SHANE LAFLIN – PREMIER BASKETBALL, DIRECTOR OF EVALUATING SERVICES – EPISODE 1069

Website – https://premierbasketballtournaments.com/

Email – shane@premierbasketballreport.com

Twitter/X – @ShaneLaflin

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Shane Laflin is the Director of Evaluating Services for Premier Basketball based in Mansfield, Texas. His duties for Premier include marketing and event operations, managing and directing Premier Basketball Camps, oversight of Premier Basketball Player Services, and he is Director of the Premier Basketball Report.

Shane is also a part of the McDonald’s All-American Committee, the Naismith Trophy Board of Selectors, and the ESPN HoopGurlz Recruiting and Top 100.

Prior to joining Premier Shane was an assistant women’s basketball coach at Rice University under Greg Williams from 2012-2015.  He also served as an Assistant Coach at the University of Texas at Arlington for four seasons under Samantha Morrow from 2007 – 2011. Shane began his coaching career as a Graduate Assistant at the University of Texas under Jody Conradt.

The discussion with Shane Laflin, Director of Evaluating Services at Premier Basketball, offers a profound insight into the evolving landscape of basketball coaching and recruiting. Laughlin’s role encompasses not just the orchestration of events and camps but also the intricate dynamics of player evaluation and development. The episode delves into his formative experiences in basketball, tracing back to his childhood in Arizona, where the seeds of his passion were sown. He articulates how his journey through various coaching positions, from high school to college, has equipped him with a wealth of knowledge that he now applies to scouting and developing young talent. The conversation further explores the philosophy that underpins his work at Premier, emphasizing the importance of fostering a culture of teamwork and mutual respect within the sport. He articulates the delicate balance of evaluating both the tangible skills of players and the intangible qualities that contribute to their success within a team environment, highlighting the critical role of character in the recruitment process.

Shane Laflin’s professional journey is characterized by a deep commitment to the growth of basketball as a sport, not just at the elite level, but also at the grassroots. His experiences at institutions such as Texas and Rice University have shaped his understanding of the intricate relationship between player development and program success. Throughout the episode, Laflin reflects on the importance of mentorship and the impact of influential figures in his life, such as his early coaches, who instilled in him the values of leadership and perseverance. His narrative underscores the significance of adaptability in a rapidly changing basketball landscape, particularly in light of the increasing commercialization and evolving dynamics of college athletics. As Laflin discusses the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for Premier Basketball, he expresses a steadfast belief in the organization’s mission to cultivate a new generation of players and coaches who are equipped to succeed both on and off the court.

The episode also touches upon the technological advancements in basketball analytics and player evaluation, with Laflin highlighting the role of data-driven insights in shaping recruitment strategies. He articulates a vision for the future of basketball that integrates traditional coaching wisdom with innovative technological solutions, thereby enhancing the decision-making processes of coaches and scouts alike. This melding of the old and the new is pivotal in ensuring that Premier Basketball remains at the forefront of player evaluation and development. Laflin’s passion for the game is palpable as he discusses his aspirations for the future, including the implementation of new programs and initiatives aimed at further elevating the standards of coaching and player development. His commitment to fostering a supportive and inclusive environment for all players is evident, as he strives to make a lasting impact on the sport he loves. As the conversation concludes, listeners are left with a sense of optimism about the future of basketball, driven by individuals like Shane Laflin who are dedicated to the sport’s growth and evolution.

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Grab your notebook and pen as you listen to this episode with Shane Laflin, Director of Evaluating Services for Premier Basketball.

What We Discuss with Shane Laflin

• What makes Premier Basketball a comprehensive recruiting service for women’s basketball
• The success of our Premier Basketball Report’s recruiting service hinges on their unwavering commitment to fostering winning cultures among their players
• Understanding the nuances of basketball coaching and player evaluation
• How to adapt and thrive in an evolving college sports landscape
• Technology is revolutionizing player evaluation processes
• Building relationships with college coaching staffs is paramount for evaluating players and understanding their unique needs
• How Premier’s collective experience enables them to provide invaluable insights to coaches seeking to enhance their programs
• Why the intangibles of a player, such as leadership and teamwork, are crucial for achieving success on the court
• A players’ actions either contribute to or detract from winning
• How Premier enhances the experiences of both players and college coaches
• Mentors have significantly shaped his approach to leadership and player development
• The evaluation of players extends beyond mere statistics; it encompasses their character, competitiveness, and ability to contribute positively to a team’s culture
• A commitment to collaboration and team unity is fundamental to achieving success in basketball
• Understanding player intangibles is crucial for effective scouting and evaluation in basketball
• Opportunities in basketball often arise from established relationships

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THANKS, SHANE LAFLIN

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TRANSCRIPT FOR SHANE LAFLIN – PREMIER BASKETBALL, DIRECTOR OF EVALUATING SERVICES – EPISODE 1069

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello and welcome to the Who Pets Podcast. It’s Mike Klimslinger here without my co host Jason Sunkel tonight, but I am pleased to be joined by Shane Laughlin from Premier Basketball. Shane, welcome to the Who Pets Pod.

[00:00:16] Shane Laflin: Mike, I appreciate you for having me. Glad to be here.

[00:00:19] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. Excited to have you on.  Looking forward to diving into all the interesting things that you’ve been able to do in your career. A lot of diverse experiences. I want to start tonight by just giving you a chance to share a little bit about What you guys do at premiere and what your role is there. Just so we kind of have an overview before we get started so people kind of have a perspective on where you’re at and what you’re doing.

[00:00:37] Shane Laflin: Sure. Yeah, it’s, like you mentioned, it’s diverse. It’s, a very versatile. It’s a really unique role. I mean, premier basketball. It is afew things. We’ve got an event side and then we’ve got the premier basketball report that I run with my right hand guy, Jason Key, and it’s the most comprehensive recruiting service in for college women’s basketball.

And. In 2020, right before everything got crazy in the spring of 2020, Premier Basketball, our, our owner, which I’m sure we’ll get into the history and stuff, but our owner, Joey Simmons, and, and all of us we decided to sell to a group called Three Step Sports out of Boston, and they run sports, verticals, and, and many different, many different sports, anything you can think of in youth sports.

So we are aligned with a bigger event organization now. So select events, hoop group, a lot of other things. It allows us to be more focused on our recruiting service and the prospects and serving our college coach clients than what we were before, which was event oriented and organizing those things.

We have people who take care of all of that now. And so we can you know, leverage our experience and our understanding of the environment to help them. And then they help us because we don’t have to worry about logistics and, and schedules and things of that nature. So. With the recruiting service, I coached at the college level for 10 years.

And then I, I joined premier in 2016 with Jason Williams and, and a guy named Mark Williams. And then Joey Simmons was our founder and Joey allowed us to just kind of take it and run, expand get more active on social, all of these kinds of things build relationships. And so we’ve grown that and that led to being on the McDonald’s committee, the Naismith committee.

Some other hall of fame type of things that we have you know, and, and basically become like a hub of development advisement, consultation. We’re just trying to grow the game. Yeah, like I said, just trying to touch, touch on the major points there, but that’s essentially what we do at, at premier basketball.

And then now not to leave out where the, the group that provides the recruiting analysis for ESPN and then that has the, you know, its own weight and tentacles as well.

[00:02:52] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. All right. We’re going to get into the details of all that as we go through the episode, but let’s start by going back in time to when you were a kid, tell me about how you first got involved with the game of basketball and, and just give us a little bit of a history of your, your background in the game.

[00:03:06] Shane Laflin: Yeah. I mean, I distinctly remember like the first time I ever touched a basketball. I’m from Tempe, Arizona. I moved to Texas when I was seven, but I do remember. Being at my grandparents house and finding an old basketball in the garage. And I had, you know, messed around in the yard and done stuff and throwing a baseball, football, like I was an active kid.

We played outside all the time, whatever. But I’m five years old, find this like flat old leather ball. We pumped it up, walked it down to the park. The park is called Estrada Park. And I know where I, I literally know where I shot my first bucket. And when I go back to Phoenix, whether it’s for Nike TOC or to see family or for meetings or to go to college games or whatever, I leave the airport and I go to Estrada Park and I take a picture like it’s a, it’s therapeutic.

