We sit down with Coach Roy Rana — one of the most globally experienced minds in the game — to explore what it truly means to design a program. From his time with Egypt’s National Team and the Kyoto Hannaryz to stints in the NBA, Rana shares how he builds culture through intentional design, clear communication, and relentless attention to detail.
We dive into:
- Turning every meeting into a designed experience that reflects your values.
- Profiling teams and identifying the quickest ways to impact performance.
- Using visuals, environment, and tone to communicate across cultures.
- Teaching spacing through tactile learning and progressive complexity.
- Redefining “roles” with aspiration, not limitation.
- Treating Baseline Out of Bounds as soccer-style set pieces with multi-layer reads.
A masterclass in leadership and intentional coaching, Rana challenges us to move beyond drills and systems — and start designing experiences that inspire trust, clarity, and growth.
Transcript
Roy Rana 00:00
Where I’ve become much more intentional is understanding that when you take over a program, you’re designing an experience. You’re designing an experience for your athletes. You’re designing an experience for your staff. You’re designing an experience for everybody that walks into your environment in some ways. So I’ve really started to put more energy into that.
So what is our first team meeting going to look like? What are the tools that we’re gonna use to communicate the things that are important to us? What is the design of that group gonna be? Is that learning gonna be active learning? Is that learning gonna be passive learning? I want everybody to walk out of the first meeting that I’ve had with them and say, that was the best meeting I’ve ever been a part of. That’s the goal.
Dan 02:10
And now please enjoy our conversation with coach Roy Rana. Coach, thank you very much for making the time. I know you’ve had a busy summer. We’re excited to talk to you today.
Dan 02:25
Thanks guys. Honor, I’ve listened to many an episode out walking and just learning and growing through it. So thank you very much for all you do.
Dan 02:33
Thank you, Coach, we wanted to start with a broader general topic of program building, program design, and your background. You’ve done this a ton with different nations, different teams that you’ve come in and built and designed programs around whatever it is that you have or have coming in. And so we thought that’d be an interesting place to start because it’s applicable obviously to all levels, what coaches are doing, and just how you think about going into a program build or program design.
Roy Rana 03:03
Great question, and I would share this that that evolves over time as well in the amount of resources that you have to really build with. But the first thing that I look at is I try to learn the environment of where I’m going and the landscape of the league or the professional environment within that country, within that level, sometimes within that league. So for me, I think a big thing that’s been important for me in my journey now recently has been profiling. So I’ll share an example of what I did when I coached Egypt’s national team through their World Cup journey. We ended up in Manila and had a pretty good run all the way through. And when I took over that program, the first thing that it was trying to kind of have an understanding of where their strengths and weaknesses were, just by looking at numbers and really profiling what the top teams in a particular region looked like, and then why Egypt at that point in time they had finished 11th in Afro Basket, what was the challenge? Where could I have the quickest impact? Because you don’t have a lot of time with national teams.
So one of the clear things that really popped out was foul rate. So the Egyptians had the highest number of personal fouls in Afro Basket. I think they averaged like 21, 22 per game. So in our first meeting, we talked about driving the foul rate down with the team, showed them the numbers. And that’s just one small example. But those are in some ways opportunities to impact your teams as quickly as you can when you take over a program, because it’s different really from environment to environment. So that’s a national team. So in a national team, your roster is going to stay somewhat relatively the same. Whereas in a professional team, when I was in Japan, now that profiling can involve a lot of roster construction. So what are the top teams in the league look like? What’s their style of play? What do the analytics show that really separate them? Is it forced turnovers? Is it offensive rebounding percentage? Is it effective field goal percent? Then how do we try to chase that and get into that grouping of teams using whatever style of play that we’re trying to implement? So that’s probably the foundation now where I start is to really kind of find out what the best teams in whatever environment you’re in are doing, looking at that and then trying to jump into that grouping in whatever way that you can control.
Dan 05:26
You mentioned with Egypt, you came in, you looked at the foul rate and that was like an analytical thing that you looked at. When you go into a situation, you find a stat like that, or you find like an area of growth besides looking at the stats. What else goes into figuring out what to do and how to do it?
Because you might want to stop the foul rate, but if it’s a personnel thing, who else do you talk to? Do you meet with players? Do you meet with key decision makers to then start to make the heavy lift to change whatever it is that you need to change?
Roy Rana 05:55
I’ll move it even broader and then I’ll bring it back. I think some things are just not that complicated in how you communicate what you’re trying to accomplish. But you mentioned a little bit about program design. And I think where I’ve become much more intentional is understanding that when you take over a program, you’re designing an experience. You’re designing an experience for your athletes. You’re designing an experience for your staff. You’re designing an experience for everybody that walks into your environment in some ways. And there’s coaches out there that do an incredible job of this. And maybe they don’t even think about it this way. So I’ve really started to put more energy into that. So what is our first team meeting going to look like? What are the tools that we’re gonna use to communicate the things that are important to us? What is the design of that room gonna be? Is that learning gonna be active learning? Is that learning gonna be passive learning? I want everybody to walk out of the first meeting that I’ve had with them and say, that was the best meeting I’ve ever been a part of. That’s the goal.
For that to happen, there’s a design element to it, and there’s an experiential design element to it. So when you talk about some of the people that I talked to, I have a very good friend who’s in the design world. He’s an architect. He runs a design firm. We have lots of conversations about these types of things, how to be more impactful. But in the end, when it comes to something like foul rate, I would share that we gotta have that conversation together. So it’s not just a number that’s for the staff to find the solution. We need to say, hey, this is important to us. We have to figure out how we’re gonna get better here together and then have that conversation right from the start. So you’re probably gonna pick one or two or maybe three that you can dive into. And then the key becomes, can you stay focused on it? Can you come back to it? Can you hit on it at a regular basis in whatever you’re implementing? And then hopefully you have results.
