James Purchin
@JamesPurchin • 2,492 subscribers
Director at @PGCBasketball | Skills Coach & Consultant at The Basketball Academy | Building Confidence, Clarity, and Capability in Coaches & Players
Videos
Fun Friday: Florida basketball's warm-up is dodgeball. Coaches included. Coaches, what's your go-to warm-up game that beats dynamic stretching? Competing and activating the body before practice even starts. Drop yours below. Stealing the best ones for next week.
James Purchin188,980 просмотров • 1 месяц назад
At High Point, Flynn Clayman runs his staff differently. Instead of assistants doing a little bit of everything, he assigns coordinators: One owns offense. One owns defense. One owns special teams. Not traditional. But intentional. Because when everyone is responsible for everything… no one truly grows. Clayman learned this from his mentors. When he was trusted to run the offense, it accelerated his development. So now, he does the same for his staff. Yes, you give up some control. But you gain clarity, ownership, and better coaching. Assistants aren’t just helping anymore. They’re leading. And when coaches grow, the team grows. Build a staff where people can specialize, own their role, and thrive, not just survive. Are you asking your people to do everything… or putting them in positions to be great at something?
James Purchin340,282 просмотров • 3 месяцев назад
Phil Jackson won 11 championships with one habit most people skip: 15 minutes of stillness every morning. Before the Bulls. Before the Lakers. Before Jordan, Kobe, Shaq, and Rodman. He sat still. Jackson said if he didn't, he felt like he was "constantly chasing today, instead of being able to control it." Most people think meditation is soft. He treated it like training. You train shooting. You train strength. You train conditioning. Why wouldn't you train your mind? That was the edge: Bad call. Bad stretch. Missed shot. Breathe. Reset. Come back clean. Most people let the day hit them first, then spend the rest of it reacting. Phil set the terms before the chaos started.
James Purchin51,953 просмотров • 23 дней назад
"Be on time" isn't one of Pete Carroll's rules. "Be early" is. He won a Super Bowl with 3 rules total. Rule 1: Protect the team. Not the slogan. The mindfulness. It's pulling a teammate out of a fight. It's not hitting the guy late in practice. It's the call you make when nobody's watching. Rule 2: No whining, no complaining, no excuses. Stolen from Coach Wooden The point isn't to be upbeat. The point is your self-talk runs the show. Words come first. Behavior follows. Rule 3: Be early. Not on time. Early. You can't be early by luck. You thought about it the night before. You set the alarm. You knew the commitment. Being early is a sign of respect you can see. 3 rules to run an NFL locker room. Most teams have 12 values nobody can recite.
James Purchin98,604 просмотров • 1 месяц назад
The hardest thing to recruit isn’t talent. It’s mindset. Ben McCollum watched Ethan Harris at an 8 AM game… and he was lit. Hype. Engaged. Ready. Not once. Every time. That’s not random, that’s who he is. Yes, he can shoot, handle, and guard multiple positions. But what separates him? Energy. Toughness. Pride in the hard things. He’s a winner. Energy is a decision. And when you pair that with skill? Now you’re a problem.
James Purchin162,365 просмотров • 3 месяцев назад
The best cultures don’t happen by accident. They’re built with intention. Dan Lanning said they spent 4 months defining the DNA of their program before ever putting it on a wall. 4 traits: Connection - because players fight harder for people they truly know. Growth - win or lose, it's “growth week.” The standard is always improving. Toughness - handling hard without flinching. Sacrifice - being okay with the team winning even when you don’t get the spotlight. That’s leadership. Not just demanding standards… but building an environment where people want to live them out.
James Purchin106,648 просмотров • 2 месяцев назад
The best offenses don’t run plays. They hunt advantages. That’s the lens the Illinois Fighting Illini men’s basketball uses every game. The first question isn’t what do we run? It’s what’s our biggest strength and where is their biggest weakness? Everything flows from there. Illinois talks constantly about creating, attacking, and maintaining advantages. One action into the next. Spacing as a weapon. Letting individual skill shine when there’s a switch, and flowing right back into team advantage if the defense stays home. Shot selection is the backbone of it all. They simplify it: gold (layups), silver (threes), bronze (midrange) shots. And then they practice different constraints so players feel it. For example: No-dribble possessions. Scores only off cuts. Offense made intentionally hard. Why? Because constraints teach players how many ways a possession can still produce a gold-medal shot. Early in the season, they were playing fast, but the shot quality wasn’t good enough. So they adjusted. Now they’re one of the slowest teams in the Big Ten. Not because slow is better. Because it fits their strengths. The result? ~50% of shots from three ~43% at the rim ~7% midrange (mostly late clock) That’s not accident. That’s alignment. Takeaway: Great offense isn’t about pace or volume, it’s about discipline, spacing, advantages, and repeatedly choosing the best shot available. Listen to coach Tyler Underwood
James Purchin214,075 просмотров • 5 месяцев назад
10-80-10 Leadership Principle Ohio State head coach Ryan Day discusses the 10-80-10 principle with behavior and how he maximized his 10% elite players to lead the middle 80% to win a title in 2024. 10% are elite, 10% are defiant, and then the rest are the 80%. How are you using your leaders to build culture?