It’s a thing I do. I’ll never forget it. And I remember like my first lesson was like, you know, you’re a little kid, you’re, you don’t have touch, you know, you’re slapping at the ball to dribble it. And they’re like, no, push it. And I’m like, Oh, got it. Okay. I get that. And I just, it’s an, it’s indelible. So like, that’s how it started.

And then, you know, moved to Texas when I was seven, started playing, you know, basketball in first grade with teams. And I remember my first coach and my first teammates, it’s just all stuck. Like it meant something to me early and played through high school. Tried the JUCO route and knew I had a talent ceiling and after that I got into coaching and, and going to school and, you know, as you’re handling your, your expenses and your stuff, like, you know, going to a small school to play basketball costs a lot of money after that.

So, like, I, I chose to go to UTA and finish up and I got to start coaching right away, which was great. But that was kind of fast forward. But like, it’s been a part of my life, coached my younger brother’s teams, started working basketball camps as a high school kid when I could. It’s how I got connected with Joey Simmons at Premier when it was literally AAU basketball, not club basketball, but the organization AAU.

Our high school hosted some of those regionals and then we hosted like AAU nationals one year. So we worked the clock, worked the shot clock, Shell Gunter used to let us double dip, make 10 here on this, 10 here on that, and that’s how I met some of my first college connects and it led to a GA position later.

So like, that’s just, it’s, it’s, I’m a lifer, man. I call it basketball soul and you sense it, you have it and that’s, it’s stuck.

[00:05:22] Mike Klinzing: Cause you always know, sounds like you were out of the path that I feel like there’s coaches that are on two different paths when it comes to coaching. One is what you described where it sounds like you knew you wanted to get into coaching from the time.

That you were very, very young, even while you were playing, you were already sounds like thinking about coaching. Then you have other guys who they’re playing, they’re playing. They’re just strictly focused on their playing career and then they’re playing career ends. They look around. They’re like like, how am I going to stay involved in basketball?

Let me go into coaching. But it sounds like you knew at an early age that coaching was a direction that you wanted to go.

[00:05:54] Shane Laflin: It, it, it felt good. It was fun. And then, yeah, like being somebody who started to study it at a different level than maybe my peers were earlier, I was very, Aware that I had a talent ceiling.

So like the realization, you know, in a, in a fine way, I was able to play as long as I could. But I was just like, no, this is, this is where I’m going. If I’m going to do this. And then I had a fantastic mentor who his first day of teaching school, he moved from Minnesota, took a job and. In the our area in the Dallas Fort Worth area, he was my seventh grade first day of school and never, we all remember the first day he came in and just kind of what he did and the seeds he planted in me and how he got where he got.

I started thinking about the path and how to handle my business because, you know, you’re going to be responsible for your own education and things. The seeds he planted in me allowed me to visualize my path earlier than probably what I’ve been able to do without him.

[00:06:56] Mike Klinzing: What’s something when you think about his influence and you think about yourself as a coach, even today, what’s something that you carry with you from that experience with him that you feel like is still a part of your coaching even now?

[00:07:08] Shane Laflin: Oh, I mean, he is an amazing leader. His name is Jason Mutter. He, he was our junior high coach. And then as we segued into high school, he took an assistant job. On the girl’s side. And then they won four state championships in a row. And there was a hot, it was a high level coach that they had, but he, he was like the offensive coordinator.

They won at the highest classification in Texas. They won four in a row during our high school years and he watching his leadership grow, his, his intentionality with leadership, not just basketball coaching, but leadership and connecting with people and, and, and just again, really just how he treated us.

Made you want to be better and be better at what you did and then set goals and go get them and his patience He treated everybody like they were the most important person in the room and he brought the most out of everybody He coached for a very long time the school split He went to what ended up Mansfield Summit High School, and then now he’s the principal there and that’s how he’ll finish his career.

And I tease him. I’m like, are you done yet? Like, are you ready to do something like come back to this side? You know, but, you know, he’s having a good time, but now he’s the, the principal and that’s a huge role in a, in a community and like just, just the way I watched him lead, you know, lead his family, grow his family.

And then I’m telling you, like the fraternity of guys, like if I could pick up the phone and be like, Hey, you guys want to be at, at Mutt’s house next Friday, a hundred people would show up. That’s awesome.

[00:08:41] Mike Klinzing: That’s good stuff. I mean, when you talk about somebody like that who has an influence, not just on you, but on multiple people and something that when you’re still carrying things with you, that you remember that influenced you from back when you’re in seventh grade and there’s nothing more powerful.

And also speaks to, I always think about that when I hear a story like that, Shane, I think about then the inverse of that, where. You were a player that played for him and then was it were influenced by him as a coach. But then I also think about the flip side of now, Hey, I’m a coach. I’ve got to remember that there are kids out there that I’m having that same, at least opportunity to impact right now.

Hopefully I’m having that impact. There’s no guarantee that I am, but that’s something that I always try to keep in mind. Whatever I’m coaching is that my impact when I do, that’s an opportunity for me to impact a kid who look, they may remember something that I said. And be a 50 year old man or a 50 year old woman and still remember something that coach Mike said back when they played for me when they were in sixth grade or seventh grade.

And that’s something I always try to be mindful of. And I’m sure that’s something that you are mindful of as well.

[00:09:49] Shane Laflin: Absolutely. Those foundational things, you appreciate it in the moment and it’s like it gets seasoned. Like you appreciate it deeper, the more experience you have. And then like everything else, hindsight’s a great teacher.

And looking back. And how they did it and all those things, you can only aspire, like you said, to try to leave some of those marks. And it gives you the patience and the heart and the humility to get that done. And it makes you better. And you’re absolutely right.

[00:10:18] Mike Klinzing: Texas Arlington, were you thinking when you graduated that you were going to go the college route?

Was there a thought of following? Your mentor into high school coaching and teaching, or just what was the thought process or was it more, Hey, I got done. Let me just see what kind of opportunities are out there in front of me. What was the plan?

[00:10:37] Shane Laflin: So when I was headed into college, my, my, the summer before it was time to go to the first semester, I was working in one of the AAU tournaments that I referenced, we, we hosted actual AAU nationals, so everybody was there.

All the best players, all the top coaches, et cetera. And I met Karen Aston, who was the. Assistant coach, associate head coach, and lead recruiter at the University of Texas. And we just struck up a conversation. They were recruiting, you know, there was familiarities because they were recruiting people from our high school.

Aaron Grant, who’s now an assistant at West Virginia, was the point guard of those four years state championship that I referenced. McDonald’s All American, high level, all that. So, you know, we had been down to games and this and that, and then, so there was familiarity. I say all that because Like talking to her.

She was also similar in that vein. It was like, well, you know, you sound like you, you love the game. We always want good energy down. You should come, you should come work our camps in the summer. And so after my freshman year, I went and worked a couple of weeks of basketball camp for Jody Conrad and, and Karen and another assistant, Kathy Harston.

And it really planted a seed because then we’d stick around at night and play pickup with the players. And you start seeing how it goes, you know, they’re, they’re your peers, they’re same age, whatever. And so you, you feel it and you’re like, wow, this is excellent. And like, yeah, you’re getting out of, you know, South Arlington, Mansfield, Texas, and going down to Austin.

Right. So like, like it glimpsed into like the real world and it kind of plants a seed. So, you know, you’re thinking about, man, maybe you could do it at this level, but you got to get really good. Like you got to start studying. I, you know, try to finish out, like I said, capped out playing a couple years and then I had a chance to coach at Grace Prep Academy as I, I went to UT Arlington as an undergrad.

And so I started coaching at Grace Prep Academy. I met a coach named Chris Hall. He gave me the opportunity to coach the middle school program. So I really got to start doing that. Coached through my two years at UT Arlington as an undergrad and and, and worked the camps in the summer. And my last.

year, coach Conrad came up and just said, Hey, when do you graduate? And I said, Oh, I’m going to actually finish early in December. She said, okay, well, let me know when you graduate. No explanation, no, whatever. Just a directive. Got it. No problem. Don’t ask questions. Right. She’s a legend. So I finished up in December, started grad school that spring semester and education, and it was like, okay, I’m, I’m going to start studying for the LSAT.