Dan 07:44
Coach, if I could kind of tug at the thread of the first team meeting and making it the best team meeting they’ve hopefully ever been to, what goes into that? What are you trying to portray? How is it structured? You know, any details on that first team meeting that you found that are impactful?
Roy Rana 08:01
I can tell you, when I was with the Kings, I had the pleasure of helping organize that coaching retreat. So we had tons of resources. Nice hotel, we had somebody to come in and help us, we had some speakers. It was a pretty powerful thing that we were able to create in an interesting environment.
But I’ve had them in hotel rooms, I’ve had them in classrooms, I’ve had them on the court. But wherever you have an opportunity to, sometimes it’s just what you show on film. What do you decide to show on film? How do you decide to do it? Is it a fun video? I mean, I know people have played around with a lot of this stuff on film. But sometimes it’s also just how do you design your space? How do you use your time? And do you want to bring other people in? And do you want to feed them? I know these things are simple things, but they are impactful. And then of course, quality of the information that you provide, and how you communicate that is probably the most important thing because that’s why you’re meeting.
Dan 08:53
The intriguing statement you made about your friend in the design world, any other learnings or things that you talk about that you bring to basketball and meetings from that design world conversation.
Roy Rana 09:04
I mean, there’s so many of them because so much of it is visual when you put something visual in front of your players, what does that look like? So for me now, that next step in presentation has become what do I want that to look like? What kind of impact do I want that to have?
And you know, thought partners in a lot of different areas are really important. Now at this stage in my journey as a coach, I seek out thought partners in a lot of different spaces and places and try to find out what they’re doing. I mean, most of them are basketball, they’re either fans or they love the game. So it’s easy to have these conversations. But I think that’s a place where we can bring innovation, bring something that’s unique. And I think our players really enjoy that as well, because it’s a different, especially when you think about the first meeting, and you know, I shared this with the coach the other day is the first meeting super important, but then you got 50 more probably over the course of the season. They come in a lot of different forms. It might be in the locker room, might be post game, might be a shoot around, might be practice film. There’s lots of places where we meet. And what is the experience of those meetings every day? What do we want that to feel like? How long do we want that to be? So I think there’s a lot to be said about these things and how we can design.
Pat 10:16
In talking about visuals and communication, what have you learned from going across these different countries where English isn’t the first language? What have you learned about in terms of how you communicate and what is kind of universal across communication, regardless of the language?
Roy Rana 10:33
The first thing that I need to try and figure out is the cultural nuances of the place that I’m at, because sometimes language, it’s really more about interpretation than it is about actually communication. You want to make sure that whatever it is you’re sharing is being interpreted the right way. And sometimes the tone of your voice, those little nuances of communication you may not realize is having a particular impact or an effect on in a place where maybe English isn’t the first language. I kind of want to learn that.
And then the rest, eventually they’re going to adapt to the communication of the head coach. They’re going to figure it out as well. So it’s a little bit of that push and pull. Now in Japan, I had an interpreter, which was really interesting. Great coach, love him. He’s still with me. But sometimes you’re not necessarily sure as I may want a message to come across very strong. Does that message come across very strong? Sometimes you just don’t know. It’s an interesting place. And then to be honest with you, both in Egypt and Jordan, tons of English being spoken, very educated population, really kind of up to basketball knowledge and terminology. So that was really easy.
Pat 11:40
And we’ve talked about system and your system adapting it and looking at the profile of the league, but what about looking at how those players were coached and adapting how you need to coach to fit maybe the coaching style that they’ve were raised on in their respective countries.
Roy Rana 12:00
For me, that’s really more about to kind of assess where their physical preparation is. Maybe to some degree, what type of mental situation from a pressure perspective they’ve been put under, and then obviously, their conceptual knowledge of the game, the environment that they’re in. For me, it’s more about that.
I don’t necessarily try to adapt the way I am. I try to continue to be who I am, wherever I am, but also try to understand where they’re coming from. So I have a better understanding of maybe where I need to focus my attention. Maybe that’s in player development. Maybe that’s just in communication when we have meetings. It’s really more studying the system so I can learn more about the players, as opposed to modifying who I am to fit the system.
Dan 12:42
Coach bringing this all onto the court, because we talked first meeting and that kind of stuff, thoughts now on implementing whatever system, first of all, deciding what kind of system maybe you’re gonna run in offense or defense or both, and then first steps to implementing these things within this new program.
Roy Rana 13:01
You’ve had a lot of great coaches on here that have shared a lot of the technical side, but I think probably the first thing that I’m doing is just spacing, just talking about the different spacings that we’re going to have. We’re going to start there because I think that’s universal, regardless of the personnel you have now, the personnel now that once you plug that into your spacing rules, you kind of know who you got to have cut a little bit more than stand on the perimeter and shoot a low percentage three. What kind of actions do you want to run out of that particular spacing for your team? How do you want to layer into what you’re doing so that there’s a little bit more fluidity in your offense? So I think spacing is always the beginning for me now is really being very clean and clear on that and then building based on the qualities of the talent that you can put on the floor and building a system. Obviously that’s not necessarily too complex, but at the same time has complexity built into it because once you start to go to the next level, let’s just say it’s in a FIBA tournament, and once you get to the World Cup, now all of a sudden you’re in a different level and you’re going up against Lithuania and you got to have a little bit more in your toolbox than just drive and kick or mid pick and roll, you’re going to have to be able to score in different ways because they’re just too good. So I think it’s a progression, but it’s always starts with the spacing.
