From Favoritism to Failure: How Coaching Decisions Weaken Teams
February 13, 2025โข688 words
"Most people who fail in their dream fail not from lack of ability but from lack of commitment." ~ Zig Ziglar
"Most people fail, not because of lack of desire, but, because of lack of commitment." ~ Vince Lombardi
"Commitment doesn't guarantee success, but lack of commitment guarantees you'll fall far short of your potential." ~ Denis Waitley
"It is a lack of commitment, not a lack of talent, that damns you to mediocrity." ~ Roy H. Williams
"Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work." ~ Vince Lombardi
Team Chemistry & Strategic Execution
Missed practices mean lost opportunities for building trust and camaraderie with teammates, leading to breakdowns in on-court communication and coordination.
Teams create certain plays and defense schemes that the missing players will not learn, forcing the coaches to employ basic play schemes and reducing team performance overall.
Missing practice leads to players never developing the feel for spacing, resulting in poor movement, stagnant offense, and breaking down defenses.
Coaches must constantly re-shuffle lineups and tactics to accommodate suspect players, taking attention away from more efficient game preparation.
Players who fail to practice miss out on valuable skills instruction and physical conditioning, resulting in stagnation or regression in their performances, affecting the entire team.
Accountability & Team Morale
Putting in players who fail to attend practice conveys the message that effort does not matter, discouraging dedicated players from giving their best.
Routine attending players lose motivation when they see irresponsible players being awarded the same or even greater game time.
Allowing no-shows to play but putting others on disciplinary action generates resentment and discontent among the team.
Players, knowing they can avoid practice but still get a game, will continue to do so, and attendance becomes a larger issue.
Punishing erratic players takes the spotlight away from an individual giving priority to the team and focusing on selfishness instead.
Players who fail to go to practice are not game-ready, and this causes fatigue, reaction time lag, and increased injury susceptibility.
Defense takes timing, communication, and trustโissues all affected when players fail to show up at practice and fail to learn team schemes.
Plugging in players who are not ready disrupts rhythm, disrupting ball movement, transition basketball, and offense.
Teams play most effectively when they establish reliable rotations; uneven players introduce incessant changes, causing instability.
When committed players are overlooked for missing teammates, it discourages leadership and accountability.
Long-Term Consequences
When accountability is not taken into consideration, discipline deteriorates, leading to lack of effort during games and an unorganized locker room.
Dedicated and skilled players will not attend or stay with a program where commitment is not valued.
A program with a reputation for being disorganized and lacking discipline will be unable to attract serious athletes and coaches.
Sacrificing the absent players can be seen as favoritism, destroying respect for the coach and creating internal strife.
A lack of responsibility results in short-term problems and long-term mediocrity because the cornerstone of teamwork and work is broken down.
When coaches make players participate in practice, they build a culture of responsibility, teamwork, and long-term success; when coaches do not, they're a liability not only to themselves, but to the players and the team overall, including the safety and well-being of student athletes that are not participating in practice and not showing up for games and coming and going as the students please. If such players missing practices and games to and fro as they please and then wind up playing in a game and get seriously hurt, there is liability placed on those coaches.
When coaches play players in a game that do not come to practices and skip some games, that creates a lack of commitment from the coach and builds frustration within the players that are committed, especially the players that show up to all the practices and all the games and work extremely hard.