This week on Slappin’ Glass, we sit down with NBA and G-League coach Coby Karl for a thoughtful and wide-ranging conversation on leadership, teaching, and connecting the many layers of a basketball program.
Coach Karl shares his philosophy of “coaching the whole”—how schemes, relationships, and organizational dynamics all intertwine to shape performance. We dive into:
- Building Flow and Simplicity: Why starting with fundamentals like spacing and pattern recognition is the foundation for freedom, creativity, and player confidence.
- Coaching Human Beings, Not Just Players: How empathy, integrity, and trust form the backbone of development both on and off the court.
- Leadership Depth and Growth: The personal challenges, failures, and reflections that help coaches evolve in meaningful ways.
- Tactical Insights: From the value of opening possessions with a cut, to designing pressure releases, shoot-around efficiency, and adjusting systems to fit personnel.
- Failure as Micro vs. Macro: How to reframe mistakes as opportunities for learning while balancing the real-world stakes of professional coaching.
And of course, Coach Karl joins the always-fun “Start, Sub, or Sit” segment to break down offensive concepts and leadership lessons with his signature depth and honesty.
Whether you’re a coach, player, or fan of the game, this episode offers a masterclass in how basketball’s details, relationships, and philosophies all connect to create something greater than the sum of its parts.
Transcript
Coby Karl 00:00
The group will usually tell you when it wants more. It usually comes with frustration or it comes with dealing with pressure and it can’t be a new play. It has to be within the system because this is pattern recognition, like it’s five guys being on the same page. And I think when you add a different system to it, I think it adds more complexity. It’s solving the issue in a short amount of time, but it’s not solving the issue long-term because we’ve all played in the playoffs, we’ve all played in those pressurized games. At the end of the day, it’s going to be probably the ball is going to be the best player, their best defender, and you’re going to have to figure it out and it becomes a random game.
Dan 02:02
And now, please enjoy our conversation with Coach Coby Karl. If you wanna start with this, and it’s a topic that I talked off-air with you a little bit about, I know something you’re thinking about, passionate about, and it’s coaching the whole, and what that means, what that looks like in the era of there’s so much stuff within a team, within an organization, and what coaching the whole means, and what it looks like on a day-to-day basis.
Coby Karl 02:39
Obviously, it’s a loaded question in a lot of ways, but I think there’s a lot of different ways that I look at it. I think, one, I always think about our players. So I think about the human beings that we’re coaching, and who are they, where do they come from, what makes them special, how did they get here, what are things that they’re struggling with. I think the psychological makeup of them, their skill sets on the court tactically, what are the areas that they need to grow in? I think organizationally, the whole is each individual that works with us. I started as a ball boy. So the ball boys, the team attendants, the media guy, the announcer, every individual in these organizations matter. And I think the more that we can get connected to them, it adds to the product that we get on the court, and the more that we can connect our players and our performance to the broader picture. I think it helps us kind of understand what we’re doing. And then as a whole too, you can take it tactically. Coaching the whole means the transition from defense to offense. Getting the ball over half court, initiating into your offense, getting your defense set. It’s each little thing. And I think accepting the nuances of the game, accepting the failures of the game, accepting the joys of the game, and celebrating those joys, I think are all things that come to mind when I talk about coaching the whole. And we text about the conversation, but Phil Jackson was the first person that introduced offense starts on the rebound to me. And that made sense. As a teacher, that makes sense in terms of how do we, on the initial, when we get the ball, how do we formulate our spacing? How do we run our lanes? And then once we get into those lanes, how do we transition into our early offense? And then how do we transition into our middle offense and then our late offense? And then what are we gonna do? So like each dynamic needs to be addressed, taught, and practiced for our teams to be able to feel confident and comfortable with what we’re doing.
Dan 04:31
When coaching the hole hasn’t gone well, and this isn’t anything particular, but what happens as a leader when you’ve got all this stuff going on around you where coaching the hole becomes harder? You’ve been at the NBA level where there’s big staffs and analytics and all that stuff. Where is it that as a leader, as a head coach or assistant, that you feel like it gets frayed from a coaching the hole standpoint?
Coby Karl 04:55
I think for me, I always love my players and my staff. That’s the sacred space for me is the conversation with our players is like if we are failing on the court, it’s on us. It’s on me as the leader, as the coach, and then it’s on you guys as players, as performers. To me, when you’re coaching the whole, we have to understand our responsibility to the whole. We have to understand our responsibility to the analytics group. We have to understand our responsibility to our fans. We have to understand our responsibility to our ownership group. And down the line, I think responsibility is an important thing. And I think once we understand and we accept our responsibility, then we can start to move towards, okay, how do we utilize each other to make each other better, to help each other perform up to our potential as a group? And I think that’s where you get one plus one equals three. And that’s why we coach is because that special nuance of you and I are not the best team together. But if we figure out a way to play together at a rate that makes me better and you better, we can beat a team that maybe on paper is better than us. And I think that’s why I coach. That’s probably why most of us coach is because we felt that experience as a player. We got to be part of a team where it pulled something out of us that maybe we didn’t know we had and it built courage that we didn’t know we had.
Pat 06:11
Coach, you just mentioned about the importance of accepting responsibilities as a coach. And when you were talking about in-game also as a coach, accepting the nuances of the game, the successes and maybe the failures, maybe it’s a conversation between a coach, what we can control versus what we can influence.
How have you grown as a coach or what do you think about, let’s focus in a game, accepting these nuances of the games, these successes, the ups and downs that come with the game and keeping you even keel or not being so emotionally reactive.