How do you teach spacing? What I can tell you is what I’m doing now, which I think is kind of interesting. So in the past, I talked a lot about spacing. We drilled it, made a lot of drive and kick one more. We did a lot of that, just to kind of re-space and really kind of just kind of drive it home. And then this past season in Kyoto, we actually put some Xs on the court. So we put some line markers on the court and we did it every day for the whole season and we just drove our spacing principles based on the Xs and it was available for us after practice on games. We would often impose the Xs on through whatever software we were using. And we just drove it home every day through film. And then obviously on the court, we could always challenge our guys about when there was confusion, Hey, get to an X. We kind of made that kind of a core foundation of how we were going to engage spacing was by using physical markers on the court. And I thought that really helped us. I thought it was a good reminder for the guys to get to the spots we wanted them to get to and then play from there. So that’s been the evolution for me as I’ve taken that learning to a little bit more, let’s call it tactile, as opposed to just conceptual. When we’re talking about spacing, it’s a little bit easier to hold people accountable to something that’s physical on the court.
Dan 15:45
Why did you make that change? I mean, I’m assuming you think it was better for learning, but the steps to getting to that.
Roy Rana 15:52
I think Brett Brown had an NBA four-point line in Philly that they used as, you know, that was kind of the range of where you could shoot a three in your percentage flow. But it was also the underlying where, you know, anything over that, you would just go under the screen. I thought that was really good. It made it really simple and new teaching.
To be honest, I had a committed staff that worked really hard, that were okay with coming in every morning and taping the court. Those lines didn’t stay down. We’d put them down every day. That was a lot of work. But we had a really great group that was committed to that. And we decided that this was something that we really wanted to be good at. And this is how we decided that we were going to commit to it, that we were going to make it a little bit more real than just conversation and words and terminology.
Pat 16:34
You mentioned with higher tournaments, the World Cup, that obviously then the complexity or the nuance of your offense needs to grow, but regardless of let’s say the competition, how do you as a coach identify when your offense is ready to get more complex or like scale complexity into your offense?
Roy Rana 16:54
I would probably tell you two things. I’m probably going to scale the complexity and right from the beginning, but then I’m probably going to use it slowly over time. I think it’s easier to teach everything in one shot or as much as you can in one shot and then hit on it on a daily basis and touch on it when you need.
And maybe when you have your assistants and they’re coaching against each other, they can sprinkle it into their ATOs or because we’re going to have clear language around whatever those, let’s call them complexities or layers, whatever we want. They’re clearly identifiable. You know, we could just say for a youth team, maybe the Spain pick and roll or the stack pick and roll may not be, but at what point time in the season could you put it in? There’s a lot of different layers that can be added. I like to kind of do it right from the start as much as I can, because I think there’s really four or five key pieces that you can add to your offense. And then how do you kind of sprinkle in? When do you use it?
Pat 17:50
Coach, can I just follow up on what are those four or five key pieces?
Roy Rana 17:53
Well, I mean, the Finland action is certainly one right back screen pin down that Spain pick and roll. It could be the big set in the screen and then veering into a pin down, which we call dot action. It could be a point screen where, you know, you’re in transition, you go hit them and then you have your shooter flying off that type of almost like that flat. I wouldn’t call it a wide pin, but that kind of flat pin to the sideline.
So, you know, you can choose whatever those four or five are, but I don’t think you can have, I wouldn’t put in too much. Let’s put it that way, decide what your four or five core pieces are that you can build on, and that might only be three based up on, again, on a national team summer, you may not have the time and you’re going to have to pick what your priorities are, but again, in Kyoto, we played a 60 game regular season, 10 games in the preseason, you know, it’s almost an NBA schedule. You’re going to need more diversity in your offense as you start to go through the season anyway.
Dan 18:45
As a head coach, when you come into a new program, what do you find 80% of your effort is going into to make that heavy lift to get it to, you know, step one to step two? I mean, we’ve talked about a lot of stuff, but what do you feel like is most important part of your time management in coming into these builds?
Roy Rana 19:04
For head coaches, the thing that is most taxing, but is also the biggest need is individual conversations. So if you think of an organization that you enter that may have 30, 35 people, how are you going to have an individual conversation with each and every one of them that makes them feel good, gives them clarity on their role, and gives them the independence to do the job that they love, but at the same time, understand that they need to be a team player and we have core values and all those things that are in some ways probably more important for your staff than they are for your players.
But now you have your players. So when I get into a country and I have four days to start training with a country and I don’t really know any of the players, maybe one, that’s the thing that really takes a lot of time and energy and effort. And I think that’s probably the most important thing with any new group. Can you touch them and can you communicate them on an individual basis as much as you can and then start to really hone in on team.
Pat 20:05
When talking role clarity in those early meetings, like you said, as you’ve just come in, what are you mindful of in terms of how definitive you are with that player’s role clarity when you have that first conversation?
Roy Rana 20:17
I think there’s a lot of different ways to think about roles, but I think what I try to do is make whatever role is given an aspirational role. So it’s something that the player can aim to achieve or in some ways it’s something that the player wants to become. We may have a non-shooter and we give him a particular role. Let’s say he’s a point of attack defender, but the role has to have in it built in some aspiration to be able to take you from one place to another. People want to be part of that.
People don’t want to just be told what to do. They want to know, hey, yeah, I’m going to do what you asked me to do, but I also want to grow and I want to get better and I want to improve. And that’s at all stages of your career. I had a 35-year-old vet, Angelo Collaro and Kyoto, incredible player, but even at that point in time in his career, we wanted him to be the best player in the league. How do we do that? How do we help you get there? That’s a big part of role definition, role clarity. I think the aspirational aspect of that is very important.
Dan 21:42
Coach, great stuff there. Thanks for all your thoughts. We want to move on now to a segment on the show that 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, and sit one of them. And then we will have a fun discussion from there. So, Coach, if you’re ready, you have not heard these, ready to dive into this first one? I’m ready. Okay. This first one, we’ve kind of turned outer third pick and roll chess. When you’re trying to get to an outer third pick and roll, an empty outer third pick and roll, and the team on defense has got someone who’s in really great drop coverage, these are three things that you’d be mindful of that you’re trying to do to basically defeat that outer third drop coverage. So, option one is moving that big or moving the defender pre-outer third pick and roll. So, maybe you screen them, maybe you have some kind of action that makes it so it’s harder for them to get to that perfect drop position. So, you’re moving that big pre-screen. That’s option one. Option two is you’re figuring out how to move the nail defender, or someone trying to plug from that middle on that outer third pick and roll, trying to clear the nail. Or option three is trying to move or confuse the bottom tag, the MIG, whoever it is that’s at the rim. So, trying to move them some way, somehow. The three options on trying to make that outer third pick and roll better, moving the big pre-screen, moving the nail defender, or moving the bottom tag.
