are too scared of losing the ball.

And so they will do like a crossover and try to accelerate, but there is like three feet between me and you. And now I cannot throw a punch at three feet distance. Even if I have made the best crossover in the world, I cannot punch you. And so we do specific drills. Now we stopped to share on a call, but like…

Something where we put the player closer together. For example, one constraint that I love is that the defender has to be with his heels on the three point line, so he cannot back down. And from there the offense can start throwing the first punch. So the first move, and this is simple way to make them understand the distance of attacking and the distance has to be recreated.

in different ways. So, for example, if I’m catching the ball and you’re standing far away from me, obviously, if I see a gap, I can either attack immediately, but if you’re right in front of me on a big distance, I can try to manipulate this distance, maybe by using a fake, or maybe by using like a float dribble coming toward you to reduce the space and get into striking distance.

Or if I’m dribbling, And like you’re pressing me very hard for the same concept that I cannot throw a punch if I’m too far away. Sometimes it’s tough to throw a punch like a good punch. This is a good analogy. If I’m too close to you because I don’t have time to like create the energy for my punch.

So I want to use a protection plan, a dribble move like a hip swivel. Like a crab dribble to create space and then attack it from there. So this idea of like striking distance is something we try to do and to explain to our players, and it can be used in, in any moment, in any different situation.

[00:57:09] Mike Klinzing: So as you mentioned, if you have a player who maybe doesn’t handle the ball quite as confidently as another player, how do you get that player? What can you do with a player who’s in that situation to help them? To be able to close that distance and to be able to handle the ball in those tighter quarters, like you’re talking about, so that you can actually have an impact with that quote unquote punch or crossover.

[00:57:35] Francesco Nanni: Yeah, obviously at any level, like we’re going to try to have one moment where for specific situations and like small games, we have to improve their handle, their handles. But in the one on one situation, the thing that I love to do is to try to give them clear ideas. And for me, the ball placement, for example, is crucial.

If I’m a very good ball, I can try to show the ball a little bit more. ’cause I know that if you want to come to gamble and take it away from me, I’m able to hide it away and attack again. Like I can take more risk. Now, the striking distance can be way, way closer if I’m a good ballhandler because I’m not afraid of coming very close to you.

If I’m a a little bit worse ballhandler, what I would do is okay. Try to throw a punch maybe at a bit longer distance because you want to protect yourself. And what we always speak is about the first move and counter move if you’re cut off. And sometimes we have like one on one situation where the constraint is not a specific number of dribble or a specific number of seconds, but it is a, you have two crossover to use.

So you can try to, or one crossover to use sometimes. So, okay, you’re going to try to throw the first punch. If the difference is with you, you have basically two options. You can like. Slow down, maybe, and attack again. Or slow down and make a counter move to the opposite direction. And if the difference is on you on the opposite direction, you’re done.

Like you, you don’t go and make more dribbles off of that. And I prefer this way than like limit to like three crossover or sorry, three dribbles or five seconds, which is something I do sometimes because I think that. Sometimes, if you only limit the number of crossovers, you can see players come up with like fun ideas of okay, one strong dribble, one slow dribble to make the defender slow down and then attack again.

Like it helps them, their creativity a little bit, obviously you don’t want to see the classical like one on one going to the right where they take a very long ride to the basket, like using all the three point line to get to the rim with the right hand, but yeah, we can, create constraint to take away that.

[00:59:40] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, absolutely. How do you teach players within the context of the larger game? Because I think one of the things that when you start talking about one on one, part of what you have to be able to do is you have to be able to read on the catch what it is That you have and where the defender is and whether you have an advantage or whether you don’t have an advantage.

And so how do you sort of teach that concept? How do you help players to understand that as they’re catching the ball, they’ve already kind of got to be reading the defense and understanding, okay, what am I wanting to do? Not that you can always anticipate a hundred percent what you’re going to do when, before you catch the ball, but just getting players to think and try to read the court before they’re actually catching the ball.

[01:00:26] Francesco Nanni: So we do, we do we have different ideas to do it. Sometimes we simply have the defense I don’t know, like while the pass is in the air, the defense is doing something, it can be like touching a specific place on the floor, like giving an advantage. Those are the drills where we manipulate the advantage.

So it’s not, the advantage is not coming from a real in game decision, but the defense has to create an advantage for the offense. And sometimes it’s simply okay that the defense now was here helping. So, for example, it was touching the elbow. We are creating a long closeout situation. And the ball is coming to you.

So now you are simply reading your defender and we try to stress the idea of, okay, quick decision and go. And the third thing that we add sometimes is either an assistant coach or a player waiting to be to playing in the next group is maybe like under the rim. And while the ball is flying, you can ask for the ball ask for the pass.

So you have to keep seeing under the rim and what’s happening under the rim, because in the game, no matter. How free you are if there is a teammate open under the rim, you want to throw the ball, which is a very simple idea that like kids of any age can understand. And like try to change it up and like use different stimulus, different ideas, but they had to read something other than the ball when they’re catching the ball.