Coby Karl 06:43
My experience with that was I was always a very sensitive person. So like I wanted to do it right. Now I was embarrassed by failure, perfectionism in some ways, and I wanted to control it. That’s why I worked really hard. And then so I look at my coach and see how he reacted and how he responded. And if it was negatively, like I felt shame and I felt guilt. And then I went to the pro level and I remember playing in summer league and Kurt Rambis and Brian Shaw were our head coaches for the summer league. And Kurt Rambis, I kept looking over the bench. He’s like, excuse my language, but he’s like, what the fuck you looking at? Like, go play the game. And we’ve all seen what Phil Jackson looks on the sideline. So he was the leader of the group at the time. And that’s what I observed with him is I saw he was very stoic, very non reactionary. And when I saw that, it gave me the confidence to go play the game.
And I remember reading Tony Dungy’s book, he talked about his high school coach. He believed that just like a teacher, our time to teach is in practice. And then the test is the game. And during the test, we’re quiet and we observe and we guide if we need to. And maybe we add some like perspective for them. But, you know, we lead them to the answers. We don’t give them the answers. That’s what I figured out that worked for me.
And I’ve just explored that kind of experiment in my own coaching career. And for a lot of the season, I like our teams to figure out the solutions for themselves. And I like them to figure out how to use each other, how to lean on each other, how to organize themselves to respond to a certain environment, to respond to a certain problem, to respond maybe to an adversity that we’ve encountered before. And Phil taught that to our group when I was a rookie. And that meant a lot to me because I love the feeling of empowerment in that I don’t have to look somewhere else for advice. I have to look within and then also lean on my teammates as well to figure out the solutions.
Pat 08:40
In the seasons, let’s say where you as a coach are thinking about adding more so complexity to start to challenge the group to grow, what kind of adversity do you look to add to a group that you think is capable of handling that?
Coby Karl 08:54
The way that I’ve done it, again, a lot of this stuff goes back to the way that the triangle was introduced to me as a rookie. It was the first system I played in. And the way that we’ve done it with our groups is we start very simple. We start with spacing. We start with drive and kick. We start with basic pick and roll concepts. We start with reading these situations. Maybe we’ll enter in a couple off-ball screens. But it has to be very simple, because then we can start to understand, OK, where are we sputtering? Or where is this not working? So I think the group will usually tell you when it wants more. It usually comes with frustration or it comes with dealing with pressure. OK, now we need to add some pressure releases, and then we can play within this. That’s the beauty of teaching from simplicity is because it’s very clear if we’re running a play and they’re denying the swing pass consistently. It’s like we need to come up with a pressure release to expose them when they try to deny it. And it can’t be a new play. It has to be within the system because this is pattern recognition. Like it’s five guys being on the same page. And I think when you add a different system to it, I think it adds more complexity. It’s solving the issue in a short amount of time, but it’s not solving the issue long term because we’ve all played in the playoffs. We’ve all played in those pressurized games. At the end of the day, it’s going to be probably the ball is going to be with your best player, their best defender. And you’re going to have to figure it out. And it becomes a random game. Just reverse engineering the concepts is like we have to take care of the basics at a very, very high level before we can get to, as my dad would say, like the cute stuff. The pretty stuff, the stuff that we like to draw up and the ATOs and stuff like that is because, you know, I think I’m guessing that 70 percent of the game is played in flow. It’s played in transitions, played without stoppage. So that’s where I’m going to put 70 percent of my attention as a coach.
Dan 10:44
Coach, you kind of just talked about it a little bit, but the balance between creating systems where players can thrive, be themselves, and then that balance of being too rigid, too rigid with your systems versus being too loose, and then there’s no structure. What you found about that gray area, that perfect balance we’re trying to achieve, so players feel the autonomy to be themselves, but also they’re within the structure of a good team.
Coby Karl 11:08
I think it goes back to the original conversation of coaching the whole. Dan, if we have you as our point guard and then you get injured and we bring Patrick in, we have to adjust to Patrick’s strengths. The whole changes. So like every individual changes the whole. With systems, there might be a group that we’re going to have to be more simple because we’re more athletic and we’re more aggressive. Maybe we’re more defensive minded. Maybe we’re going to have an older group who conceptually can handle things and has been through this before, and they played together before and they got a lot of reps together. So then we can handle the basics earlier and then we can add the nuance. You have to pay attention to who you’re coaching, not just putting the system as if everyone can handle it because that’s just not the way that people work. That’s not the way that teams work. And each individual changes the concept, changes the program and changes the foundation of what you’re doing and adds nuance to it.
Dan 12:00
Earlier in our conversation, you mentioned that as a player, you were perfectionist, sensitive to feedback, need to please. It’s interesting because those are a lot of traits that probably make good coaches. When you come across traits like that and you see them in players, knowing how that made you feel, what does that look like then in trying to help that player break through those walls so that they can feel the freedom and all those kinds of things and balance what can be good traits of perfectionism at times but not go over the edge with it.
Coby Karl 12:31
I think in general, a lot of times how I would coach myself, and so how I coach these people who are a little more sensitive to doing it the right way, right? One is life has taught me that there is no right way. There’s a right way for you, there’s a right way for me, and there’s a right way for everyone else, right? I remember I coached Miles Powell, and I didn’t love the way Miles played on the defensive end, and I didn’t love his shot selection. I love Miles because Miles believed in himself. I can’t put my truth onto him, like he has a whole different perspective, and it’s gotten him to be where he was. Where it comes into play for teaching a more sensitive player, getting back to the original point, is I think I have to have a conversation with him. It’s like, listen, I’m gonna give you a lot of freedom to play your way, right? These are the things that we were trying to accomplish, and I want you to use your creativity and your strengths to get these things accomplished, and then we can kind of step back and say, like, did this work? No, Dennis, okay, these are some things that I’ve tried, or maybe look at your teammate, and he’s doing this, do you think he could do that? It’s more of a conversation of giving him feedback, but very subtly, like trickling it in, because when you give them feedback, they become reliant on you, and I want them to be self-reliant. I want them to be reliant on each other when they’re on the court. I don’t want them to be reliant on us as a staff or me as a coach. I can help you at times, but we all know that players win the game, and we have to empower them to figure out how to win the game with their strengths and their weaknesses.