Roy Rana 23:15
So I’d start with moving the nail defender, I would sub the tag, and I would sit the moving the big into the screen, whether that outer third pick and roll is being iced as a drop or whether it’s being sent to the middle in a drop. I think clearing that nail opens up opportunities for either your big or that guard that’s in the slot.
And I think what’s happening now is teams are becoming very, very good at clogging and taking away space, and great guards can make those decisions to find space. And so our job as a coach is to try and help them get as much space as they can and then be able to make that decision. So for me, clearing that nail is a really important place for keeping guards from, in some ways, playing in crowds, being able to make early decisions and then force rotation on the defense.
Pat 24:07
Who are you going to cut in terms of trying to free that nail? Or how are you thinking about freeing that nail?
Roy Rana 24:14
Well, I mean, there’s a lot of different things that you can do. You can just basically cut and then where do you want to exit, right? Do you want to exit strong side? You want to turn that empty side into a filled side, depending on how quickly you cut through. Some of that I think is scout based. And then, you know, are you flaring? Are you hammering or jacking that Igor Kukashkov used to call it on that side? Are you pinning down? Like what kind of actions do you think you want to use to punish? And I think that’s where your scouting is really good.
A lot of times we focus in on scouting on the defensive end of the floor, but now how good we can we be at really understanding where weaknesses is or where that weakness is when we clear the nail and how do we want to attack it? And then again, do you have enough time to prep that? But those are also some kind of unique things that you can do to attack that nail. So I don’t think there’s one way, but certainly engaging that nail defender and making them make decisions is important.
Pat 25:08
Coach, what would be the considerations if you want to use a screen, would it be based on what player is in kind of that slot, you know, the skill of that player or what makes you think when you scout the defense that let’s use some hammer action on that side to get that nail free or to punish the nail defenders for sitting there.
Roy Rana 25:28
I think a lot of it is personnel based for sure. You may not even wanna get it to the hammer or to the flare. You may wanna get it to your big at the elbow and play through the big. So it just forces an opportunity to get that catch there and play through the nail, play through the elbow. So I think there’s a lot of different things to consider on why. I’m not sure there’s one answer. Some of that is personnel based.
Dan 25:50
Your sit the big in this when you’re facing a defense that has a big that’s particularly good in drop coverage ice whatever you want to call whether they’re sending it middle or like you said like icing it or downing it going into that game with your team with your staff how are you thinking about trying to move that big trying to attack them trying to just confuse coverages if you know you’re going to go against someone that’s pretty darn good at being in those spots and making it hard to score at the rim what’s an overall I guess philosophy on trying to attack a good drop coverage big
Roy Rana 26:22
I think some of it is really, again, what can you do to challenge that big at the point of the screen when they’re dropped, right? So can you flip it? Can you hostage dribble and then gore-tot it? Because still in the FIBA game, I know in the NBA, they tried to clean that up a little bit and started calling more illegal screening. That’s not happening in the FIBA game.
You can run interference on the big. So really trying to manipulate timing and being able to try again, really think about creating space so that you can challenge that big in different ways. I mean, the easy ways are trying to draw them and throw it over the top for a lob, but you may not have a lob catcher, right? Can you hit the short pocket and then cut off the weak side? But I think sometimes really thinking about how you can mess up timing of that drop big because timing is such an important piece of being a good drop big. So how can we change that timing of how they have to react to a particular guard coming downhill or snaking?
Pat 27:15
When trying to mess with the timing of the big or attack a drop big, what are you telling the big man in terms of the roll or the big man and the guard trying to get the big to roll out in front of the guard or trying to roll with in the same plane as the guard to really put that drop big into a decision if we’re taking out the gortot screen?
Roy Rana 27:35
That’s really where you got to have like just good feel with your bigs as well. I try not to overcoach those types of concepts. You try to make people understand, Hey, where your advantage is, but I think pick and roll is a little bit of a relationship and no two players are the same in pick and roll. Some guards are a little bit antsy. They want to get rid of it quick. So I’ve had a little bit more patients, some bigs want to demand the ball early. So I think it’s just getting a lot of reps in the action and allowing them to figure it out more than necessarily it being prescribed, I think it’s really important for them to understand what their options are or where they can gain advantage, if possible, can we apply a term to it? So it can be a cue and a reminder, but I also think it’s important for players to be able to kind of develop that relationship in pick and roll where they understand that, Hey, this bigs a little bit better at getting out early, or he’s just really good at sticking a guy and hitting them. So I think it’s a combination. Again, I’m not sure there’s at least for me, there’s one certain way that I go about that.
Dan 28:37
You’ve coached in leagues with, as mentioned, Japan that has some really good bigs and then you might be playing two or three smaller guards with those bigs. And if those bigs are dropping, you’ve got smaller guards getting in the paint.
For those of us that coach smaller guards, any teaching points on helping a guard navigate when they’re in the teeth of the defense and a big is dropping, whether you want them to play off to allow them to shoot a short floater, like be patient. Like as you’ve coached, I’m sure a lot of guards in those situations, anything there from that standpoint.
Roy Rana 29:09
I say that this is the separator from elite guards is their ability to navigate deep in traffic to be able to make those deep decisions. So the first thing is what level of guard am I working with? Because the first thing might be, listen, don’t put yourself into that situation. Don’t get deep because you’re just not good enough to handle it right now.