I’m going to have, I’m going to have my bachelor’s in history and political science, and then start this education master’s. But I’m gonna start studying for the LSAT. I’m gonna give myself a chance. It’s going to be law school, finish my master’s and go the high school coaching route with coach Mudd, who didn’t have an opening at the time.

And of course, in my mind, I’m like, well, I’m not coaching for anybody else. So I’m going to go to grad school, like literally. And then when I let coach Conrad know that summer, like, okay, you said to let you know, when I graduated, well, I graduated and she looks at me and she said, well, if you can get in, you can come be a GA for us.

And I’m like losing my mind. Right. And then I go look and I’m like, well, the application date was like February, but I had really good grades. I had a really good GRE score and she swears she didn’t make any calls, but I got in for the fall semester and got in, let her know, packed up, found a place sight unseen and moved five days later.

Like, it was a wrap. And so I had a few paths set up for me. But in the back of my mind, I knew like, if I got an opportunity to do something like that. I was going to do it. But in my wildest dreams, I didn’t know she was going to say that to me.

[00:14:25] Mike Klinzing: Side women’s side didn’t matter. It was just a matter of which one presented an opportunity.

[00:14:30] Shane Laflin: Yeah. And I, and I had become invested with them. And, and like I said, I mean, through, through just the eyes of our community had a really strong women’s program. Growing up, we played all together. Like I just wanted to coach and then being around them and the level they did things and they invested in me before I even got there at Texas, like the relationship that they build.

I mean, we still talk to them. Like, I still, I just saw Coach Conrad the other day. I live in Austin. I’m back in Austin now. Just coincidentally I saw Kathy Harston just the other day. She’s a, she’s a admin at Texas. She does the radio for their game. So just those, those relationships were long lasting and yeah, it did not, I had, I didn’t even think about that.

I, I you know, I had thought about the boys. I had gotten with Coach Mutter’s program. I had seen some recruiting and some, the way things went on, I was like, man, it’s, it’s a little rough on that side. And then going to Texas, I got to spend as much time with Rick Barnes staff as I did with ours. He was amazing.

And yeah, it was to me, it was a totally different ball game. Like that’s, it’s brutal. And but yeah, my, my opportunity I didn’t even blink. Didn’t even blink.

[00:15:34] Mike Klinzing: Well, when you step in there and obviously, as you said, you had some experience with them from the summer camps going behind the curtain, for lack of a better way of saying it at a program.

As great as Texas’s program has been and for a coach is great and historically great as coach Conrad obviously has been, what’s it like stepping behind that curtain for the first time and really seeing all of the things that go into making that program what it was? And I know that’s a very broad and general question, but I’m sure that you had some specific things that when you step back into the coach’s office for the first time, you were like, Wow.

Wow. Wow. I didn’t know that that was going on. What were some of those first impressions that you remember?

[00:16:18] Shane Laflin: Yeah, it was it was intimidating because like I’m sitting there thinking about how much I’m, you know, my, I’m drink, I’m thinking about what’s in between the lines, right. And then like, yeah, recruiting and learning a little bit about recruiting, but, but you really don’t know, you don’t know until you’re in it.

And before we did before I moved. So like I got it, I found out I could go, I packed up my stuff. They actually had a staff retreat. Planned that she allowed me to go to, and so I drove down to that, drove home, then moved my stuff. So I actually got to go, and so they did at this Marriott in Marble Falls, which is like in the hill country out here west of us, northwest of us.

And I just sat and took a lot of notes and, and, and understood that nothing left this room. And I mean, it was the trainers, the athletic trainers. The, the new strength and conditioning coach we had, Chris Braden, who ended up being a good friend of mine, like, we had a good time together. Like, everybody that was there, learning all the rules, everything they were talking about, the details they went in about the players, their academics, their, their obviously their development on the floor, their player development, their people development, their education.

They had the, the, the academic liaison come in. I mean, you know, it was like sitting in the war room, and I’m just like, I wonder what my responsibilities are going to be. Cause like they got a lot of really good people doing a lot of really important things and then realizing like, you are going to kind of touch a little bit of all of it and be everybody’s assistant, which is like great and difficult.

So yeah, it was intimidating and it’s like you, I walked out of there being like, well, I think I just grew up because like, if you’re not ready for that room, you don’t belong. Like you want to belong in that room. You aspire to belong in that room, but you’re smart enough to know you do not belong there yet.

And so like on the drive home, I was just like how to talk with myself. Like it gets real buddy, it gets real, real fast.

[00:18:22] Mike Klinzing: What’s your favorite part of, The X’s and O’s piece of it that you learned during your time at Texas. Cause obviously I think one of the things that anybody who is getting into coaching for the first time, even if you think, you know, basketball, even if you’re looking at the game from a player perspective, there’s just so much to learn on the X’s and O’s side.

What was your favorite part to dive into during your time at Texas?

[00:18:48] Shane Laflin: I mean, I love the scouts and I love the detail. And my favorite part was, was. Just learning the details, Karen Ashton, in terms of a defensive mind and a defensive game planner, and that was Jody’s focus as well, rebounding and defense and transition attack, like just solidifying the beliefs and some of the things that they taught and how they went about it, the game plans, and then Yeah, learning the offensive schemes of the other, the other teams, because like one of the things that started to be my deal was like, they would finish up the scout, I would kind of review, compile, copy, get it to everybody, make sure everybody was pre prepped for the scout meeting, right?

Like, throw them some nuggets so before they walk in the meeting and have to take in all the information. You know, being ready to coach up a scout guy or two, you know what I mean? So my favorite, yeah, that was my favorite part was just diving in to the detail of game planning and scouting. Cause it tapped right into my like, like insatiable competitive nature of like preparation, knowing a teammate or knowing knowing an opponent, I mean, and, and knowing your team and, and, and starting to think about planning and decision making on the floor and then going, basically being able to go sit there on the end of the bench.

And just observe all of it because you at the game, you, you don’t have a responsibility in the game, you shut up, like you shut up, that’s your responsibility, right? And if you, you know, you keep a thing, or maybe if, if Kathy or Karen asked you a question, then you answer. So you get to, you get to like real time grade it and watch the other team and pay attention to the other bench.

And I, I just, I, it’s all imprinted in my brain now. That was the best part.

[00:20:41] Mike Klinzing: Tell me about the relationships with the players. Obviously, you’re fairly close in age to the players that you’re working with and that you’re coaching that are a part of the program. So what was it like building the relationships with those players and getting them to be able to trust you and be able to allow you to have an impact on them?

[00:21:02] Shane Laflin: Like, I mean, these, the structure of staffs. is way different now. So like we really couldn’t do a lot with them. Like I couldn’t do a lot with them on the floor. So it was very, very much just like listen and supportive and you become like a natural buffer. Like people use that word and I, and I, and I don’t love it, but like people understand the concept, but like you’re hearing what the coaches want and you’re, they’re comfortable.

The players are comfortable complaining to you. Right. So basically you’re just trying to bridge that gap. And so you’re just, I was just trying to be positive, like, and again, like you couldn’t, it was, I mean, it’s very, it was strict. Like, I mean, a couple of times we got like emails that are like, yo, like he can’t be so active and I’m like, Oh, it seems so silly.

Right. Cause now it’s like, everybody do whatever you want. And so a lot of it was just reinforcement being positive. And you know, you talk the game, they know you love it. And then like, yeah, even though again, it was technically against the rules, like you’re also basically practicing every day.

So then like you get the credibility through that as well. And then yeah, you’re like, that’s what it was. But like it was no like G. A. s and support staff people now like schedule workouts and do different stuff like we were not allowed to do that.

[00:22:24] Mike Klinzing: So after you go through the G. A. experience, there is, are you certain at that point that college is where you want to be and you kind of put and then put the high school path aside.