Pat 14:03
Our ability as leaders to create flow, and we’re not gonna be able to do it every game of course, but how we as leaders can influence flow and tying it to this coaching the whole mentality.
Coby Karl 14:15
The first thing that comes to mind is we’ve got to create a system, and we have to be clear, and we have to teach it well. First thing we teach, again, is spacing. Get into our spots, and what does that spacing look like, and what are the controllables within that spacing, and then we’re going to teach them some patterns. This is what we’re going to do in the initial transition. If it goes here, this is what we’re going to do. You have to teach them what is going to happen with each decision that’s going to be made on the court, and keep it simple. That’s where the rigidity comes in is, okay, we don’t want to do that. It’s a little too complex for us right now. Let’s get back to this. Once we teach them the simple things and the fundamentals, the basics, we start to get them through that, and then what you’ll see is, as we’ve all seen it, is they get very comfortable with the patterns, and then we add a different player, and then we got to go back a step, and we have to figure out, we got to introduce them to these patterns. That’s how you teach flow. It has to be simple. You have to have autonomy. You have to have rules that everyone is adherent to. It has to be on the correct challenge skills balance, which Dan asked about earlier, is how do you know when it’s too simple or too complex? Well, usually the players will tell you because they look confused, or they look bored, or they get frustrated with the structure and the boredom. To me, what I learned from Phil is, you have to fight back against the natural tendency to want to buck the system. Okay, I understand, but this is how we’re playing. We could run the Spain pick and roll, and we could add this nuance to it, but right now, let’s see if we can do this well enough to score without that. Maybe in the middle of the season, or maybe in a playoff series, we can add that complexity. To me, that’s how you create flows. We as coaches and leaders, we have to create a structure that is away from us. It’s presented to them on the court, and they do what they want with it, and then we have to teach them how to learn and work with each other in those systems. That’s where some self-awareness and some teaching, some video, some feedback comes into play for me.
Dan 16:39
Coach, this has been great so far. Thanks for all your thoughts there. We want to transition now to a segment on the show we call start, sub, or sit. We’re going to give you three options around a topic. Ask you to start one of them, sub one of them, sit one of them, and then we’ll discuss your answer from there. So Coach, if you’re set, we’ll dive into this first one. I’m set. Let’s go.
Pat 16:59
All right, coach, for our first start sub sit, we’ll go to the tactical side of coaching. We want to talk about offense and we’re big fans when you were at Delaware of your offense there. We did a breakdown on a couple of years ago and what we really appreciated about was among several things was you open the offense with a 45 cut. So our start subset has to be with opening your possession with a cut, with our 45 cut, but some sort of cut. And the start subset would be what you felt was the biggest advantage of beginning your possession with a cut. And we’ll take away outside of being able to maybe get a backdoor layup as the obvious one. So was it option one, the ability just to shift the help right away, change maybe the low tag, put the second help immediately into an action. Was it option two, the ability just to create a dynamic start or maybe an easier entry into the offense? Or is it option three to have the pressure released by creating a gap for the point guard. If there is pressure, you’re opening up a space that if they need to break the pressure with and play from there.
Coby Karl 18:09
I think I’ll go with the start in terms of the pressure release, and then that goes to the one that you didn’t want me to mention, but the beginning of the layup. And I think that’s the system basketball is that you have to execute that well, so that the wing can get open. If you have asked that back cut, and we never look for it, we never get it, I mean, we know as scouts, we’re like, well, you don’t have to guard it. You can just fold an eye, bottom man doesn’t have to come in and help. I think that’s number one is you have to execute the first thing well. So I think the ability to have a pressure release and shift the defense is definitely the most important thing. And then sub would be the, again, coaching the hole, right? The next thing is that opens up because that weak side bottom man has to come in for the back cut to help that opens up the wing to receive the entry into the offense. So like each one is connected and part of the whole is when I back cut, I put pressure on the weak side defender, therefore my wing man can lift up and receive the catch.
Pat 19:15
I’d like to follow up with, I believe it was your sub, in shifting the help and just the ability to create dynamic starts.
Coby Karl 19:24
Let me give credit to Dave Yeager first. That was Dave’s offense that he put in. I think he called it flow. And then they had like flow roll and flow touch and some variations of it. And when I was in trading camp, I wanted to play in a system. So I took the offense and actually just made it system in terms of like on that catch. So to your point, on the wing catch, that guy is, as we call it in the triangle, is the key spot. So at that point, and whatever decision he makes at that point, we play off of. So if he throws it to the high post, then we get to splits. If the high post is denied, then that guy goes and sets an away screen for the guard up top. But if he throws at the corner, then we’re going to run corner action. So each decision from that point, that guy really doesn’t have a lot of autonomy in terms of places to attack. It’s more of, he’s setting up the offense on the second side of the floor. And then we’re going to play through, you know, for example, we had Braxton Key that year, and he was really good at catching it at the high post and making decisions from there. And then Charles Bassey came to us and he wasn’t as good. We actually made it, the trigger was we went straight into a pick and roll with him just to play off the second side, pick and roll just to simplify the game for him because he’s a hell of a roller. Again, that we’re kind of like evolving the whole conversation and involving the whole conversation in the sense of that you got to adjust to your team. And a lot of times they’re going to tell you by how successful they are, and then also how comfortable they look.
