The Top 5 Rules Every Aspiring Basketball Player Should Follow To Become Professional (From Legendary Coach John Wooden)
John Wooden is one of the most iconic and successful coaches in Basketball history.
Besides being the College Basketball Coach John Wooden taught English at UCLA and taught how to be successful human beings.
The successes that came along on the court were extraordinary.
The players John Wooden coached changed the League and the game of Basketball.
What would the NBA be without Bill Walton and Kareem Abdul Jabbar?
A lot of NBA coaches have incredible Basketball insight and Basketball vision, different systems, and styles the players should adapt and play.
However, some forget that tactics may win games, but values — like Coach Wooden showed — win rings.
A coach does not just have to deliver a message, a system, — a coach has to show that message in a way that his player prefers dying than not giving his best to implement the coach’s system correctly.
How does a coach achieve that?
By being honest with his players.
By being interested in the players aside the court.
By being human and seeing Basketball as the thing as it is.
A game.
A game that many love.
But a game.
If a coach builds core values in every player, he will have a team.
The synergy effect will take over shortly after.
No one did that better in the last 20 years than Coach Pop.
And John Wooden spent his life achieving it.
Here are the 5 top takeaways you can add to your value system to better your game by being a better human being.
1. John Wooden’s definition of success
Peace of mind satisfaction in knowing you made an effort to get the best of what you’re trying to prove.
John Wooden believed overall in giving your best.
He said:
You can lose when you can out-score someone in the game.
And you can win when you got outscored.
If you make your effort to do the best you can, the results will be what they should be, not necessarily what you want them to be, but they will be about what they should.
2. Three rules to follow
1. Never be late
John Wooden believed that being on time builds character. He started training and scrimmages on time and closed them on time.
2. Neat and clean
Number two of the three rules Wooden used to build disciplined players. Once Bill Walton showed up in a dirty cloth, John Wooden did not let him get on the bus. He had to go home. Waiving your best player just because they do not arrive neat and clean may sound crazy.
But it showed that nobody in Wooden’s team received any special treatment.
3. Never criticize a teammate!
If Coach Wooden heard one word of profanity, you were out. Did you criticize a teammate — you were out.
Respecting your teammates is the most important thing to play as a team.
3. Have faith and be patient
John Wooden often said:
You must have faith. Believe that things work out as they should, providing we do what we should.
4. Don’t whine, don’t complain, don’t make excuses
John Wooden’s father taught him that lesson. John Wooden did give it on to his players.
With all the motivational videos out there don’t make excuses is a common theme.
John Wooden put it that way:
Go out there and give it your best. No one can do more than that.
5. The process of accumulation
Ryan Holiday writes in his book “Ego is the Enemy”:
Wooden won ten titles in 12 years, including seven in a row, because he developed a system for winning and worked with his players to follow it. Neither of them was driven by excitement, nor were their bodies in constant motion. Instead, it took them years to become the person they became known as. It was a process of accumulation.
Coach Wooden had some of the greatest players who played Basketball.
Bill Walton. Kareem Abdul Jabbar.
Made the players win the games?
Sure they play, score, rebound, pass.
But John Wooden coached 804 games, and his team won 664 and lost 162 — what makes a winning percentage 80.4.
Without a doubt, John Wooden was a great coach, a great teacher, and a great man.
And his rules worked.