After you get done with those two years at Texas,

[00:22:37] Shane Laflin: definitely. Yeah, I, I, yeah, I was, I was all in again, with all the experiences that Jody and Karen and Kathy and then Travis Mays and Clarissa Davis. Right. So all the things I learned from them, Chris Polonsky, like just, I, I felt ready to go and I felt confident and they had, you know, allowed me to go to final four as a network and then we hosted.

The first round of the NCAA tournament that year. So then I built some relationships with the, with the teams we hosted and just starting to branch out. Like I was very tunnel visioned and doing what we were doing. And you know, then you learn, you’re like, well, you better meet a couple of people cause you can’t stay here for forever.

And then of course, Jody retires. So then it’s like, you’re definitely can’t stay here for forever, you know? So cause of course your dream is like, you know, you want Karen to get a head coaching job and stuff to move around and you end up the whatever, you know. But yeah, I was, I, I was locked in.

That’s all I wanted to do.

[00:23:36] Mike Klinzing: So you end up back at your Alma mater. How does that happen?

[00:23:40] Shane Laflin: So I referenced the state championships that are high school one. So that coach Samantha Morrow took the UTA job. And so I had a couple of interviews set up and I was driving to one and I kept in touch with her as long as also with coach motor as well.

And she calls me as I’m driving or traveling to one of them and she was like, Hey, just whatever you do, don’t take the job on campus. And does, again, it’s another one of those situations where no real explanation. And I’m just thinking like it’s advice, right? Like don’t do it there. You’ve got a couple of things set up, like let it, you know, sleep on it basically is what I think that is.

And I’m like, okay. And she’s like, In fact, why don’t you, you want to come on your way home, it’s out of your way a little bit, but like detour and maybe come through and let’s have a talk. And I’m like, okay. And then she tells me she’s in the process and has been offered and then asked me, would I do it?

And I’m like, hell yeah, I’ll do it. Like, absolutely. So that’s how it happened.

[00:24:47] Mike Klinzing: When you get there and. You work for somebody there that you obviously have some experience with and that you had previously had a relationship and understanding about that. So what was your role in your first year there as an assistant?

[00:25:03] Shane Laflin: I mean, I was. I took on the brunt of recruiting organization. So I was the recruiting coordinator, whatever title. And then she trusted me with the offense because she was very defensive minded. And then again, the pipeline because of coach Mutterer being basically her offensive coordinator. And she knew through conversation through, because I worked her summer camps and all that stuff as well.

She understood where my mind was and it was the offensive side. Although I did go get a great education at Texas defensively. So. It balanced out for her, which, which made her happy. So she gave me the reins for the offense. And so I was, I was implementing that handling basically like player development planning in terms of just the paper, you know, the papers, the organization, the materials, whatever.

You know, how we, how we kind of did that. And and so Aaron Grant, who I referenced earlier, got done playing with the Houston Comets. And then she came in and then we had another assistant, Lindsay Wilson, who was there from the previous staff. But so we kind of did a lot until Aaron got back and then we had our full staff.

And then I was like, again, I, I implemented everything offensive and then coordinated the recruiting. Who was your biggest influence

[00:26:19] Mike Klinzing: from an offensive philosophy standpoint? Where did you draw in terms of what you wanted to do at the offensive end of the floor? Who, who did you, who did you take from that you, you built your offensive philosophy from?

[00:26:35] Shane Laflin: I mean, my foundation of my offensive philosophy and understanding came from Jason Mutter, period, end of story. And then as I got into college and got to see a lot of things, I started studying a lot of what Gail Gesson, of course, was doing at Duke. I started studying what Gina was doing at Connecticut with the triangle and then kind of like the hybrid kind of triangle into the Princeton and some lifted triangle.

You know, they kind of ran a little bit of a hybrid stuff. A lot of transition philosophy from Jody. You know, we, we were at Texas, so Oklahoma was really good at that time. So Sherry Cole had bigs and shooters and spacing. And so a little bit of that, and then I got a hold of a lot of, I just referenced this the other day that Gino put up a clip or Yukon put up a clip of, of them in 2003 running some triangle actions.

And I was like, this was kind of when I fell in love with it. And then I went and got like the actual, like coaching clinic DVDs of him. And like I said, I had studied Gale at Duke because they were really hot at that time. Obviously Gale was the next coach at Texas after us. So like it was a lot of that.

And then some of it was just like stuff I had started writing down with my imagination and watching games. Like I literally had all of that still and I still have it. So just tinkering and putting it together and wanting to play fast, but penetrate believing in paint touches and spacing and taking open threes, maybe.

And again, I’m not giving myself too much credit because it came from other people, but like a little bit more than a little bit earlier than the, the major three revolution, you know, that’s hit and just started Pineapple. And we had, we inherited a really good team with some good guards. We had good freshmen.

And so we were able to, to play fast and get paint touches and create open shots and created a share it and good to great shots and understood. And we had a really well balanced team. And the most important thing is we had fours who could shoot it. So that really helped. And so I, I kind of played into like how I was starting to see the game and I, I, I grew from there and then again from scouting and what you save and, and, and then scripting plays against teams like you evolve and you just get better.

[00:28:47] Mike Klinzing: For young coaches who might be listening, when I think about being able to implement and put together an offensive philosophy and to be able to teach it out on the floor. Just give a young coach an idea of the amount of time and studying. I’m not asking you to put an hour, you know, an hour total on it.

But just when you start thinking about how much time you had to put in to feel a confident in what you knew, but then obviously not only do you have to know it, but you then have to be able to teach it. To your players out on the floor. So just maybe talk a little bit about what that process was like for you to learn and study and go to all these different sources and then pool all that together, make it something that you could understand, and then that you could also teach to your team.

[00:29:37] Shane Laflin: This sounds so like cliche or something, but when I got to Texas, that’s all I did. That’s all I did. I didn’t do anything else. I worked out. I spent, and I, and I left this out, Rick Barnes had a heavy influence on that as well. I was thinking all the women’s stuff, spending time with Rick Barnes when he had Kevin Durant and that recruiting class.

And he allowed me in any and all practices. He allowed me in the film sessions and different things that I, if I could do it, like that’s all that I did was study and prepare and think about when it was my time to teach or think or have a philosophy, right? Like. I wasn’t having one. I was developing one.

And so how much time does it take from the time I was at UT and before that really, that’s all I did. And then to the time it was time to, to, to cut my teeth and, and really be good at UTA and be responsible. Even then, that’s all I did. I studied basketball constantly. I worked out, I slept, I saw my family and I studied basketball.

That’s it. And so it was just a deliberate effort. And like, I was very, very aware and I say this to this day, was I working as hard as anyone that I knew and maybe more, you better believe it. Did I feel like I had a real job? Absolutely not. And so like, it’s what I wanted to be doing. So it’s, it’s in order to feel confident.

It’s what I wanted to do. And I was, I had kept notebooks and, and stuff with me all the time because there was always something. And if it didn’t leave, like I’d wake up in the middle of the night. If I didn’t write it down, like you weren’t falling back asleep. Yeah, it’s just all that I did. And that’s not hyperbole, that’s not some like, you know, oh, you can’t do it ’cause you didn’t do it like me.

No, that’s, it’s all I wanted to do and it’s all I did. That’s the preparation that it took. And then getting hold of resources or having access to practices are now on the recruiting trail. Being able to strike up conversations with these coaches that I’ve been watching for years. Like I was in heaven.

That’s all I did. .

[00:31:57] Mike Klinzing: Tell me, tell Ibel I believe it. And when you’re, when you’re young. And you’re single and you have the opportunity, you love the game and there’s, I think that’s a very, very common theme with coaches, especially breaking in on the college level, right? That you, you’re a, you’re a classic example of, you kind of put feelers out there.

You were working camp, you were doing all those things and you go, you take a GA job, you work your butt off, you’re, you’re working with great people and then those people support you as you go on because you’ve put all the time in and they see the effort that you put into it. And that’s how you end up progressing.