Dan 20:49
How much at the NBA G Leauge do you look at and talk about your players, the skill of moving tags, understanding when you’re on the weak side, how good guys are naturally versus how much you have to teach them of not letting that low man sit there and really plug things and how to shift that person. And so I guess from a staff standpoint, how much you thought about shifting that player within a possession and how much was needed from a player standpoint for them to understand, hey, this is how you shift a tag and why it’s helpful.
Coby Karl 21:23
We didn’t talk a lot about it, to be honest. When we’re talking about the flow offense, you automatically switch it and you’re getting them to switch. It really depends again on your personnel. I think one thing I like to do is like to educate our players on the defense that the team that we’re playing against is going to play. If it’s a low man team, if it’s a heavy gap team, if it’s a pressure team. So I think to me, that’s more important than necessarily what they’re doing because we all saw OKC and I competed against Mark when he was with the Blue six years ago, and he’s been around the same defense since then. And it’s just going to be a major shift. They’re going to be in gaps. They’re going to be aggressive. They’re low man is going to be in. And I remember preparing for one of our playoff games. We just educated our guys. Hey, listen, on the strong side, when you drive it, they’re going to be at the nail. You got to get off. You got to throw the flow pass. And then on this attack, you’re competing against the low man. I want to rely on their sense and their feel not to pre meditate their decisions, but I want their awareness to be really high. If you can beat the low man to the rim, go get it. If you can’t, if he’s there, then who’s going to be open? The corner man. And then if he rotates down, if they’re able to shift that quickly, then you’re going to have either the corner man or the slot man. I think to me, I’m trying to create awareness and educate them more than I am in terms of telling them what to do. Yeah, I think versus some of these great defensive teams like you’re alluding to is sometimes that’s where tactically as a coach, I have to put in systems that are going to do that for them. I don’t want them thinking about that as individuals. I want them just executing as a group for what we’re trying to get done.
Dan 22:54
Another philosophical type question offensively. When you come up against a defense that does something really well, whether it’s gap pressure or how they hedge, all the things that defenses can be good at. Going into a game and talking with your team, what was the balance of trying to attack what they do well in a way, so teaching them how to attack out of the hedge or the low help, versus tactically trying to not let that defense get to their great stuff so you can more easily maybe play out of other options. So I guess the balance of learning how to attack what they do well versus not letting them get to it in a certain way.
Coby Karl 23:28
Obviously, that’s very philosophical, right? It’s all dependent on where are we in the season, how much practice time do we have? Do we even have a shoot-around or an NBA? So I think it’s very nuanced.
I think my mentality and my feeling as a player, and that I’ve taught our groups to do, is if they’re going to pressure us, get to your spacing and attack. He can’t guard you 94 feet. And if he can, give it to the next guy, we’ll give it to our five guy who can handle, and let him attack. There’s too much space in the game. Our players are too skilled at this point to allow for someone to pressure you that way. Now, if you are playing against a great defensive team, which we’re going to encounter if we want to pursue something special, then that’s where the pressure releases come in. We’re hopefully going to be working at those immediately early in the season, that first month, when teams start to figure out what we’re doing, and they’re going to try to start taking stuff away. That’s when the education starts.
Okay, they took away that, this is what we’re going to do. They took away this, this is what we’re going to do. And at that point, that’s where we start working on in practice, right? Okay, we encountered this last time we played. These are the patterns that we’re going to execute. And then we prepared it for man, and they were just a heavy gap team at that point. And they just relied on the shot blocker at the rim. So it’s going to be a probe attack. You’re going to engage that secondary defender, and then you’re going to attack the rim as hard as you can. And we’re going to put so much pressure on that shot blocker, and go straight through his chest every time, that they have to either get in foul trouble, we’re going to finish on them, or we’re going to find kickouts on it.
So I’m getting excited just talking about it. It’s like, when our groups encounter pressure, yeah, man, like, I love to attack pressure, because I just think as a competitor, sometimes coaches take away our instincts. If we’re going to open gym, and you’re picking me up full court, I’m going to attack you, Ash. That’s just like, I don’t think you can guard me. And granted, there are elite defenders, and there are special situations. And maybe that’s an area of growth for our group, that we don’t have a ball handler that can attack it. But we need to find a way, as a group, to figure out how we’re going to attack it, and how we’re going to empower someone within our group, to get into the paint and cause a problem.
Pat 25:34
Following up on Dan, when you’re looking at scout specific repairing for teams, you mentioned it too, like, you know, do you even have a shoot around? But if we look at like a shoot around, and I think a lot of coaches are thinking about this, like how to make shoot arounds better. But if you really want to try to teach something or improve something in a shoot around environment, obviously keep in mind that you guys have to play later that day. How do you think about being efficient in a shoot around to really get transfer into that night’s game? Bill Jackson.
Coby Karl 26:04
I have always said that teach the most important thing first. That’s when you’re going to have their attention. So I think sometimes you just got to get straight to it. When you were asking that question, my pattern as a head coach was we’re going to have a very similar shoot around every time and it’s going to be very limited. Cerebally, it’s not a lot of information. We want our guys to feel comfortable within the things that we’re doing. And what you’re talking about is that maybe we’re going to encounter something that we haven’t seen before. So I think that’s where as a coach that allows me to have a stronger voice in that situation is because the last five shoot arounds, we did the same thing and we’re in a good flow. And I really haven’t talked a lot as a head coach or our offensive coordinator hasn’t talked a lot. And we’re going to pay today. We’re focusing on this. They’re a heavy nail team. This is what we’re going to do to execute. So now I have their attention because I haven’t talked a lot. You know, my dad always talked about taking six bullets in a season. That’s where you can really go after him and get on them. But I think my voice can’t just go into an echo chamber where they stop listening to me. And if they do, then I have to empower one of my assistants to figure out a way to communicate with them. So I think your question is valid. The way I think about it is focus is a limited resource. And especially in our society at this point, the players we’re coaching probably don’t have great attention spans and we’re all diverse with the way we learn. So I think we just got to keep it very simple and probably handle it at the beginning of the shooter hound. So we have their focus and they’re fresh and then they’re not overwhelmed by the information that we’re teaching them. Because my goal after shoot around is that our guys feel great about what we’re doing and they feel great about the way they feel. And they love the game of basketball.