I love the term of like, Catching no look passes, sorry, catching no look, which is basically you catch the ball without looking at it. And I don’t think it’s like true. You almost never catch the ball without looking at it, but it expressed the idea to the players that almost you have to be suffer of like, I don’t know the name in English, but like when your eyes, one of your eyes is looking in one direction and the other eye is looking at something different.

You know what I mean?

[01:02:05] Mike Klinzing: Peripheral vision…

[01:02:06] Francesco Nanni: Yeah. No, but not like when those, those people that have like one eye going one direction, one direction. Yep. Okay. Okay. And like that, that is what we are aiming for almost in a way.

[01:02:19] Mike Klinzing: And I think once you can get a player to do that, then you’re talking about trying to help players to understand, right.

That you want to be able to attack in. Straight lines using the least amount of dribbles and movement that you possibly can. I think that’s one of the things that, especially when you watch youth basketball and you’ll see players that people say, wow, that kid can really handle the ball. And you’re watching them dribble all over the place and really never go anywhere.

And I know one of the things that I’ve always tried to emphasize with players, no matter what level that I’m coaching at is like, look, What makes you a good ball handler and what makes you somebody that can attack and be a good offensive player is not how many moves you can make. Like, honestly, the best players.

are the ones that can attack and score or create an advantage for a teammate by making, I oftentimes use the term, no moves, where it’s not, you don’t even need to change direction. Like I’ve, I’ve blown by you so fast with my first, with my first initial step that I don’t even need to cross over or go between my legs or do anything.

And at the most, I want to use that one move. And I think you just have to keep telling players that because I think so often what they see on TV, on social media is the opposite of that. The guy going between their legs 47 times and then making a move. And too often, I think they ignore The 98% of players who are trying to play in those straight lines with no or one move, if that makes any sense.

[01:03:51] Francesco Nanni: No, it makes absolute sense, and that, I think it’s always hard to teach to young players to do that. Because, again, like the, those players are more flashy, the player with the ball in their hand all the time. And to be completely honest, the thing that I, that I can relate to the younger players, that sometimes those players like attacking, off the catch, quick, immediately. are like wings and with very specific body type, like the more athletic, they’re, they’re a little bit bigger. So when a kid is like, okay, I’m going to be six, six foot six one I want to become a point guard. And again, the problem is not that you can be a point guard, but like still point guard, yes, you’re going to be able to do all those fancy dribble.

But like, if you look at Steve Nash, For example, like, or Chris Paul, they don’t do fancy for the sake of fancy. Like, they do effective dribbles. And, like, my favorite, like, ball ending really sounds so stupid. It’s absolutely basic. It’s I play, like, in the paint. Like, in one on one, you start on the baseline.

You have the free throw line, like, only the paint to go up, and you have to cross the free throw line, which is a very reduced space, and you have to cross. And after you do that, maybe you have to cross with only two crossovers. You have to cross only in three seconds. And you can add a second defender in it.

Like, you can do stuff with a defense. Like, I try to do almost all of my ball handling with a defender, or at least. something to react to. So like, okay, my teammate is moving and I have like to mirror him to stay with him back and forth instead of like dribbling one on zero. And if you do that, you’re going to become like, you’re going to see even like, like eight year old player.

Let’s say that I have to mirror you, you stay in front of me and like, you have to try to lose my shadow. So you have to lose me in a way. The way that the players will move, they will do stuff with their shoulders, with their face, with their eyes speaking with their head, that you will never think they would be able to do at their age.

And you will never be able to teach them if you teach them, let’s say, traditionally, hey, okay, now you come here, you look with your eyes in that direction and with your shoulder in the opposite direction, and then you go there. That will never work. But if you let them play with those and they have the specific goal of like losing their teammates, they’re going to be able to do it.

[01:06:12] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, that’s super interesting. And I think it’s 100% true. And I think sometimes I know that in the past, if I go back to myself. As a coach, I think about some of the things I have a daughter who’s 19. She doesn’t play basketball anymore. And then my son is 17. a senior. And I think about coaching their teams when they were 6, 7, 8, 9 years old.

And I think about some of the things that I did. Versus some of the ways that I would approach coaching their teams now when I was coaching, again, whatever, six, seven, eight, nine year olds. And I would do it much more along the lines of drills like you just described versus before I was thinking I was doing much more block practice of, okay, we’re going to repeatedly do this.

Boom. We’re going to be at half court. We’re going to dribble towards the top of the key. We’re going to cross over and then we’re going to go shoot a layup and we’re going to do that 10 times. And. Not that there’s not any value in that, but when you start thinking about, okay, what translates to a game better, the drill that you just described or the one that I just described.