And I think sometimes people outside of coaching have this misconception that you just automatically walk into a job and then boom, you know, Hey, Shane was at Texas. And so now it’s just, his career is going to be automatic because he has that on his resume. And I don’t think people necessarily who, again, aren’t in coaching don’t necessarily understand how much work and effort it takes to be able to continue to excel at what you do, because there’s so many people out there that are.

doing exactly what you just described, like they’re working 24 seven to try to figure out ways to, to beat those teams that are on their schedule. And so I think that that’s a great, great piece of advice for coaches who want to get started at the college game. That the best thing you can do is just work your butt off early in your career and learn as many different things about the game, learn from as many different mentors and coaches as you possibly can.

And if you do that, you’re going to put yourself. You don’t guarantee anything, but you’re certainly going to put yourself in a good position to be able to succeed moving forward without question.

[00:33:36] Shane Laflin: Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, well put and like not lost on this whole thing. You heard like the path and like some of it was a little serendipitous.

Like I am extremely fortunate that some of the things happened that they did, or I was at a place and some of it was like striking up a conversation with Karen Aston, like literally walking up to her in the stands and just being like, I should do this. I don’t even remember thinking about it. I just did it.

So a lot of it is just, it is very, very, very, very fortunate, but also controlled my controllables. Like you said, you worked. I worked.

[00:34:15] Mike Klinzing: Tell me about the decision to go to Rice.

[00:34:18] Shane Laflin: Yeah, I had, I had met Greg Williams on the, on the recruiting trail. And, and he, we, he was like a, a older guy and he, he had very vast experience, you know, he, he had been in the WNBA, he had been around different women’s professional leagues.

He was always fun to talk to on the road and his assistant Jay and, and like they were fun and there was an opportunity and it was a prestigious institution. I mean, it is a prestigious institution. And, and he did things differently than, you know, just talking to him. I could tell, like, there was a, there was an approach here and years of experience that, you know, we could learn from and, and Jay Cross his, his close assistant played professionally, played in the W very connected, was a very good player just great energy.

And so then yeah, I had met him and, and we had just kind of kept in touch, nothing intentional. It was one of the, it was kind of like networking, but not intentional. It’s one of the things people ask me, like, in hindsight, what would I have done differently? And I’m like, I guess I would have networked more, but like, I was too tunnel vision to do that.

Like I was trying to beat the, like, if we’re sitting on the baseline, you hopefully you’re in recruiting, like. You’re at the right baseline, so you’re competing with these people and like, and I had to learn how to not lead with competitiveness as like a, a personality trait that took a very long time. But like I didn’t network for, I wasn’t thinking like that.

I just wanted to beat them. But Greg was one of the ones that, that I actually had, you know, just like I said, kept in touch with and whether it was intentional on his part or whatever. I, I can’t answer that. But so it, it, it was it It was time to go. I had, I had been through a rough patch right there.

Personally, my dad had passed right before I went to Rice. He had had a, about a nine months to year long, really tough battle with cancer. And you know, I don’t know. It just, it just, it it just seemed like it was lined up and that’s what I was doing next and I felt good about it. And that’s where I went next.

[00:36:15] Mike Klinzing: What area do you feel like you grew the most when you were at Rice?

[00:36:19] Shane Laflin: Absolutely the meticulous scouting, like the, that’s the, the nuanced details, like, and at first you’re like, wow, that’s a lot, Greg, like, that’s a lot. But it still grows you, right? And then very individualized player development. Like we had done individual work and stuff at UTA, but we, we’d work them into groups and actions and we do a little, you know, whole part, whole type of team, you know, those kinds of things, he had a different way in different parts of the year.

And again, the rules were different there. So, or then it wasn’t as much full team practice as early. You were very, very limited groups of four, if I’m not mistaken for. Two hours a week at a certain point, whatever. And it soon changed, but so he had some things he did with them individually teaching, like getting the jump shot out of them, teaching them how to get a, a mid range jump shot.

He was very, very much believed in that from his time at the pro level. So I learned a lot about that. And then he was a very old school eval guy. So like when he went out on evals, he came back with, he charted everything. And so just. You know where that stuff’s relevant. It is not something I did out and he charted everything.

If he was in a game in a summer, he knew the stats. He came back from a high school game. He wanted to know the stats. So just a different view like that. Very, very, very meticulous and detailed. But he was, he was very, very, very detailed in the scouts.

[00:37:50] Mike Klinzing: What did your experience recruiting at your various stops eventually play into what you’re doing now at Premier?

Obviously, the two things are not exactly the same, but the evaluation of players and being able to understand. their strengths and weaknesses, what level they might fit at, with which program, with which coach, just tell me a little bit about just how you learned the recruiting process and then how that eventually helped you when you transitioned over to what you’re doing now with Premier.

[00:38:24] Shane Laflin: Yeah. So, I mean, being at those places, I mean, you go, I mean, again, I wasn’t out recruiting at Texas, but I had built relationships with people and they came on campus and had campus visit responsibilities. And then they allowed me, of course, the, the meetings, the strategy, all of the phone calls, all the things I had access to the notes and all these things.

So you go from Texas where you’re, you know, the year I got there, they had signed five McDonald’s all Americans and then the UTA, which is not doing that. So you’re, you’re evaluating like, even into like the late signing period, right? Juco, even those kinds of things. And Rice, which was, you know. Maybe a little bit more mid major focused than UTA at the time.

They’re comparable, obviously a little bit now, maybe, maybe similar, but through a high academic lens. So I got to see like a varied picture of like a overused term of like fit. And it just allowed me to kind of, you know, in order to be good, you got to identify them, right? You got to know at Rice, like, you know, if you’re kind of in the middle, you can go get a high academic, really good kid, but you don’t want to waste your time on the kid that’s not going to come.

Right. And then so yeah, it just, it just allowed me to kind of be discerning. And then again, you’re always thinking about, I mean, when you’re coaching and you’re responsible for every other scout or whatever the other team and where they got players. And if you’re, if you’re. Getting beat out, why you’re getting beat out and where people are finding players or where they’re from.

So it, opponents scouting and things like that too, because you’re constantly player evaluating. Like, you know how it is. Like once you’ve watched enough film, particularly scout film to like create player descriptions and game plans, you watch the game in a different manner. You compartmentalize some of it.

I swear you started doing it subconsciously, you know, because you’ve watched enough film. Like you’re an ex, like it’s over, like you’re a, you’re a, you’re a subject matter expert because you’ve put in hundreds of thousands, if not millions of hours of film over, over, you know, 20 years or whatever. And so it, it helps now just understanding a building relationships with the staffs at the various stops, understanding what’s going on, understanding the foundation of how they build their program.

You’re able to talk that language and understand players. And then when you’re out kind of understanding where you can serve them in different. Layers, admittedly, as we’ve started, as we’ve begun, like I said, when we got the ESPN responsibilities and things, I tend to focus on the high, high, like the high end because of what I’ve got to focus and produce in terms of the writing and the analysis and things, we still obviously eval and keep things, but my right hand guy, Jason Key, when it comes to mid and low major, like, There’s nobody better.

And so like I’m aware, but not as aware as I used to be now that we’re doing this, just because again, we share responsibility and, and Jay’s at the high level too. Don’t get me wrong, but he just, he takes a more of a responsibility with the mid to low pool than I do. I don’t know as many players as he does there.

And then I’ve got to get in deeper with the higher level one. So that all is just, you evolve, you get better with your wisdom and your time and, and it’s, to me, it helps when we’re in there, you can identify them. Keep it moving and speak the language and understand where they’re coming from because of the levels that I was able to experience.

[00:41:50] Mike Klinzing: Tell me about the decision to step away from coaching at the college level and to move into more of this grassroots recruiting space. What was the, what was the reason behind the decision? And then just what was the transition like for you?

[00:42:08] Shane Laflin: Yeah, so, I mean, just the way the coaching world works. I mean our, we had a, we got a new AD at Rice, they decided to make a change.

And we had needed to be better, like, in all honesty, we did. So, you know, it might, you know, I think it was appropriate probably, right? Without no disrespect to anybody. And so, you know, you start, you network and you do your things. And I, I, at that time I had, I got offered a couple things I was not willing to move for.

