What is the Real Problem Here?
What Meek Mill can teach us about scouting and player development
“The player doesn’t win his 1v1 battles. He’s just not strong enough.”
You might have heard a coach say this about a player he was scouting.
Maybe you’ve heard yourself.
It very well could be a lack of strength but this is often a cop-out.
The vanilla, not willing to look deeper answer.
4 Coactives
I like to use the 4 Coactives Model that Fergus Connolly outlines in Gamechanger to understand what the real issues are when looking at a player live or on tape.
Strength would be in the physical coactive. There are also technical, tactical, and psychological.
The observation is the player is getting “outmuscled” in your eye test. You “think” the problem is strength. But what is the true reason he is losing more 1v1 confrontations than winning?
What the list of possible limiting factors in losing 1v1 battles could be:
Physical Coactive:
Lack of strength
Lack of range of motion in hips and ankles to play low enough
Doesn’t lack the range of motion off the ice but can’t play that low with skates on (see if he wraps his laces around his ankles or ties skates very tight at the top)
Doesn’t lack the range of motion but his feet are weak and his body doesn’t own that deep position
Technical Coactive:
Doesn’t understand center of gravity and base of support (not wide enough base in relation to where contact is coming from)
Doesn’t understand where his weight should be distributed on his skates (too far on toes= fall forward when contact comes)
Ignorant to initiating contact first (hasn’t been taught to reverse bump)
Hasn’t been taught to push himself off the wall when pinned
Doesn’t play heavy on his stick in battles (can be easily lifted without much effort)
Tactical Coactive:
Doesn’t know where his pop pass release point player is outside of the battle
Doesn’t have the support of his teammates as a 2nd quick consistently
Psychological Coactive:
Has a ton of anxiety and gets tight in battles because his coach is always on him about it
Doesn’t have the confidence to bump out to the dot lane support player
Levels
Like rapper Meek Mill once stated, “ There are levels to this…”
Are you on the surface level?
Do you need to go deeper?
Look closer at the video. What is it really telling you?
Before you decide it is a lack of strength, talk to the player to find out more. And look one level deeper.
Is the issue:
confidence related
lack of awareness tactically
lack of wall play skills
This is an example of the level of depth you might have to explore with players.
1 issue of losing 1v1 battles has 13 potential solutions.
The real question we need to be asking is…
What is the real problem here?
The best coaches are the best problem solvers.
This often involves going one level deeper.