Dan 28:36
Coach, we’ll keep it moving for you here and head to our next Start Subsits. We’ll go back a little bit to the leadership element here. This question has to do with depth and growth as a leader. Stuff yet can’t be learned in a book on a podcast theory, but is earned depth as a leader. These are three different scenarios that a coach or leader may go through. Your start here would be what you feel adds the most depth and growth to that leader. Start Subsits, the first option is just a personal tough challenge, personally, something off the court, but you, your family, whatever it is, how that can add depth to you. The second option is just a bad season. You just go through a tough season with your team. Then the third option is just some kind of change in your life, coaching change, moving, whatever it is, new job, and just that change needing to add growth. Start Subsits, adding depth and growth as a leader, personal tough times, bad season as a coach, or change.
Coby Karl 29:35
I love this question because I think it kind of brings everything together from the start. So I think I’m starting personal because how you do anything is how you do everything. And how you handle your own personal adversities and how you handle yourself as an individual is going to trickle into everything else that we do. Then I’m going to sub the third one. I think basketball to me is the least, not necessarily important, but I think basketball is the cherry on top. If we handle ourselves as individuals off the court, if we handle our adversities in difficult situations, the third one was move. So yeah, I’m going to sub like a move or something and transition a change in our life. I think how we handle change, because the only constant is change, is very similar to then we can get to the third one with the season where we’re going to sit season or basketball is all these things are byproducts of the first two. If we can teach our players how to handle adversities and can have conversations with them, how they’re handling adversities off the court, how they’re handling adversities within their own individual game, not just within the team game. I think that trickles into everything else that we’re doing.
Dan 30:40
Pat and I were talking before the show and it’s a conversation we like to have off the podcast with tons of coaches. It’s just like true growth. It’s stuff that you can’t get in a book and we love reading, we love listening to, obviously we love podcasts, but so much of the education of a coach comes from just being in the fire and going through it and hence where this question came from. For you, at the end of any of these instances for you, what does the personal reflection or growth look like so that you gain the personal growth and it’s not lost on just complaining about circumstances or whatever it is that we can all get into but like that you actually grow from it. What does it look like for you?
Coby Karl 31:17
This is a conversations with yourself I think it’s one taking one hundred percent accountability for your influence in situations we talked about that with our players is as a team i think it’s our responsibility to explain who we’re responsible to why we’re doing this who are doing this for. When I was a leader able to accept that i failed it’s something maybe hard to as a competitor to accept and culturally something that we don’t like to admit but i think it’s almost a superpower in a sense that once i can accept i’ve failed my group that preparing them or i failed my family that putting them in a situation where they’re comfortable and safe you know like i think once i accept that then i can reflect back on okay where did i make these errors and then i can start to say okay when did i start like whatever came to fruition our team was selfish okay what did i put in early in the season or what conversations did i have with my staff what conversations that i have with my players that may be trickled into that influencing that group and i think that’s the where the reflection process is is you got to go all the way back to the beginning and then on top of that is like what about myself is selfish what are the things that i’m embodying in front of my group that are selfish am i treating my staff correctly am i treating the people our support staff selfishly i think that’s where if we really want to like get better at something i think we got to really be honest with ourselves and i’m getting sad just thinking about it all the mistakes that i made so i think that’s what allows us to grow is when we’re honest with ourselves and we have people around us that are going to hold us to it and be honest with us about some of these difficult things and also remind you that yes you did influence it negatively but also you did some things pretty well along the way too
Dan 33:02
Coach, earlier, we were kind of talking about failure within all of this, and it being something that’s obviously really useful for growth and for becoming better as a player and a coach and all that. But then at the pro level where you’re at, too much failure can cost jobs, livelihood, things like that. When thinking about failure from a motivation standpoint, they have a healthy arrangement with it. Because how have you thought about that? Where you’re using it for growth, but also you know that too much of it is harmful and within all this depth as a leader, where that sits within your thoughts as a leader, as a whole.
Coby Karl 33:38
Yeah, I think you’re spot on. When I hear you ask the question though, I’m thinking failure in the grand sense of like we have had a failure of a season, right? We’ve not managed to live up to our expectations or just our potential. So I think in some ways that’s a failure. Where I look at failure is in the microscopic as well, not just the macro. And I think that’s where when we as leaders are able to communicate responsibilities clearly, maybe within a system, within offense, within a defense, then that’s where we’re talking about failure. It’s like, I remember vividly when you start asking the question, okay, so he was playing Denver and I coached Alex Caruso and I love him as a human being. I love him as a leader. I love him as a player. I think he’s, you know, obviously now he’s the goat for everyone. Alex was guarding the ball, I think, and he got beat or maybe he was in the weak side slot and Jay Dub was the low man. He didn’t rotate over and stopped the ball. And Alex was irate. And I think they’re up like 15 with six minutes to go in the fourth quarter. And like Alex was irate with him. To me, that’s failure. Jay Dove, you have failed us as a group. So I think that’s where we need to articulate and clarify failure within our group is like, I’m relying on you to be there, right? I can’t do my job unless you do your job. And it just goes back to the microscopic. And I think that’s where if we address those things clearly, and we’re simple enough, and then we build relationships with each other where we can have some difficult conversations like that, then that’s where we don’t have to encounter the failure that you’re talking about.
