If I were a Coach, Part II

  If I were a coach, I'd believe in my players. A player will only lose confidence in himself if he senses the coach doesn't believe in him.
  I would give them no reason not to believe in themselves.
  A coach is the coach. If he isn't giving you reason to believe in yourself, who will? It's his job.
  But, I would also be assessing my players, scouting them, finding their weaknesses as well as their strengths. If they weren't 48-minute players, but, rather, had tendencies to play better after long rests, I would want to know that.
   If I could coach them out of their weaknesses, I would. If I couldn't, I'd adjust my game plan.
   And, I'd not only notice their plus-minus, I would film their every move to see if they had anything to do with it. I'd have a camera rolling on each player. I'd study to see if there was anything each player did that might have contributed to a basket or to stopping a basket, looking for things that wouldn't show up in the stats. I'd say, Okay, we scored on this play. What were you doing? You weren't the one who scored, and you didn't make the assist, but did you do anything that did contribute? On the defensive end, I'd make the same type of analysis.
  Sometimes, it might be that you deferred. If there were hot players on the court, and you had the ball in your hands and gave it up, and the team eventually scored when the hot hand got the basket, you contributed. If you had instead forced up a shot, and missed, the team never would have scored. You need players who don't get in the way of success, as much as you do those who make it happen.