I was like, nah, just. You know, and some of the experience that kind of made me reevaluate and then I went after a couple of things I didn’t get. And so it was time to really think. And then on a personal note, like I said, as I went into rice, my dad passed while I was at rice, my mom passed and being the, as we discussed in the previous things, kind of the, my, the rhythm and routine of my life was just diving into work.

So this will probably shock you, but that’s all that I did when all those things happen. And the transition at Rice made me have to like own up to that finally. And I’ve got four younger siblings and it was just time for me to like process that. And so it made like, I think if that wouldn’t have happened, would I have taken a couple of things that I got offered that maybe I didn’t love?

Probably. But it gave me a little bit more like my view on life and what I wanted. My experience to be with my next staff or who I wanted to grow with or what I want to do with my life, that perspective changed dramatically. And that point I was able to view things differently. And so I said, you know what, I’m just going to pause and, and maybe handle this because I carried it with me a lot and I knew it and I maybe couldn’t have articulated it at the time, but I needed that time.

So I said, you know, I’ve lived in Houston. I’ve lived in Dallas. My dad ended up living in San Antonio before he passed. I under, like the major, I’ve been in all the major cities in Texas. I liked Austin the best. So I said, you know what? I’m just gonna go back to Austin. One of my brothers lived here at the time, still does.

And I’m like, I’m gonna, I’m gonna coach a club team. I’m gonna give Joey a call. And, and, cause we had utilized their recruiting service. It was kind of getting off the ground. And say, hey, we utilized it. I think I can help make it better. I’m also going to, I’ve been reached out to a lot of people, a lot of these club people, a lot of people I’ve recruited said, Hey, you should maybe come coach for us.

And I was like, what do you think? And he ran a big team organization too. So I kind of segued into that and just said, all right, let’s give this a try and let’s see what it looks like. And I’ll prove myself to you. I got time. I got enough money. Like I’m gonna prove it. And he was like, I feel good about that.

So I’ll give you a shot. And I honestly thought it was going to be temporary. And then I started really enjoying it, building a group that we had with, with Jason key at the time and Mark Williams and, and Joey was a great mentor with the teams and, and the way this side functions with the teams, the tournaments, he was running humongous tournaments at the time I said, you know, it’s freedom.

I’m traveling, I’m learning basketball. I mean, I need to eventually, you know, do better professionally for sure. But I was like, I’m good for now. It’s all good. And then I saw the potential and. And I’m like, no, I think I’m going to do this. And a couple of things came around and I was just like, you know what, I’m going to, now that I’ve learned a little bit more from behind the scenes and I’m dealing with more of these staffs, I know how some of you guys function.

That’s no, and I liked the potential. And again, and my right hand guy, Jason key, there’s something about our connection. That was very encouraging and I just saw potential in it and just like players. It was really hard for me not to see that through. And then we got the McDonald’s thing which elevated our status a little bit and connection and different things and and then with the fortuitous moves of 3 step and ESPN, really opened up things and then it was like, Oh, we got something on our hands, I think.

And so here we are. Now, I’m transparent with everybody. Do I always have the itch? And people ask me, Would you coach? I said, Would I rather be on the floor every day teaching? Sure. But that’s not what that is every day. So I’m never going to say never, but we feel good now and we’ve worked hard enough and established ourselves with some, some stuff, some foundational stuff that now we’re working towards being able to be on the floor again.

Some more, we’re going to do some things in June, get on the floor. We run Wooten 150, get on the floor. I’ve been doing a lot of consulting with club teams. Like it gets me on the floor and I get that itch. And my goal is now to get back on the floor some and, and, and, and do what I’m good at there. And so all of it, it’s, it’s fulfilling and we’ve been able to grow and it’s been so many opportunities now with some tech opportunities a couple of apps with Cerebro sports with analytics or ProShot X with, with shooting.

We’ve gotten involved with like HoopFest events and some collegiate events now. So I’m, I’m expanding my professionalism, I guess you could say, but still basketball is the foundation.

[00:47:28] Mike Klinzing: Let me know what you guys are doing with Cerebro cause I had Ed Chow on probably about a year and a half ago, maybe two years ago, and he was talking about all the things that kind of he had coming down the pike.

So just tell me where you guys are at with Cerebro. I’m just curious.

[00:47:40] Shane Laflin: Yeah. So, so their CEO, Ryan and I connected before COVID and they were kind of on the, they weren’t Cerebro yet. They weren’t named that yet. And they were starting with, with just trying to have some accountability and consistent statting, which as we talked about, like we had our recruiting service, we got the McDonald’s thing.

And I said, you know, something that, that the grassroots environment is missing and even maybe high school is some like accountability or objective, objective opportunities of evaluation. Cause you know, you could play in different circuits, different schedules, whatever. I’m like, so numbers would, would be great.

I would like to think about that. So we connected a little bit on that. At a she got game event in Dallas and they came and they started it and then he was, you know, talking data and this and that, what they could do with consistent box scores and things. And then COVID hits, everybody goes quiet. And then I see a I’m sitting Thursday mornings.

I get up and I take a walk to this coffee shop, kind of change when I’m home, changes my routine. Get up, you know, it’s dark walk, just listen to a podcast, something super early. And I’m sitting and Jason and I generally have a debrief on my way home, whatever. It’s about a five mile walk. And he sends me this thing and he was like, look at this.

This is interesting. And it was the announcement that Mark Cuban was going to invest in this cerebral sports. And I read the press release and I’m like, Ryan, that’s the same guy I connect to. So I text him right away. And I was like, Ryan, like, this is amazing. We’re now part of three step. There’s could be some, some, some synergies here.

And he was like, Shane, I kid you not. You’re on my list to call today or like this week or something. I don’t know if it was today. And, and I’m like, wow, okay. So then we hit it off and he is like, I need some guidance, like in grassroots, this connection to Three Step that I’m hearing about. You know, they run a bunch of events, we’d like to get involved with providing numbers and this and that.

And then we’d like some guidance with how to deal with, you know, the environment that is the co the college coaches, the club scene and whatever. And I’m like, we’re we’re with, with our platform now with ESPN and all of the things. I think we can open some doors plus I believe in your stuff. He gave me the rundown.

I said, I believe in it. So let’s, so, you know, agreed to like an advisement role with some, some incentives and it’s been great for us and we’ve been trying to connect them and, and, and show college coaches how they can utilize it as a tool because it’s different for everybody. And the data aggregation is pretty simple, but some of its project you know, it’s, it’s abilities to project or some of the AI things that they’re building in now are very helpful.

And through our evaluation, just the fact that the stats are in one place really helps. And then it’s, you know, we’ve challenged them on being able to aggregate it differently, compare it differently, do some different things. It’s helped us be more objective with our evaluation, producing rankings, all these kinds of things.

And it’s like, it either, it can validate you, it can invalidate you, it can send your eyes to go check somebody else out. Or it also helps like particularly in the portal. Or, or if, or if college coaches are like, Hey, I’m looking for this, this, and this, and you plug it into our database with evals, but it’s like, Hey, let’s go make sure in Cerebro, there’s not another six, three kid that can run and chew gum and rebound.

Like, let’s find some names. Cause these guys are reaching. And so like, that’s a simple example, but that’s how we use it. And, and we use it with college programs as we, you know, talk to their staffs about their current teams. Obviously when the portal hits, it’s humongous. And then also like some, some international recruiting, things like that we did.

We, we plugged in like the U 17 stuff this year where we, we had a meeting with Meg Barber who coached the U 17 team. We, we put all the teams and the names into Cerebro that she was preparing for and just kind of painted an early scout picture before they did like the scouting and stuff. So we like, we utilize it like that as well.

[00:51:38] Mike Klinzing: Completely different than what it even was five, six years ago I’m sure. And I can’t even imagine what it’s going to look like five or six years down the road as. AI continues to be able to expand and what you guys are going to be able to do on the technology side of it to supplement what you do the old school way by by looking at tape and watching players in person and using your expertise to be able to evaluate.

When you think about the success that you guys have been able to have at Premiere since you got there, what do you think are two or three keys to that success? What do you guys do really well that sets you apart in terms of what college coaches are looking for from a scouting report. And again, what makes you guys different, better successful at what you do?