But if you do get deep, all the things that you talked about, staying balanced on two feet, having the ability to get a floater when you need, because sometimes that’s the difference between a turnover. A lot of times maybe coaches don’t love the floater, but what’s the end result if you don’t take the floater, you’re now in a crowd. So sometimes that’s the best option purely because it avoids making high risk passes in traffic for smaller guards especially. And then being able to kind of hopefully rep them enough where they understand where can they get the angle that they need to make the play that they need. I’m not big about getting in the air and making decisions, especially if you’re small, but that armpit pass, that wraparound pass, I had many a conversation about when I was in Sacramento, that can be a useful tool to teach a guard. But the key thing is how do they get better at navigating that space? And that’s a challenging one because you don’t necessarily want to create that too often in practice. So in player development, maybe you touch on it, you drill it, maybe you can show some film about that, but that’s the separator for great guards in my opinion.
Pat 31:22
All right, Coach, keep it moving here. Our last start sub sit, we’re going to stay on the offensive end and we’re going to look at baseline out of bound design and kind of with the focus being on if you’re going to run one or two alignments and your baseline out of bounds, how you would think about really randomizing the actions within, let’s say one alignment. So start subset, your start being what you think would be the most useful and randomizing the variations within it.
Would it be designating who goes first in terms of makes the first decision and then all the decisions kind of cascade off of that? Would it be option number two, shuffling the spots. So the same alignment, but now you’re going to put different players in different spots of that alignment or option three, would it just really be getting more dynamic in your screen in terms of screen versus slip decisions and not always demanding it’s a screen. Maybe it’s a slip out, but varying how you screen or the type of screen.
Roy Rana 32:21
So I would start option one, which is starting with the same kind of the player movement. I would sit number two, because I think sometimes that just naturally happens a little bit anyway. I can talk about that as well. And then I would sub number three, which is screening slipping.
Pat 32:41
The decisions over playing several alignments, having like a, let’s say a deep playbook of baseline out of bounds versus maybe just working out a one or two and just trying to get really good in those and create the randomization.
Roy Rana 32:55
I’ll start by sharing this when it comes to baseline out of bounds for a large chunk of my career. That was like the last thing I worried about and would give it to my assistants. It was just another thing that I had to think about that I thought, okay, you know what? I didn’t value it enough as I needed to.
We were bad two years ago. Last season I said, hey, I got to take more ownership of this because I’ve always had a couple of thoughts on baseline out of bounds. So I’ll share this. The way I look at baseline out of bounds is like a set piece in soccer. So in soccer, you have a corner kick, you have a free kick. Those are scoring opportunities. And in general, in soccer or football, the goal is to score off the first pass. Maybe you get a bounce, you might get the second, but you’re trying to score. So I look at sideline out of bounds and baseline out of bounds as set pieces, the same way that you would look at as a free kick or a corner kick in soccer. We’re trying to score in the first two passes if we can.
So I think there’s approximately five to seven baseline out of bounds, four to eight, maybe a baseline out of bounds in a FIBA game. And for me, I’m really diving into this, it became pretty clear that these are really valuable possessions. So when we look at a baseline out of bounds, the first thing we’re trying to do is create an advantage, a quick advantage where we can get a shot. If that shot’s open, we’re going to take that shot. And if that shot’s not open, where’s the second pass going? Is that another scoring opportunity? So we’re really trying to get our best scoring opportunities in the first two passes. We’re also trying to defend the first two passes. If you defend the first two passes, it almost becomes half court action. So I’ll start with that. That’s kind of where I look at it. Then the design is really probably one formation, maybe two. And then I think the key thing in that is how to communicate. It’s a small thing. You know, some teams use play cards. Some guy may have his assistant be the one who signals, we huddled a lot last year in Japan and the refs let us get away with quick huddles. In FIBA this summer, the refs wouldn’t let us get away with quick huddles. We’re just trying to make sure that out of that formation, that the defense is a little bit on their heels, not knowing what’s coming so that we can get that small advantage that might get us that first shot within the first two passes. Then we’ll roll from there. So we may have three or four options out of the one formation, and that’s what we’re trying to accomplish.
Pat 35:23
When looking at having a second scoring opportunity, that second pass and trying to generate scoring opportunities off that second pass, what are like the options you think about in that first option that set you up in a good position to have a second scoring option if that first one isn’t there?
Roy Rana 35:38
I think number one is who, who are you getting the ball to? Is he capable of executing what you want to execute or her? And then two, area of the floor, where do you want that point of attack to come from? You want it in third, do you want it in other third? Do you want it at the 45? Do you want it in the low post? Where are you trying to put the ball for that secondary action if you can’t score out of the primary action? And last season in Kilta, we were actually much better out of the secondary action than the primary action, like that first catch. We just didn’t really look to shoot it as much as maybe I would have liked, but we were very, very good in the second pass or action or whatever you want to call it that got us that great look or that score at the rim.
Dan 36:17
Coach, your sub, screen versus slip, teaching points or thoughts on when you want, how you want those things to be randomized, obviously, like if you’re able to stick a screen grade, but randomizing, slipping and filling gaps in a baseline out of bounds versus actually screening.
Roy Rana 36:34
That one’s a little bit more like of an art form than it is necessarily, right? When we talk about randomness, well, how do you teach randomness? I still think about that a lot. Is that actually something that you can do? You can emphasize, you can illustrate, you can encourage, but if it’s random, then it’s random. So it’s, again, becomes about communication with players. Sometimes that communication can be verbal. Often it’s just body language. It’s just maybe a nod, it may be a wink, whatever that is. Sometimes it’s not even that. Sometimes it’s just reading the coverage that’s in front of you. So I think it’s really more about just repetition, giving them as many opportunities to repeat those types of actions within a breakdown drill, within a practice, maybe in player development, that they have, again, a relationship to be able to exploit that, whatever the defense gives them and punish that with either a slip or a really good screen, if that makes sense.
