A new SG+ space led by Drew Dunlop, built to help coaches connect concepts to the court.
Coaching is a craft. And every craftsman needs a workshop.
That is the idea behind The Practice Lab, a new SG+ workshop led by Drew Dunlop and now available for members on SGTV.
The Practice Lab is a place for coaches to think, tinker, and take something back to their next session. The goal is not to hand coaches a script. It is to give them practical ideas they can shape around their own players, system, and practice needs.
At the highest levels of the game, staffs are not short on information. They have more film, scouting, coverages, actions, and development ideas than ever before.
The harder part is what comes next:
How do those ideas actually get taught, practiced, and carried into the game?
A concept can look clean on film.
A coverage can make sense in a meeting.
A skill can look sharp in a workout.
But the real test is whether players can read the moment and solve the possession when the defense changes, the spacing shifts, and the game stops following the script.
That is the space we’re excited to explore with The Practice Lab.
What Coaches Will Find
The starting point is simple:
What kind of problem do we want our players solving?
Each piece will look beyond the setup of a drill and ask:
What is this actually teaching?
What decisions does it create?
What cues are players learning to read?
How does it connect to the way we want to play?
How can it be progressed, regressed, or reshaped for different players, systems, or levels?
Many Practice Lab videos will include voiceover breakdowns from Drew, helping coaches see not just the activity itself, but the design behind it — what the drill is teaching, what decisions it creates, and what to watch for as players solve the problem.
For example, one of the first Practice Lab pieces, “Variable Shooting – Downhill Drive vs Pressure • Respace Shooting,“ looks at how a shooting activity can be shaped around more than the final shot. Drew unpacks the drive, the pressure, the relocation, the shot preparation, and the cues players are reading along the way, giving coaches a clearer view of the design underneath the activity.
 Variable Shooting • Less than 4 • High Variability • Low Decision Density |
To make the library easier to use, Practice Lab pieces will be organized through filters such as:
- Focus — the main area of development or concept being trained
- Group Size — from individual work to small-sided games and larger group environments
- Variability — how much randomness, change, and adaptability are built into the task
- Decision Density — how many reads, choices, and problem-solving moments players face inside the drill
The goal is not just to help coaches find a drill.
It is to help them find the right learning environment for the problem they are trying to solve, then reshape it in their own gym, with their own roster, on their own terms.
Why We’re Building It
Inside SG+, we spend a lot of time studying what the best teams are doing: how they create advantages, guard actions, develop players, and solve the changing problems of the modern game.
The Practice Lab gives us a place to ask the next question:
How do we bring those ideas to the floor?
If the film shows us the concept, The Practice Lab helps us think through the practice environment: what players need to see, what decisions they need to make, and how a coach can shape the task so the idea has a better chance to transfer.
That is the bridge we’re excited to keep exploring: from film study to the floor.
Why Drew Dunlop
Drew has consistently pushed how we think about practice design, player development, decision-making, and game transfer.
Every time we’ve worked with Drew, he has moved the question away from simply, “Is this a good drill?” and toward, “What is this environment actually teaching?”
That is what makes him such a strong fit to lead The Practice Lab. Drew sees the design underneath the drill: the information players are reading, the decisions being created, what the task invites or removes, and how it connects back to the game.
His perspective will help shape The Practice Lab into a space where coaches can study not only what to teach, but how to design environments where learning has a better chance to transfer.
The Practice Lab is not built to hand coaches scripts. It is built to give them raw material they can reshape in their own gym.
Explore The Practice Lab on SGTV
The first Practice Lab pieces are now live on SGTV for SG+ members, with more design breakdowns and teaching ideas being added in the weeks ahead.
Our hope is that it becomes a place staffs return to as they think through player development, team concepts, scout prep, small-sided games, and the daily work of helping players carry ideas into competition.
The work for coaches is not just finding better ideas. It is building the environments where players can learn them, adapt them, and own them when the game asks the question back.
🔐 Become an SG+ member to gain complete access to The Practice Lab today!
