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READ: LOSING YOUR BEST PLAYER

REACTION: THE TEAM BEGINS TO WIN

The example I’m pulling from is a team that was in their third year of running the Read & React. This team’s leading scorer, leading 3-point shooter, and 5th leading scorer in their conference goes down for the season with an injury. The injured player is everything you hope for: great kid, hard worker, dedicated, talented, great sportsmanship, competitive, intelligent, the list could go on. I suspect that it’s going to be hard for the team to recover from this loss.

But then the team wins three games in a row. That strikes me as unusual. Just like any other coach, I would rather have my most talented player than not! So, what possible dynamics could be going on?

  1. Is the ball being shared more?
  2. Could it be that the team is now motivated to work together and not depend on one particular player to “bail them out” or carry too much of the load?
  3. If they are motivated to work harder together, then is this a case that illustrates “the sum is greater than the parts?”
  4. Are there any other teams out there that could benefit from this lesson without losing a key player to learn it?

These are just some theories that first come to find. Have you experienced this turn-around with your team after losing a key player? We’d love to hear your story, share below!

One Response

  1. Last season I had two players who were good shooters, scorers and ballhandlers. They were our best skilled players. However they were very triggerhappy and weren’t so good at sharing the ball as they tried to do evrything themselves. When these players were absent from games or at the bench our offense was much better, we had more frequent passes and sharing of the ball.

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