So I think that’s where as leaders, if we’re too complicated, and we’re too ambitious, and we’re ignoring what’s going on with our group, then that’s where I think we lose, like we’re just ignoring, oh, maybe my best player didn’t rotate down. I’m just going to ignore it. Now, that’s okay, because you’re going to have to do that because we’re asking a lot of our best player, but there’s probably going to be an instance where our group gets a little frustrated with him not rotating, right? And then that’s where as a leader, we’re going to have to address it in a group setting to try to hold each other accountable and understand expectations from each other. So I think that’s what I think about when I hear failure is more so when you can feel your group getting frustrated with each other, when you can feel frustration, either with yourself or frustration with the situation. So let’s dive into this frustration so we can learn from it. And then we can grow from it. Whereas when you’re talking about a season, I think that’s where we’re not addressing things clearly, or we don’t have relationships that we can really be honest with each other. Or maybe we’re too complicated. I remember I had a season in South Bay where I reflected back and we were way too complicated, way too early. And our guys got lost in it. And I don’t think we ever caught back up. And they kind of lost the essence of team because we were trying to do something a little too complicated for where they were as a group.
Pat 36:27
As a coach, what skills do you think about to help your players deal with adversity in the personal sense, off the court, especially as the league skews younger, but even if you’re college coaches or high school coaches that have rosters full of young men, you know, young adults.
Coby Karl 36:46
I think it’s a really valuable question. And I think that’s actually where the NBA is heading is because our players are becoming so talented and they are so much younger. They have the skills on the court, but I don’t see all of them having the skills off the court, which we shouldn’t. So I think as a coach, I have to be of great integrity. I got to be honest with my words and I got to be clear and I got to be fair. So my relationship with them as a coach is not going over the line where they can trust me as a human being because off the court or after practice, I want to be able to give them space to feel safe, to have a conversation with me about something else. And I want them to know that I care about them more than as a basketball player. I care about them as a human being, because it goes back to the beginning. If my family life and my personal life is in shambles, I’m probably not going to be performing at the level that I can potentially perform at. Unless I have this immense drive, not just thinking back to Kobe when he went through his trial, unless we have this thing within us that drives us. But again, that’s still, that’s a short-term fuel source, like anger and drive our short-term fuel sources. We want to be doing something that fuels us and makes us feel special about what we’re doing and makes us feel seen so that when we encounter these situations, when we encounter adversity on the court, we feel comfortable because when I encountered real adversity, whether it’s the loss of a family member or the loss of financial situation, like when I encounter those situations with humility and honesty and compassion, I think then that’s where we can do that on the court. So how we do anything is how we do everything again.
Dan 38:31
Coach, well said, you’re off the start, supper, sit, hot seat. Thanks for going through those two questions with us. That was a ton of fun. We got a final question to close the show, but before we do, really appreciate your thoughts today. This was a really thoughtful conversation, so thank you.
Yeah, thank you guys for the platform. Coach, our final question that we ask all the guests is what’s the best investment that you’ve made in your career as a coach?
Coby Karl 38:55
I work with a personal coach and that’s the best investment I’ve made, leadership, psychologist. So I think that investment has paid off into all the conversations that we’re having within my marriage, my life as a father, as a human being in communities. I think that’s by far the best investment I’ve made in my life and my career is to get to know myself a little better, a little deeper and try to get a little more self-understanding and where I fit, what makes me unique, what makes me different and what makes these adversities that we’re going through, are they normal or are they different? You know, a lot of these questions we’ve discussed today go back to that. How am I handling things? You know, I told you guys I’m in the midst of a move and for all the coaches and players and human beings that have made moves before, it’s a lot of stress, right? But I’m very comfortable in it and it’s hard. And I also know that this move and after we get done, man, we’re going to feel great as long as we don’t say some things that we don’t mean. And as long as we get through it with our integrity intact, then these are the things that form confidence and these are the things that form resilience. And I think that’s what comes to mind is just that relationship with the coach that I work with has allowed me to understand that maybe I haven’t had the adversity of poverty or abuse in my life, but I have had adversities of moving 20 times before I was 20 years old and living in a foreign country and being the son of a public figure. There’s a lot of good things that come with those things, but there’s also a lot of trauma that comes with those things. And I think that process for me has been very fulfilling and allowed me to be more confident with who I am and how I handle situations.
Dan 40:45
Pat, love having these conversations that bring in this fold of flow and leadership and thinking about things from like how everything connects standpoint. I know this gets our juices flowing and we just hopped off like a post-podcast conversation for about 30-40 minutes with Coach Karl just about all this stuff even deeper and it’s just always interesting and fun for us.
Pat 41:07
Yeah, I really enjoyed hearing his thoughts on his approach and just the importance he put into not only his relationship with the players, but relationships with his family with management off the court and how he views those relationships as influencing how he coaches His players on the court. I thought was a really unique perspective and fun to talk about today 100 percent Dan with that being said let’s get into our wrap-up here and i’ll throw it to you for the first takeaway
Dan 41:34
But in the first bucket, a lot in there, I think what I would like to pull out, I mean, one just sort of circled quote that I thought about some eyes, a lot of this was just that everything connects. You can’t pull out one part of coaching or tactics or whatever it is and it’s not isolated, everything matters. And so you got that sense with Coach Karl today that he thinks deeply about what you just mentioned, what relationships mean and how that connects to all that kind of stuff. I think that some of the more interesting parts to me were your follow-up about control versus influence when you’re talking about flow and you’re talking about letting people be who they are. And I think there was some interesting parts about what we can or can’t control and then some follow-ups too about like system versus flow and system versus freedom. And we get to that conversation a decent amount on the podcast and his thoughts on how you try to create systems so that individuals can be themselves within it. Reminding me of our conversation with Utah Jazz Head Coach Will Hardy, who talked about that a lot, like trying to devise these systems and the way you play, that players feel free to express themselves.
