Recommended Reading: David and Goliath

This is definitely an idea I should have had earlier, but I’m glad it popped into my head this morning anyway. As a coach and teacher, some of the most interesting books are on human psychology. Of course basketball books can be great too. This is our first ‘Recommended Reading’ post, but it certainly won’t be the last.

I just finished David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell. It is an excellent book, another in Gladwell’s series of excellent books. At first glance it seems to be about how underdogs overcome the odds to claim victory, which would have obvious value to us as coaches when facing superior opponents. The true content of the book is that what can be perceived as disadvantages are sometimes anything but, and how success can be derived from those disadvantages.

There is a portion of the book dedicated to basketball, and many of you will be familiar with its story. It centers on how underdogs can use the press defense against superior opponents to try and tilt the odds in their favor. This idea, at least in coaching circles I am in, has gained plenty of traction in theory – but many coaches still fail to use it in practice. The difficulty of conditioning and teaching a team to press non-stop is pretty daunting.

There are more lessons than that in this book though, and plenty of ideas that had my brain working overtime. The stories of individuals who use their disadvantages or disabilities to rise high is incredible, and it gave me so much to think about in terms of how we help our players grow as individuals. I have met so many athletes that could have benefited from advice derived from the lessons learned in this book that I really wish I had read it earlier in my career.

I consider this book a must-read for coaches. All three parts of the book; The Advantages of Disadvantages, The Theory of Desirable Difficulty, and The Limits of Power, have powerful messages that can translate to our job as leaders and mentors. I hope you get a chance to read it soon, and good luck this season, especially to our first year coaches.