Dan 37:27
Yeah, absolutely. When a team comes out in a zone of some sort underneath out of bounds, do you want totally different alignments against a zone? Do you like an alignment that can attack a man or a zone and just teach how to attack those differently? You know, if a team is kind of junking it up underneath defensively, how do you still think about being aggressive?
Roy Rana 37:47
Certainly there’s value in having something for the zone. And sometimes it’s useful to attack the zone, but also sometimes it’s good for your players to always know that you have a solution for them, to at least to make an attempt at maybe a defensive adjustment that a team makes. And now you’re running your base actions and you’re struggling with it and you don’t have anything. It’s always nice to know that your team knows that you have potentially a solution for them. So it’s always nice to have something against the zone. And then really, I mean, what are you confident is gonna work? Do you wanna use that right away? When do you wanna use that? I always have something for a zone or something for junk, but it may not be something that we rep as often as we would our base formations.
Dan 38:31
If I could just drill down for one more question on the zone, when you’re going against a zone underneath out of bounds and you said, you know, you’re having some stuff for it without giving away all the secrets, Saas, I guess, are you looking at attacking or screening interior defenders or slip opportunities, overloads, like what is a way that you think about attacking a zone?
Roy Rana 38:51
I think probably the thing that I’ve done historically the most that I’ve stolen from lots of other coaches is really trying to screen the interior of the zone. There’s nothing more deflating than when you go zone and then you give up a layup at the rim or a little jump shot in the gap because you’ve slid down and bang or maybe it’s reverse it out and then come off for a three. We know that as coaches. You go zone on a baseline out of bounds, somebody gets a dunk, you’re kind of feeling, do I stay in that zone? Did they just have more emotional impact on us? In the end, it’s another two points, but those types of plays I think have value.
Pat 39:27
You sat shuffling the lineup you mentioned sometimes made over the christines gonna kinda have naturally but in general you know having more positional familiarity maybe you know guys are played. Two maximum three spots within this line versus really having it one through five interchangeable and randomizing that way.
Roy Rana 39:45
Again, I’ll just share what I said I would sit that. I think it happens organically, especially when you have higher level players. When you have professional level players, they’re going to figure out sometimes, hey, let’s get him the ball. Or if he’s an alpha, he might figure out, hey, I want to get the ball. They’ll naturally start to shift their positions around maybe at critical times in games. This is part of coaching at the professional level. You got to trust your guys, you got to let them figure it out at times as well. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but we don’t necessarily always have the measure of control that we’d like.
But sometimes it’s very powerful to be able to give up that control. That’s why I say eventually as you start to get through a season in particular situations, short clock maybe or they have a mismatch on a post player. Players themselves will start to manipulate where they are because they’re just so drilled and they know it’s only three or four options that you have out of one formation. They can figure that out as well. I’ve seen that happen more and more as well.
Dan 40:47
Coach, you’re off the start subset hot seat. That was a lot of fun. Thanks for going through those two options with us. We’ve got a question for you before we close before we do again, appreciate your time, your thoughts. This is a ton of fun today. So thanks for making the time to come on the show. Thank you guys. Loved it. 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?
Roy Rana 41:08
I started as a high school coach in Toronto, coaching junior varsity, not even varsity. And I think clearly for me, the best investment I’ve ever made in my career has been relationships and genuine relationships that have become powerful friendships. And they’ve transformed my life. They’ve transformed my career. They’ve transformed who I am as a person. That’s what I love about coaching. That’s what I love about the game is that ability to build relationships not only with your players, but much beyond. So for me, I think that’s probably the one thing that I would say I treasure the most and has been the most impactful.
Dan 41:51
All right, Pat. Hey, let’s hop right into this recap here with Coach Rana and just quick backstory. Awesome having him on. Got to know him, obviously, over the last few weeks and just an interesting coaching history for him with all these different countries, all these different stops and builds at different places. And it’s always fun to get coaches like that on that have such a rich experience at all these levels. And he was awesome to have on today. Yeah.
Pat 42:17
His unique background. He’s obviously worked with club programs, as he mentioned in Japan, but especially working like the national teams and just the time constraints that kind of influenced how you coach, how you implement a system I thought was really fun today to talk with him about. And as we kind of dive in this recap, I’m sure we’ll hit on like several of those topics that kind of all come into play when working with national teams where you really got to prioritize your message and what you want to do and how you want to do it.
Dan 42:47
Absolutely.
Pat 42:48
So Dan on that note, I’ll throw it to you. We’ll get this recap kicked off
Dan 42:53
I want to start with the first bucket and we thought it’d be interesting place to start with just program build, design, rebuilds, like just basically coming into a new situation and all the considerations that you would have to start building that program. And like mentioned, Coach Ron has done it a ton of times and a ton of different places. So there’s a lot there.
I’m going to go first to what I found interesting personally was the meetings, both group meetings and one-on-one player meetings and the importance of making those really impactful whenever you go into a situation before you get into how you’re going to play, the pace, the flow, spacing, like stuff we got into, which of course is the fun, important part, but things he’s learned about when you’re delivering a message, when you’re starting to telling the story of your program and where you’re going, how important the first meeting is from like a detailed standpoint of we’ve got into a little bit of the design of the room and food and how they feel and what you’re saying, I think is really important. And I think that he spoke well on why it’s important and then why it’s like a building block. And I think I’ll tie it also into, I asked him kind of towards the end of the first bucket about as a head coach, where does 80% of your time go with these designs and builds? And he said, it’s the player meetings, the one-on-one. He said, if you’re going to an organization and there’s players and staff and there’s 35 people you got to meet with one-on-one, that’s a lot of hours obviously for the head coach, but it’s so important, so impactful to do it. So one, you kind of can unearth issues, problems where people feel like the whole organization or program is and can go. And then two, to start to create those bonds and connections to build the whole thing. Because like you mentioned, you don’t have a lot of time to build trust and do all these things that maybe you do other places that you have six, seven months of lead time. So I found there are a lot of value for all coaches in those discussions about your first meetings and personnel decisions.