[00:52:26] Shane Laflin: Well, the most important thing is our philosophy. And it’s not just like a rule. It’s just the way we function. We are a team. We do not function well and have the success or be able to take on the things that we take on without our whole. Our sum, our, our whole is greater than the sum of our parts far and away.

So that’s how Jason and I, and the people that we rely on work with, with, with our evaluations, with, with our, our other guy, Kenneth Pinnell, and then our legend of a, of a guy, Bob Corwin, who’s 77 years old and is a machine. So that’s the first thing is we are a team and we value each other. And in terms of, and so then we share experience.

We’re not afraid to challenge each other. And then the, and then it’s the, it’s a people business first and foremost. So you’ve got to take care of your clients. You’ve got to talk to these coaches and you’ve got to be ready to serve them on a number of ways. You know, they don’t just want to have a conversation with a robot.

So you’ve got to work really hard too, because you’ve got to be familiar. You got to be up with numbers. You got to be up with games. You got to be up with wins and losses. The reasons why, again, we work a lot, it’s not a real job, so I’m okay with it, you know, and, and that’s what makes us successful. The other thing is this, given our platforms and things, we get approached with a lot of opportunity, and some of that opportunity is not what I would consider considerable.

And so my, our litmus test is always first and foremost, is it good for the game? If the answer is yes, we proceed. But we slow play everything with anybody new because if you, if you, if you’re not along our wavelength of growth of the game and serving people and player development and intelligence and wanting to be better and like competitiveness, like I’m sure I rubbed some people the wrong way, but I’m competitive.

And so like, you’ve got to want, you want foxhole people, right? And so you test them and if they don’t quite make it, then we just keep it moving. And like, that’s not judgment, it’s just works for how it’s, how our team works and it’s good for business, our business. And and so we’ve been very delicate in that decision making of who we align with and who we support.

And then when we do, we hold those people accountable and it’s not an ego thing. It’s just an accountability thing. It’s a responsibility thing. We sit in a spot of great responsibility and we do not take it for granted because we weren’t handed this. And we had not in our wildest dreams did we know that we’d be able to be in this position.

We were in LA for five days watching basketball games and having meetings with basketball coaches. It was amazing. Like, we’re grateful, we’re grateful. And that’s the biggest thing is the humility, the gratitude, and then our team oriented atmosphere.

[00:55:34] Mike Klinzing: Tell me a little bit about building the relationships with college staffs.

And obviously you having been in the business before. It gives you a little bit of credibility just right from the very start. And anybody who’s listening to the podcast can tell the amount of work and time that you put into your craft. But just tell me a little bit about how you build those relationships with college staff so that when they come to you or when you come to them with information that They know that what they’re getting they can rely on and they building that mutual trust.

How do you go about building that

[00:56:13] Shane Laflin: being just transparent and honest in both ways and and then understanding like each staff functions differently. So like You kind of got to understand what role, like whatever you want to call it, consultation wise that they need. Some people like to get lists of players before a tournament.

Some people want to call after that list and then, and then talk to you about the players. And what are you thinking? Here’s our opinion. Where do we, and where do we differ? Like that’s what’s great about talking to college coaches. They’re not, they’re not afraid to like talk to you about where you differ.

And so you learn, they learn whatever, and you just, you kind of get in a cadence for like how you serve each staff and then building relationships with head coaches and how they build their staffs or when they need staff members, they rely on us because we built relationships with potential staff members or whatever.

And so really it’s just, it’s a lot of listening and it’s follow up. It’s something like I learned at Texas with, with, with, with, like you talked about, like, you know, going to that meeting and learning and then six months down the line, follow up was huge. I said, being with, being with Rick Barnes staff and, and watching them recruit and, and sign Kevin Durant, like Russell Springman is, was the lead on that with, with that staff.

And he he, he told me like the Shane, if you have a reason and a chance to follow up, follow up a letter, a text, shoot him a thing, like, and that really stuck with me. And so it’s like serving these staffs. It’s you gotta be responsible in your responses. We know they all function on different schedules.

So you got to be willing to be flexible and you got to be organized because you can’t, you know, plan a call and then no show it, right? Emails, whatever it is, walking them through database, Cerebro, et cetera. It’s consistency and, and, and learning the people it’s the people business. And and again, I’ll say I give a lot of credit to Jason Key when it comes to the new and upcoming staffs and the new coaches.

And the trust that he has with them, again, I have to, I, I end up filling a role that deals with maybe more head coaches and some other things that I, I do that Jason doesn’t do he, he cultivates those relationships so well, and then sets the table for when, like, I do get to meet them. I feel like we knew each other already.

It’s, it’s un, it’s uncanny how he does it. And it’s crazy how we do it very seamlessly. I, I. I’m very grateful, but also like it, it’s unbelievable. I I’m still trying to understand it myself.

[00:58:53] Mike Klinzing: What do you think is the key on the other side of the equation with the evaluation of players? So we just talked a little bit about the relationship with staffs and how important that is.

Tell me about the evaluation of players and what are your keys to success on that side of it?

[00:59:08] Shane Laflin: Yeah. Again, as a understanding basketball, like X and O Y systematically pattern wise, what players have worked with what people, and that includes like personality wise, And understanding, like, kind of what programs and things fit with certain coaches and their pipelines, and they know that for the most part, but they, they also want new blood too, right?

So, understanding that, and then, and then being able to, to talk through and, and, and, and with the player, the coach, or if you’re like, hey, I think this, this is a player, you know, for you, or whatever, and getting down into the, You know, just using like a simple example, like getting down in the details of about a player, you have to be willing to hear them tell you like, no, I don’t agree with you.

And next, you know, moving on, which is fine. But you, you, again, just like you learn the people, you learn the program, you start to understand how they function and where they’re successful and what kind of players they’re successful with. And not just like numbers wise, but like kind of people and culture that they’re building.

So much like. Talking earlier about scouting and filing things away, you get a little bit of a feel when you’ve put in this much work, when you’ve got the foundation and understanding of, of how to do it effectively and, and efficiently with these, with these staffs and you kind of get to know them, you do, you just kind of get to know, and, you know, sometimes you leave a phone call feeling like, you know, you were in the recruiting meeting.

You know, like you just get it. Okay. We get the vibe here. Let’s go. And again, Jason and I share that stuff. So then sometimes before we have conversations with staffs, we’re prepped because we get, you know, we have daily basically rundowns of, you know, our experience and what we’re learning and what we gain from conversations.

[01:00:53] Mike Klinzing: How do you evaluate the intangibles of a player? Obviously you can watch some of their physical talent. You can watch what they can do on the floor when they’re playing in a basketball game. But as you’ve just described, right, a lot of what leads to a player’s success or failure is what type of person are they?

beyond the basketball court and can they fit into a particular program’s culture. So how do you evaluate those intangibles when you’re watching a player?

[01:01:22] Shane Laflin: I mean, a lot like, you know, a coach, what does they watch practice? I mean, I kind of watch that. I watch, I watch, you know, again, you’re watching high school and club basketball.

The majority of it’s not super high level. So I start to watch a lot of nuance and details, consistency, how they deal with their coaches, how they react to teammates. I, I have the opportunity a lot of times when I talk to these high level players that maybe are playing on high school teams that obviously don’t have the players that have the same level.

And I’m like, look, it is your job to make people feel better and more accomplished as a player, more capable as a player. You need to establish leadership. You’re going to be in that role very soon. You’re going to be the new guy or you’re going to be the guy that’s not as good when you walk on campus.

So like it’s going to benefit you, but I challenge players with that all the time. So I watch for those. Those natural things, the competitiveness, consistency, you know, how they deal with refs, how, you know, you inevitably see how they deal with their parents. You start feeling a lot of that. You definitely don’t get it for everybody.

I, I often talk to these coaches when we’re, when we’re, you know, just theoretically talking about players or who’s better and who’s whatever. And I said, you know, this one probably comes down to like the interview portion, like the, like the NFL, you know, the NFL Combine or any, any draft. I’m like, this one’s going to come down to like, I would like to spend 30 minutes with this player and understand them better, which they get to do in recruiting.

