Everything in life, not just Twitter and Facebook, is about communication. Basketball is as much a mental and communication exercise as a sport. Lionel Hollins is trying to amp up the volume on his team’s on-court communication.
Regular readers of this space know that I have pointed out my admiration for the San Antonio Spurs if for no other reason than this—they play as a team. A major part of that isn’t just chemistry or the right combination of players on the floor.
The Spurs talk.
A lot.
They call out screens, warn teammates of switches and exhort their mates to work a little harder. One game last season against the Spurs was not televised, so I had the opportunity to listen to the floor chatter without the barrier of a headset.
It was a most enlightening evening, listening to the Spurs talk on defense, making sure that everyone was in a good defending position, never assuming that their teammate knew exactly what to do. And this is far from a brain-dead team.
The level of conversation among the Grizzlies was relatively muted and it showed in the defensive statistics.
Factor in the fact that few very players, okay, just two, were on the roster oh, just a couple of years ago and you’d be right to be concerned about cohesion and communication. The first day of practice, the Grizzlies seemed like a group of strangers just getting acquainted at a basketball camp.
By today (day 3 of camp), the Grizzlies were a chattering and chirping all over the floor. Energy was high and communication was at a high level on both ends of the floor. I asked Lionel Hollins if he had had a conversation with the team about the need for cooperative chatter and he attributed the team’s vocalness to their “growth as a team.” He also pointed out that “when you have a better understanding of where you are and what it is you’re doing, that allows you to talk a lot more too.”
Among the most vocal today: Zach Randolph and O.J. Mayo.
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