Pat 45:00
Yeah, probably an early miss for me when he was talking about those first meetings and all the considerations, and it was just a miss only from time constraints. I would have loved to have gone through each one of them and just what he considers with food, yes or no, the layout of the room, circle, chairs, whatever, because I think all that, as he said, is very impactful and creating an experience for the guys and probably getting that first step buy in. That’s so crucial, especially when working in these small windows.
To me, though, hearing him talk about all of that stuff is the level of detail he puts into making sure his message is interpreted correctly. And I think that’s a key piece when he’s going into all these different countries where English may not necessarily be the first language. And of course, we talked about communication, but communication comes through all different sorts of mediums. And I think that’s also another thing that stood out to me when he talked about design considerations and how you present visuals. And then that got me, I’d like to tie that because I think we had a really good conversation with Anthony Katz, the founder of Hyperice, and he talked about his design considerations and kind of really modeling it after Apple. But in that conversation, it was about designing a product that’s user-friendly and that can sell. And I think in the same way, when you look at designs of your first meeting from the room layout to the visuals, again, trying to sell your vision to a team and vision, we’ve talked about several times, numerous people, how important that is in delivering, transmitting your culture, getting true buy in, building trust.
I also took away when he was talking about the personal meetings, and then I’ll throw it back to you, but I really liked within the individual meetings, we talked about clarity, and we followed up with how definitive it is with role clarity when coming in. And when he talked about the aspirational aspect within that role clarity, I really liked that thought of giving them the role or everyone’s self-aware, but giving them something to aspire to to once again, build the program buy in on top of getting them to do basically play to their strengths or play to the role you need for a team to succeed.
Dan 47:06
Yeah. A lot of good stuff in there for you. I will add on Dr. Preston Kline. We had on about a year and a half ago now. And I remember it actually wasn’t on the podcast, but after our podcast with Dr. Kline, I was going to have my first team meeting ever as a head coach later that day. And I remember asking him for some tips or things like that from his point of view. And he mentioned to me off air, you and I bring food. The act of bringing food, pizza, donuts, something, waters to a meeting, he was saying always signifies to the rest of the group that you’ll take care of them. You’re putting their needs and it doesn’t need to be a fancy thing. But I remember him saying, you’ve got to think about that as a leader, making it an environment where the players feel safe that they’re taken care of no matter what your message is going to be. So I wrote that down when talking to Kushrana about the importance of those meetings and what goes into it. And maybe we can’t all have food every single meeting, but he said the first one is a big symbolic way to show that.
Pat 48:09
Just to follow up on your point, there’s a lot to be said just like feeling good. I mean, obviously you for sure you want your message to be delivered you want, but even just having them walk out of there feel good as a huge impact on moving forward just within as you really get into the nuance of your scheme, your culture, your systems.
Dan 48:27
I mean, have you ever done a group project where if you show up with pizza or donuts
Pat 48:31
It’s not work anymore, it seems like.
Dan 48:33
That’s how you and I passed college is we brought the pizzas and connected with the smart kids. The other thing I’ll just circle back on with the meetings before we move to point two, you mentioned it kind of a miss for me, laughing coach Ron, of course, but I think this is an interesting other facet we could have just kept going down is those one-on-one meetings, really, what do they look like in a one-on-one meeting?
Is it in your office? Is it a walking meeting, which I’ve been a fan of recently of, Hey, let’s go walk and grab a coffee and walk around campus and talk. Sometimes guys are more likely to share and not feel like it’s a boss to employee meeting. I just think there’s stuff in there too, about like how you actually have those meetings to have them be impactful.
Pat 49:17
Yeah, I think to me, it all kind of sent around like eliminating the hierarchy.
Dan 49:22
Yeah. Well, Pat, let’s move on to our second takeaway. And I’ll throw that to you for our second takeaway. I’ll go.
Pat 49:27
to your start sub si t when we were just looking at the outer third or the empty outer third ball screen and ways to manipulate either the nail, the low man or the big. And I thought coach Rana shared obviously some really good points there about considerations to remove the nail and mess with the big. I liked what his thoughts on the manipulating the timing in the ball screen when we got in the conversation about attacking that big. I thought he shared some really good points there.
I think he is spot on that there is no, like everything no one way, one universal application. It’s very heavily dependent on the guard and the action, the big and the action. But I liked his thought on maybe coming up with certain cues to kind of help the players through attacking a drop coverage. Now it’s more specifically whether it’s the Gore-Taut or sticking the screen or rolling, but kind of us as coaches being able to identify who we’re putting in those actions and working them through with cues, rather than just kind of using a universal application of this is how we run our ball screens and against drop, we are always, whatever it may be, roll out in front, hold the screen or hostage in Gore-Taut. But as we flow into, I’m sure we’ll talk on like randomizing baseline, just how to be more random through like talking through cues with your guys. I thought was a really good point and another language application and scheming.
Dan 50:56
The overall thought you and I had with this conversation was a lot of teams that run Euroball stream motion or just get to an outer third ball screen and these teams that either drop or ice, whether they force you over the top or ice you down and you just have a big kind of sitting in a gap at the rim. When teams are really good at that, we were thinking about how do you still attack by either moving the big or you not worry about the big and you’re trying to move other pieces to open up spaces. And I think you and I talked a little before, of course this is dependent on your players, but one, I mean, if you have a pick and pop big, it can solve a lot of this, obviously. But a lot of it I think depends on your guard play, how comfortable they are, like we got into the floater in a crowd situation with smaller guards, but who are you trying to really open up space for? Because if you’ve got a really great guard that can get downhill and make decisions and if you’re moving that nail, now they’ve got all this space in the teeth of the floor to make decisions. If you also got a guard that can really maybe rip baseline and attack, maybe you’re really looking at moving the MIG around so it’s kind of like the rotations are slow. And then of course, if you’ve got a rim rolling big or something where you can kind of play chicken with that roller, then moving the big around is interesting. So anyway, there’s a lot of different stuff to do on it.