James Purchin164,879 просмотров • 4 месяцев назад
Dominoes offense is the future. 🔑 Zero-second decisions 🔑 1 can’t guard 2 🔑 The floor is lava Basketball is becoming less about actions… and more about how quickly you can create and maintain an advantage to hunt a GREAT shot. The best offenses don’t let the defense reset. They keep tipping the next domino. Portland Fire
James Purchin56,207 просмотров • 2 месяцев назад
Steph Curry has won 4 championships, shot 43% from three over his career, and is arguably the greatest shooter who ever lived. His secret weapon? Something you're doing right now without thinking about it. Breathing. Not metaphorically. Literally, he's spent the last 5-6 years mastering how to control his breath mid-game. Recovery. Nerves. Focus. All of it runs through the same thing. "Nobody would really know you're doing it when you're doing it." That's the part that got me. The most visible athlete on the planet, under the brightest lights, is quietly running a background process the whole time. Regular season. Finals. Doesn't matter. It's always there. We talk a lot about reps, tape, nutrition, and sleep. But breathing, the one thing your body does 20,000 times a day, rarely comes up. If the best shooter alive thinks it's worth mastering, maybe it deserves more attention. I've started paying attention to mine. It's uncomfortable how much I wasn't. Have you ever deliberately worked on your breathing? In sports, work, anything? Curious what actually moved the needle for people.
James Purchin44,099 просмотров • 3 месяцев назад
Steve Kerr was asked what makes Steph Curry different. His answer wasn't about shooting. It was about how Steph treats people. Teammates, reporters, fans, kids in the front row. Every one of them walks away feeling like the most important person in the room. The shot to be impressed by isn't the three. It's what happens before and after it. Culture isn't built in offsites. It's built in 4-second moments nobody is scoring. Charisma gets the credit. Attention is the rare skill.
James Purchin28,557 просмотров • 2 месяцев назад
Most freshmen don’t struggle because they’re untalented. They struggle because everything is new. New environment. New system. Away from family. And the talent level? Just as good, if not better. Many expect to start right away. Most don’t. So when the struggle comes, and it will, take a lesson from Tom Brady. Early in his career, Brady got 2 practice reps. The starter got 20. He asked his coach, “How can I get better with only two?” The answer: “Make those two perfect.” So he treated them like the Super Bowl. Full speed. Full focus. No wasted motion. Two reps became four. Four became ten. Ten became a starting job. What separated him wasn’t talent. It was how he treated limited opportunities. Most backups focus on the reps they didn’t get. Brady treated his 2 reps like an audition. That lesson goes beyond sports. Not leading the project? Own your role like it runs the company. Not in the big meeting? Make your five minutes count. Not starting? Practice like it’s game day. Development isn’t about where you start. It’s about how you respond. Opportunity doesn’t expand because you deserve it. It expands because you make it impossible to ignore. Question: What are your “2 reps” right now? And are you treating them like they matter?
James Purchin50,899 просмотров • 5 месяцев назад
Adversity doesn’t break teams. It reveals how they respond. Sean Miller keeps it simple when things go wrong: Own it. Fix it. Move on. First, own it. What was your responsibility? That’s the hardest part. Then, fix it. Work with your teammates and coaches to improve what’s actually in your control. Then, next opportunity — don’t carry it forward. The next game is the only thing that matters. Sounds simple. It’s not. Because the real challenge is the noise: “What if we lose again?” “What if I play bad again?” That’s where teams drift. Great teams don’t live in the past or future. They stay locked in the present. And here’s the key: This applies to wins too. Win? Move on. Lose? Move on. Resilience isn’t about avoiding adversity, it’s about having a repeatable response to it. When adversity hits, do you dwell on it or do you follow a process to move forward?
James Purchin11,139 просмотров • 4 месяцев назад
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