Tony Bennett, head coach at Virginia looks for these traits in a basketball player:
https://news.virginia.edu/content/5-non-basketball-traits-uva-coach-tony-bennett-seeks-recruits
Tennessee football player refused to go in the game when the coach told him to. Not good. Head coach Jeremy Pruitt explains.
“He wouldn’t go into the game when he was asked to go in. I don’t know how things were done before, but when you tell somebody to go in and they refuse to go in, we’re not going to do that around here. I asked him to leave. He didn’t leave on his own. I asked him to leave.”
“You can’t just be satisfied. Because if you don’t play the right way, there’s other young guys that want to come in and take your spot. Everybody wants a piece of it. And that’s what makes this exciting.”
The standard of excellence cannot be affected by outside voices in terms of your preparation, your intensity, the level of focus you need to have. Because what you did yesterday really doesn’t matter, it’s what you’re going to do today, what you’re going to do in the next game. It’s like climbing a mountain. The higher you go, the more challenging it gets…
Miami Dolphins head coach:
If we play the right way and guys are exerting max effort, then when we have different guys in there, it’s not a big deal. When you keep a guy in too long and he starts slowing down and he’s not playing fast, that’s when you have issues.
Skipper for the Cleveland Indians:
“Sometimes when you’re competing, if you try to care for somebody, it almost doesn’t work. You play the game the right way, and if we think we need to take a guy out of a game at some time, we will.”
Good stuff here on guys who do “the little things.” Bold letters are from the article. Link is below.
Unless you’re a fan of the Golden State Warriors, you probably despise Draymond Green. It makes sense. The first thing you think of with Green is the kung fu kicks to the groin. You note that if there is one stat where Green is truly elite, it’s technical fouls, where he has ranked in the top three in the NBA each of the past three seasons. You buy into the way he embraces being one of the biggest heels in NBA history. You don’t think it is some act, though. This is truly him.
So you despise Draymond Green. But let’s be honest: You’re actually jealous.
You want a guy like that on your team.
Take away all the noise around Green — the trash talk, the villain persona, the self-righteousness, the goofy 3-point-shooting form that somehow goes in — and what you have is, quite simply, the best team player in the NBA. Draymond Green is a coach’s dream.