I think you kind of gave a lot of considerations. I also just will add on, so I’m gonna go to TJ Saint we had on a year and a half ago now, he was talking about a lot of the ways that they make decisions in the outer third ball screens, whether they hang, whether they hold. I think there is a lot of nuance into like player development of guards in these things and good defenses are gonna be there. So like, how do you just still move other people around and then train your guards to make those reads in that confined space?
Pat 52:44
Recently, we’ve looked a lot or highlighted the Clyde cutting or corner cutting and then drifting that 45 men down to the corner. And we looked at it too when on empty side ball screens. So with the three men sides still cutting the corner, drifting the slot, 45 down as a way to attack that nail, kind of shifting behind the nail and putting that split defender in a tough spot to really guard to in space. You know, that’s kind of been, let’s say over the last couple of seasons, a popular action has been fun to look at that too. It was how teams are again, attacking nail, moving on that full side to really punish the load up.
Dan 53:17
I do think this is before we move back to the last point, you know, we call it outer third pick and roll chest or whatever. And so much that we talked about over the summer and fall is randomizing your offense flow, not overly set piece heavy.
But this is where I think a lot of the high level coaches that we study and talk to look at very specific things of however a defense is constructed, which one of these three things are they really trying to attack? And that’s why, you know, if there’s a really good big at the rim, that’s where you’ll see the Ram screens or you’ll see screens that try to get them dislodged from that great drop position versus we’ve done a full deep dive on cutting that nail offensive player after you get to an outer third so you clear the space or you just stampede it back to that offensive player in the middle third. Like I think that’s the fun part about once these teams get the analytics and understand what teams are doing, they can attack or try to attack more precisely.
Pat 54:13
Yeah, always want to look at like tacking sound defensive principles or opponent schemes, you know, kind of flipping the script against them for sure. All right, Dan, let’s keep it moving here. I’ll throw it to you for our last takeaway.
Dan 54:25
Yeah. So going to your start subset, the baseline out of bounds, going back, we had a really good conversation with coach Brian Hodson from South Florida on some baseline out of bounds stuff and scoring late. And this is sort of like a continuation of it. And interesting just to say, okay, if you really want to randomize your baseline out of bounds, what are the things that could help it be, I don’t want to say trickier, but just harder to guard. And so who goes first, the shuffling of the spots or the screen and slip are all things that coaches can say run a box alignment, but within that box, you can be moving all those pieces around who goes first, who slips, what position, I think, what’s the hierarchy of it. And the answer is probably all of it is what makes it good. As he mentioned, I liked his philosophy on how he got to really spending more time on baseline out of bounds as a head coach. I think that was valuable.
Him saying that he would just put it to his assistance and not really think about it. And then going back as the head coach saying, I might need to make this more part of what I’m looking at and make it more important because if it’s four to eight times a game, and we’re leaving a few points on the board, that can really make a difference. So I kind of liked him changing philosophically and why he was really narrowing in on it. And then also attributing it to set pieces in soccer, where a corner kick or throw in where you can actually manipulate space and who’s where easier than in the flow of the game.
Pat 55:50
Piggybacking off of your point and coach run his philosophical shift and looking at baseline out of bounds and him comparing it to soccer. I thought a great point was really valuing the second scoring opportunity off that second pass. Yeah, of course, we’re going to try to score off that one pass with, you know, rip screen screen, the screen or action, but really then thinking about what puts me in a position for our team to score off that second pass. He mentioned, you know, first thing about, okay, who you’re putting in the action in the areas you want to attack and then kind of from there building out. That was a key takeaway for me. Yes, the first pass, of course, but really putting emphasis on putting your team in a scoring situation on that second pass.
Dan 56:32
Yeah, quickly, I also like the detail of trying to score against a zone underneath out of bounds, too. And it’s always a thing, I think, for us, if we think great, underneath out of bounds, alignments, and to beat a man, and then a team jumps into 2-3, and how are you trying to attack, and I think you kind of mentioned screen at interior third can put a lot of pressure and, you know, that kind of stuff. I think it was just a good nugget.
It’s also quick, like, I’ll give my other myths. I feel like there was more in the baseline out of bounds against zone and against these kinds of other situations that would have been interesting to dig deeper on as far as, can you set up your box so the players know, like, man or zone? Here’s what we’re doing rather than have, like, separate pieces for each one.
Pat 57:15
Yeah, another miss that I also had within this conversation was also thinking about as we look at randomizing positions, shuffling alignments, considerations just with who imbalances. I think a lot of times we’ll put maybe a perimeter player, but more so like what if you put your center inbounding? I thought that would have been just interesting conversation just to hear his thoughts on that or the pro con of it.
Like you said, you referenced like this summer, I think there’s been a lot of conversations about randomizing and especially a randomizing three or five man and not being so beholden to they’re always in this lane or they’re in like one or two spots, but really stressing the defense by freeing them up to randomize. And yeah, I mean, I think it was something Serbia was doing that yokic inbounding a lot now. Okay. Not everyone has yokic and of course I get that, but it just made me think why not put a center? Does it draw the center away from the rim? Does it just put them at the rim all the time now easier? I don’t know, but I thought that’d be an interesting follow up conversation for sure.
Dan 58:15
Well, once again, we thank Coach Rana for coming on. Wish him all the best of luck this season. Thank you, everybody, for listening, and we’ll see you next time.
Pat 58:28
Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Please make sure to visit SlappinGlass.com for more information on the free newsletter, Slappin’ Glass Plus, and much more. Have a great week coaching, and we’ll see you next time on Slappin’ Glass