And I think clearly when you think about how we learn that the one that you described is obviously a much better drill for trying to get ball handling in a game to be able to translate from practice. And so it’s just interesting how As we think about the game and as it continues to develop and as we have more and more smart coaches that are learning from one another, and I go back to what you said right at the very beginning, where you talked about, Hey, I might not be the most creative guy and be able to come up with drill X out of the blue from nowhere, but if I see drill X, I can look at that and figure out, hey, here’s some little tweaks that we can make to this drill to make it even better to the point where We can get more out of it.

We can get more learning. We can get more translatable skills coming out of this drill that can actually be effective in games. I think really that’s what’s so interesting about the game is when you start thinking about how we all learn from one another and then each one of us takes a little piece and builds onto it.

And we’re always, I think the profession of coaching is always growing and the game is always evolving. You can go back and watch games from when I was in college, when I was in high school, that game is almost unrecognizable compared to the way that the game is played today, just because of the emphasis on the three.

And I’ve often said that during my four years of college basketball, I might’ve been involved in five ball screens. Both offensively and defensively in four years. I mean, literally it just was not really a part of the game back then. And so you think about how important and how much time college teams and pro teams across the world are spending working on the pick and roll, both offensively and then how to defend it defensively.

And it’s just crazy how the game has evolved and changed. And I think that when I think about the things that you and I have talked about today, that’s what I see is, is the, the evolution of coaching and how. A coach’s ability to tweak and, and adjust and make things better makes ultimately the learning process for their players better.

[01:09:24] Francesco Nanni: Yeah, it’s a perfect way of saying, I would not have been able to phrase that better like the game has evolved so much, as you said, like, and we need to evolve as coaches, not simply by doing the same structure of drills, but adapting to the game of the 21st century, but we need to completely change the way that we think about.

The drills that we do and I’m like an example because sometimes when we speak about constraints that approach There is a belief in the say, but we used to play without dribbles like 30 years ago 40 years ago And that that’s true. The thing that changes that 30 years ago. I don’t know you used to play without dribbles We used to play without dribbles.

That was only a tool for the coach To keep reminding you with these words and with this, like, directive, prescriptive feedback. Hey, this is what we do, this is what we do, this is what we do. While now, you want to play with some constraints and, for example, I think that playing without dribble is over constraining, it’s not a great constraint, but this is an example that people come up with sometimes to let the players explore their own solution, at least to a degree, instead of doing something.

Just to find the solution that we want them to find.

[01:10:44] Mike Klinzing: They got to find something that works for them ultimately, right? Because they’re going to be out on the floor and we, as coaches, again, our job is to sort of guide them to help them to understand and see what may be the best solution, but ultimately players have to figure out what those solutions are for themselves out on the floor, both individually and then.

As a team. All right. I want to ask you one final two part question here, Francesco. Part one is when you think ahead to the next year or two, what is the biggest challenge that you have in front of you? And then part two of the question is what brings you the most joy about what you get to do each day?

So, your biggest challenge and then your biggest joy.

[01:11:23] Francesco Nanni: Well that’s interesting. The biggest challenge in the next… couple of years for me would be to keep trying to share these ideas, both in terms of like methodologies and X’s and O’s with the people around me and with the teams that we’ll be working with in a way that’s going to be productive for them.

So not coming with my own ideas and only those, but like being able to meet them where they are and also like learn from them because like, I’m going to be. Working with very experienced, like, very, very talented coaches and players, and I’m very intrigued to, like, learn from them, but also, like, I think I’m going to be able to provide value for them.

And my biggest joy You know, that I think is still in player development when I’m able to work with a player and they, after that told me, not just after a single practice, but like after a while that we’ve been working together and maybe after some games, they come to me and say, like, I feel that the game is starting to slow down a little bit because I understand.

I know where to put my eyes, for example, or I know what to look for. I know what’s happening before it happens a little bit. Obviously not in a magician way. That is still like the thing that brings me, brings me more joy.

[01:12:47] Mike Klinzing: Makes sense. And very well said before we wrap up, I want to give you a chance to share how people can connect with you, social media, email, whatever you feel comfortable with.

And then also let people know where they can find your videos with Chris Oliver, where they can go to get those as well.

[01:13:02] Francesco Nanni: Okay. I think the best place for me to find me is on Twitter @franz_nannibk. And obviously that’s going to be like in the notes of your pod.

And my mail is fr.nanni@gmail.com. And absolutely. My videos are at francesconanniBasketball.com You can find the videos over there. It’s a great product put together by Chris, by his video team. Everything is great. Like I’m not speaking for the practice itself, but like it’s a product very easy to consume and to watch.

And I hope everybody, everybody’s going to find it successful and accessible and easy.

[01:13:52] Mike Klinzing: Francesco, can’t thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule today to jump on. I’m glad we were able to navigate the time difference between the two of us and make this happen. So thank you.

[01:14:03] Francesco Nanni:.Thank you, Mike. It’s been a pleasure.

[01:14:06] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. Have a good day. Yep. Thank you. And to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.