Pat 42:47
I loved your follow-up question as he had alluded to when he was a player, constantly kind of looking over the shoulder for the coach and how that’s helped shape him as a coach in dealing with those players that he kind of sees himself in. And I love that follow-up. I loved his thoughts there. And then the points you made on his approach to like how he views systems or how he views offensive systems. I thought he spoke really well on trying to achieve like flow as a group, which is very challenging and hard, but the goal. And also when to add complexity. And I highlighted, and I think the thing I took away from the whole first bucket was the group will tell you and that he kind of viewed his role within these systems to more or less kind of bring up the guardrails and allow the players the autonomy within it. And then just to be observant as a coach. And when he talked about complexity and adversity, like the group will tell you, he talked about like, are they getting bored? Then they need some more complexity. Are they getting frustrated by the board? Are they getting frustrated because it’s too hard? And then maybe we’re skipping steps and we need to get back to more basics. And kind of approaching everything with being simple, putting in the groundwork with how you build the relationships, and then just observing and kind of always constantly checking in. I think, you know, maybe another miss was we talked a little bit, not a miss, but in our prep, we talked a little bit about how we as coaches can kind of stay in tune with our teams. And I think he kind of throughout it spoke about it, and then maybe we didn’t hit it right on the nail. But I think this observing the group, just constantly taking check ins with your team to see what they need. And then that’s how you kind of get to the tactics, you know, like the tactics your team needs or what your team is telling you you need.
Dan 44:32
Yeah, it’s sort of another theme I think of the podcast. It was just the value of pause and observance To help you make decisions a very sort of probably Phil Jackson esque way of looking at coaching Which obviously he’s mentioned such a big influence on him it’s interesting to hear him talk and I think the education of a coach is interesting and how we Become better and better over time and what we do and I think so many of us We start out sort of emulating who we were coached by or what we think works And as we get to know ourselves more I think a lot of us start to coach and try to become a coach that we wish we had in a way I think he kind of brought that up a little bit and the reason I’m circling it He talked about himself being sensitive perfectionists wanting to please and wanting to be that coach now for his players And as a player himself when he finally found someone like Phil that sort of opened up for him How he could think about playing he became a better player And so I think you know a lot of the progression of for us as coaches is trying to coach in a way that you know When we came across Maybe places in our own playing career that we wish someone was a little different or you know, whatever it is We try to steer towards that So I think it was just interesting hearing me talk about the influences of his dad of Phil Jackson of others places along the way That he’s now become his obviously his own person and kind of bridging some of these different philosophies together I thought was another unique bringing it together thing
Pat 45:56
Hearing you speak on it, we’ve ran into these conversations a couple of times with learning your voice or the mistake of trying to coach like somebody else. And again, it’s something you have to kind of trial by fire, but I think you don’t get to that if you don’t start by kind of reflecting upon yourself and like who you are. And again, I think that’s where maybe the mistakes happen or we as coaches kind of put, let’s say the carriage in front of the horses, but we just think tactically this work, we’re going to do this and you’re not really, well, who am I as a leader? Who am I as a person? How do I want to coach? And how do I form relationships? Because that really moves the needle that drives the tactics. I think that’s what this conversation was really beneficial for today. If we
Dan 46:40
We could change up the recap here a little bit because we’re talking about what would be my other point here, we’ll flow into it and then we’ll get to here as a third point. But in the other start, sub sit would be another big takeaway which is kind of what you talked about here which is knowing yourself. We got into the depth and growth as a leader and you started personal tough times and then the change and things like that and talk about just like needing to reflect and how those things can add depth. And so just to kind of piggyback now onto point two, I thought that was a related part of this whole conversation and I really liked when we got into failure and what that looks like and what that means and he was good at not all failure is the same and he gave the example I believe of Caruso getting on Williams about the failure to not being a gap different than the failure of a season, different than like a failure of some other kind. And so I thought that was like a good part of it too, just him talking about that in that start subset.
Pat 47:40
100% the key distinction I took away was when he talked about the micro versus the macro failures because you had another great follow-up Thanks, you’re on fire today, Dan, you know credit where credit is deal But it is the delicate dance between yes failure helps us grow. It helps teams grow We learned from failure but too much of it and then you are out of a job and the unique nature of this profession But coach Karl to his point I think spot-on you can’t get worried about the macro failures because That’ll keep you up at night.That’s probably when you get the emotional responses But it’s the micro failures and like addressing those kind of nipping those in the butt once they happen So Alex Caruso’s example being right on. Yeah, whoever the player was it’s the rotation putting those fires out right away Helps then in the long term avoid the macro failures
Dan 48:30
Yeah, failure is a fascinating topic in general because you and I, and many coaches obviously listen to this, you’re trying to view failure as a mechanism for growth. True. But as coaches and players, you also know that too much fail here. You lose a job or as a player, you don’t make enough shots. At a certain point, you’re not going to play. There is a line where, yes, it’s used for growth, but then coach has got to play the best five players. So if you’re not making shots or you keep turning it over as much as you want to use that failure for growth, when it comes to crunch time or game, decision does need to be made. So it’s always balancing that stuff like the micro, the macro of when it’s right there, when you feel it, when you know, hey, a five game losing streak, that sucks for a coach and a team. I think what probably the best leaders and coaches talk about is just the response to all of that is actually where the value is.