So I’m like, you know, that important finish of that race has a lot to do with their conversations with that player to answer the things that you’re talking about. But I pay, I definitely pay attention to it because when it comes down to it, like at the end of the day, all I care about is winning. And when I see things that players do that are detrimental to winning, it very much sticks with me.

But when I see things that players do that enhance winning or make others better or, or culture givers, that sticks with me as well. And like, you know, there’s a lot of film available now. And if there’s, if it’s not on NFHS or YouTube or Huddle, like, like livestream, there’s not a high school coach in America that won’t send me game film.

And so you get to watch a lot. And I watched, I think, five states worth of games yesterday. Or I should not five states work, but like I watch games from five states, right? And I wrote down some notes like about a player from Nevada that I’m just like this kid sees the floor team Oriented picking up people when they’re on the ground and I get to rewind like I didn’t see it live But I saw you know, I got to send it back so I’m always watching for that because this was a particular player that it’s like They’re mid major, but I could see a P4, think about it, and if they’re gonna be that P4, cause it’s a, it was a smaller guard, they better have those intangibles.

So I noticed it, and I wrote it down, cause I’m like, no, she’s doing it, and I saw a little bit of it in the summer. She had a summer team that overachieved. I watched this film, they were in the state championship. Well, that wasn’t an accident, you know? So you see it, you see it, like, you can’t help it as a coach when you, you think of team building and winning, and then your responsibility to these staffs that that’s obviously what they want to do.

It’s always in the forefront of my mind.

[01:04:36] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, those characteristics that you can pick out right in a player that you know through your experience lead to winning and create a cohesive team environment. Somebody who’s a great teammate, when talent is equal, the person who’s a great teammate is going to be a much better fit in 99.

9 percent of the programs that you can steer them to. And that obviously when coaches. Know that you’re going to steer them, those types of players that to me is really, if I’m a coaching staff, that’s what I’m looking for. Somebody that I can trust with the evaluation of those intangibles. You talked a little bit about the fact that now with the platform that you guys have, that you have a lot of people approaching you with opportunities.

So if you look back over your time at premiere, what’s. The best opportunity that was brought to you that you guys took advantage of and just tell me a little bit about that.

[01:05:32] Shane Laflin: Oh man.

Hmm. I’m going to try, I’m going to try to think of a few. I mean, one of the things that’s been really rewarding is, is aligning and doing a lot of work with the Wootons. It started through McDonald’s and then they also run a coach’s clinic, which we did a week. We did a Dallas weekend and that we actually did an online one during COVID too.

So we work we’ve worked to, you know, for longstanding with, with Morgan, it was, you know, 50 years and it was men’s coaches and the occasional women’s coach. And now we try to have women’s coaches as representation a little bit every year. And so that’s been fun. And from that we started the Wooten 150, which basically tries to get the best players in one spot.

Just kind of give it a, an objective evaluation, competitive thing and bring in some, some, some people who can enhance their knowledge both on and off the court. So that’s been, that one stands out and it’s, it’s a no brainer like that, but, but we aligned on a lot of things and now they feel like family and then just through that talking basketball, their coaches network through the camps that they run back East, meeting some of their people that’s been so rewarding.

And then. Like it was through three step, but, but because of common philosophy, like aligning with like our events network of our people who run now the premier events and select events, basketball, and the ability to go create an independent circuit, which was kind of needed on our girls side, that’s been very rewarding.

And then some of the, the, the the shoe brands and things we’ve been able to do, like I was able to coach a Euro camp team with Adidas, which was. An experience I’ll never forget. Was able to be at Elite 24 last year with Under Armour and then be on the floor a little bit and do those kinds of things.

That was amazing. And then Cerebro is one of them. The HoopFest connection with, with Glenn Smith has been one of them. And this, this thing hasn’t launched yet. I don’t want to give, it’s not my place to give a lot away, but this ProShot X, which is a shooting app with some AI. Some, some pretty phenomenal AI capabilities.

That’s different than anything I’ve ever seen. That’s kind of the next one that I’m looking at. And then, you know, connecting with some agencies and being able to get behind the scenes on some things like with Wasserman with Lindsay Kagawa Colas and her team, like those things, like, yeah, we worked hard, but obviously they don’t come unless we’re sitting in our, with our platforms and.

Being able to learn the professionality of other people and those things, those are the most rewarding things that, that, that pop off on the top of my head.

[01:08:15] Mike Klinzing: Final two part question. Then that last answer kind of leads directly into this question. So part one of the question, when you look ahead over the next year or two, what do you see as being your biggest challenge?

And then the second part of the question, when you think about what you get to do day in and day out, what brings you the most choice? So your biggest challenge. And then your biggest joy,

[01:08:37] Shane Laflin: biggest challenge looking at right now, I think, you know, is, is, is the overarching changing landscape in college sports.

And so do I think we’re going to navigate it? Well, I do. We’ve got a great support structure. I was on with our CEO of three step this morning and also kind of our, our comparable person with the UC report, which is the football side of, and they run a comprehensive scouting report. That’s Unbelievable with football.

And so we are looking to make our product and our marketing and our, our, our, our things better. And we actually started that process this morning and set up a series of meetings and plans to, to get some things rolling there, but it’s just the changing environment of college. Like, you know, we’re, we’re entering into this era of, of kind of semi pro status and budgets change and athletic departments change and functionality changes.

And we have to adapt with what that means in terms of advisement with players and new things. And, and so our challenge is to continue to adapt in that. I feel good with how we’re doing that. And it’s not a challenge that we’re afraid of. We actually feel very good about it because of our foundation of knowledge and work.

And the thing that brings me joy, the most joy every day is the people that I get to work with. That care about me enough to know like how important this is to me and, and, and how important it is to them. And the fact that we’re aligned on that and that when we want to make something happen or we, we need some good juice or we need, you know, we need some positivity that pour into me.

And know that like one of my things over the last couple of years has been to, to, to intentionally get back on the floor and they’re helping me do that. So right now it’s, it’s, it’s that, but it is, it’s the people that I work with every day. And, and, and then, but the underlying thing about that, and I keep saying it, it is the fact everything we do.

My life’s work is about the game of basketball and that like. Keeps the battery full all the time

[01:10:52] Mike Klinzing: as well said, Shane, I could not agree with you more. I think about what we do here with the pod and that’s certainly been my motivation and I say it all the time that whatever meager amount of love I’m giving back to the game of basketball through this, I could never ever even come close to repaying.

What the game of basketball has given me in my life from the people to my experiences to the relationships to Just about everything in my life in some way shape or form I can tie it back to the game and so I can completely relate to that sentiment that you just shared Before we get out, I want to give you a chance to share.

How can people get in touch with you, reach out to you, find out more about what you guys are doing at Premier, share email, website, social media, whatever you feel comfortable with, and then after you do that, I’ll jump back in and wrap things up.

[01:11:43] Shane Laflin: Sure. I mean, you can reach out Shane@PremierBasketballReport.com PremierBasketballReport.com It’s also our website, and it’s also, our contacts are on there. I’m on social media. Just @ShaneLaflin. It’s really simple. Just my name. And so we try to share quality content there, anything that we write or produce goes out through premier basketball report.com or we have another one that’s a little bit of a different view hoopsreview.net that our guy Bob Corwin does a lot of work on a couple other people that we encouraged to give some output as well. We published things on there too. So yeah, between there and then B ball, J key from my right hand guy, Jason Key and then his contact, like I said, Jason@premierbasketballreport.com. Again, it’s all on our website as well. And then always willing to connect, talk basketball. I’m a pretty much a stickler for answering emails and stuff. Sometimes we get bombarded and it gets hard. So if I don’t, that’s not personal to anybody. I try really hard.

But sometimes it’s a lot. And I love to talk basketball, connecting gyms, all that stuff, serving the game and serving players brings us a lot of joy. So we’re more than willing to do that. Thanks for that opportunity.

[01:13:03] Mike Klinzing: Shane, can’t thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule tonight.  Really appreciate it. And to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.