Pat 49:24
When we get the opportunity to talk to coaches and coaches that had success and that are great leaders at all comes back to being the process orientated process or results.
Dan 49:35
Okay, Pat, now that I’ve taken 0.1 and 2, now it’s your time to shine.
Pat 49:40
Like I said, you’re on fire today. So, you know, I also got to know when to get out of the way and just let you cook.
Dan 49:47
I’ll let you bring it home, so let’s go to point number three.
Pat 49:49
Yeah, I’ll bring it home. Our last point, from the start subset, looking at the power of opening a possession with the cut. And like I talked about or alluded to, we had the opportunity to break down Coach Carl’s offense with Delaware and the G League. A great offense, I think really exemplifies playing simple but effective. Love hearing his thoughts on like the value of that cut being a pressure release, shifting the help. I’m going to jump ahead though, what I really enjoyed, and maybe it is kind of off topic, but the start subset led us to it was just his thoughts on the shoot around. And I know we hear it a lot with the coaches coming from the NBA, it’s practicing less and less, Coach Van Gunne referenced it. But I think even in college and high school level or over here in Europe, we’re thinking about whether it’s a shoot around or Coach Topper talked about half time, like everything’s a chance to get better and how can we try to improve these things. And I enjoyed Coach Carl’s thoughts, just how they’re thinking about a shoot around if it’s the only time they’re going to be able to get guys on the floor. And maybe if there is something that there actually needs to be a teaching moment, not just we’re out here to move our bodies and go through emotions, or we need to improve something, a scheme, you know, what kind of conversation came about when we were just talking about scheming against teams that defend well. And I just liked his points when he talked about, you know, maybe then just hop right into it, you know, first thing, when he talked about saving your bullets by having a set routine with every shoot around. So when you need to break the routine, you have the guy’s focus, it stands out. And you know, what did he say focus is a limited resource. And using that methodology, that approach to where our guys know what’s going to happen. But on the days I do need to break it up, break the rhythm, so to speak, and maybe like snap some out of it grabs their focus. And I like those tidbits there.
Dan 51:36
True point on the shoot around. I think that’s always something coaches were trying to figure out how to make it so our players aren’t just eyes glazed over as we walk through sets and they, you know, shoot a couple of jumpers. And yeah, is it just for us as coaches to feel better? Does it really help them? I don’t think there’s an exact science, but it’s always trying to figure out that balance like coach Carl mentioned, and you did as well. So that was a good follow up. And I like that little tangent that you guys went down going to the question for those wanting to see it. We do have a full deep dive breakdown on it. It was really good. I mean, and what we liked about it is that first early 45 cut, if you can imagine a player sort of bringing the ball down in the right ish slot, and then they’re going to cross over the court, they’re going to 45 cut the wing and then play kind of a dribble pitch or hand off with the player coming from the wing as now five is lifting behind. I think what you and I really liked is it just was as you watch their offense rather than always coming down and just kind of get into like a delay set right away where everybody’s a little stagnant. There was nice movement and cutting before you get to what was a similar type of movement with then they can play splits and handoffs and zero cuts and all these kinds of things. For lack of a better word, the theme of the podcast, there was a nice flow when you watch it. The flow is really nice. Everything’s moving and the cuts and the spacing is really good. So I did like him here and talk though about the pressure release. We didn’t put it in there because an obvious backdoor layup on that first 45 is, of course, you’re going to take it, it’s the best thing. And he kind of brought that back into the start-subsip, which is great, but I liked him talking about that cut also opens up. If that guy guarding the ball doesn’t do a good job and their point guard has the opportunity, you mentioned a couple good point guards he’s had, he can get downhill right away and put pressure that way. It opens up that space as well. So I like that little nuance of why that cuts good for so many things. And there’s much more in our breakdown. I’m not doing an ad here for it, but I just think if people want to see it, that’s where it all is.
Pat 53:32
Within this conversation we’re talking about just his preference if a team is going to pressure you then let’s beat it and let’s play ball and I think by having that cut you always have sort of that bullet in the chamber so to speak to hey you know the space is going to be there so if the defense is aggressive like just you know where to attack and then we play from there so to your point a great way to stay aggressive for the offense but then also it was fun to see him studying the film just that little advantage from that space clearing cut the little advantage it created in terms of the movement it generated the pressure release and how everything just kind of trickled down from there to a bigger advantage and the defense would seem to be always chasing the possession no doubt
Dan 54:14
Pat we both gave a couple of little misses throughout not by coach Carl of course, but is there anything else? We could have gone deeper on potentially
Pat 54:22
Yes, I’ll cheat a little bit, only because if we reference a great conversation that no one’s gonna hear after the podcast, we talked about the role of group hierarchy. I’ll go back to our conversation with Owen Eastwood, tremendous conversation on that, but I think within this teaching the whole and leadership conversation, there is the role of hierarchy in the group, the role it plays, how do you establish it, flat hierarchies versus top-down, just what his thoughts would have been on group hierarchies.
Dan 54:50
Yeah, we had a great, you know, 30, 40 minute conversation after that. We don’t keep referencing because people can’t hear it, but we did talk about that and the importance that plays of locker room dynamics and all that kind of stuff. So once again, we appreciate coach Karl for coming on. This was a really insightful conversation. Thank you everybody for listening and we’ll see you next time.
Pat 55:14
Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Please make sure to visit slappinglass.com for more information on the free newsletter, Slapping Glass Plus, and much more. Have a great week coaching, and we’ll see you next time on Slapping Glass.