Kevin Eastman Newsletter

As I study successful teams, I see one common characteristic very clearly. Every one of these teams has a person or people who hold themselves personally accountable. These are the special people who only need a coach to teach them what and how to do something; then they take that and run with it. They understand that a major part of their job is to be self sufficient and personally accountable for their improvement and productivity. As I look around the NBA at these special players, I see some other distinct traits, all related to this personal accountability. These players:

• don't blame others first; instead, they look first for what they contributed (or did not contribute) to the situation

• don't complain; instead, they look for ways to correct things that aren't working

• don't procrastinate; instead, get things done now

• always give more than they ask of others

• always look to take on as much as they can handle, rather than look to pass things on to others all the time

• are constantly trying to improve their game so they can bring more to the team and consistently fulfill their role

• are self starters and study the game (and themselves) enough to know what needs to be done; then go about doing it

• do the unrequired work, knowing that it simply needs to get done -- extra shots, extra weight training, extra film watching, etc. – without constantly needing a coach to tell them to work

• hold others accountable for their jobs and roles because they know the importance of accountability as it relates to winning; this creates a collective responsibility

• always be among of the most trusted players on the team, by coaches and players

Chandler gives Bobcats a strong voice in the middle

Good article today on newly acquired Bobcat center Tyson Chandler. Chandler has already made his mark on the team by the way he communicates with this teammates:

It's my nature - I'm vocal, I'm going to speak out. I feel like (by being vocal and candid), it's going to make everybody gel. I think with me, it's always constructive criticism, but I have a passion for the game and wanting to win."

Says veteran guard Raja Bell:

"It definitely helps if you have someone who can quarterback (the defense from the center position) because he's the only one who can see the whole floor from under the basket. For him to give us an audio of what's going on, when you can't see it (coming), helps tremendously."

Chandler considers himself somewhat expert at low-post defense. He expects to share that knowledge.

"I wouldn't be doing Raymond (Felton) any favors if I wasn't telling him about something he's doing wrong defensively," Chandler described. "And Raymond wouldn't be doing me any favors (by not speaking up when) I'm letting Amare (Stoudemire) or Dwight (Howard) go for 30 on me and I'm playing lazy.

"It's about holding each other accountable to win. That's the ultimate goal and that's what I'm trying to bring here."

'This camp ain't for everybody:' Sparano, Dolphins turn up heat

DAVIE, Fla. — There's a survival-of-the-fittest mentality at work at Camp Sparano, where the Miami Dolphins train hard and fast amid conditions that resemble a sauna.

A week into camp, four players had already left on their own terms. One didn't bother to show up, three others bolted after tasting coach Tony Sparano's practice regimen.

Joey Porter sees a bright side to such developments.

"If you're going to find out, you want to find out now," the linebacker says. "I've never been to a camp where so many people quit. But this camp ain't for everybody. Camp is the hardest part of football. The two-a-days and the way we work around here, with the heat and what we do, it can get to people."

Porter is one of the team's most experienced players, heading into his 11th NFL season. In some camps, as was the case when he played for the Pittsburgh Steelers, tenure might earn an occasional practice off. Not here. Not now.

"It's a little different," Porter says. "The philosophy here is that everybody works."
Sparano, starting his second season at the helm after ushering a turnaround that matched the greatest improvement in NFL history — Miami went from an NFL-worst 1-15 in 2007 to 11-5 and an AFC East crown last season — is building a foundation on grunt work.

During the offseason, the Dolphins had 46 weight-room workout sessions. Of 65 players on the offseason roster, 54 never missed a workout session. No player, Sparano says, attended fewer than 94% of the weight-room workouts. Add 100% attendance at each minicamp and OTA session, and the coach is bullish on prospects that his team won't become complacent after the surprising success of last season.

"You can't pick up where you left off," Sparano says. "You've got to go back to the beginning. When you see the kind of participation we had in the offseason, you know they're buying into what it is you're asking them to do."

The Dolphins might have the longest odds against repeating of any division champion, playing in what could be the league's toughest division. The New England Patriots, with Tom Brady back, are looking to reclaim the AFC East throne.

But not without a fight. Sparano says that as tough as it was to climb from the NFL basement into a playoff team last season, taking the next step to be a consistent, legitimate contender might be a harder task.

"That's the biggest challenge for our whole team, to truly understand that what we did last year means nothing right now," says quarterback Chad Pennington, who was released in camp last summer by the New York Jets and wound up earning NFL Comeback Player of the Year honors.

"This is going to require more work, more consistency."

Sparano and GM Jeff Ireland, working under the watchful eye of VP of Football Operations/resident guru Bill Parcells, don't figure to sit pat in their own right, either. The Dolphins led the NFL last season with 52 transactions, shuffling players in and out in attempts to strengthen the bottom of the roster.

Ireland doesn't expect as many moves this season, which indicates progress.

But that is not to be confused with a comfort zone. Just listen to Sparano.

"There are no guarantees around here," Sparano says. "Hey, I tell our vets, 'This is a show-me game. At some point out here and in these preseason games, I still gotta know that you can do it.'

Getting rid of the shortcuts

"The reason we won is because...he got them to stop the short-cutting, and the lazy habits, and the sloppiness."

-Magic assistant coach Brendan Malone on Coach Stan Van Gundy

Bluejays win more as coach barks less

Article in the Omaha World Herald a couple of days ago about Creighton baseball coach Ed Servais. Servais has raised the accountability factor with his players by staying quiet but supporting them when needed:

Servais told his players about three weeks ago that he would no longer attempt to inspire them with impassioned postgame speeches. No more barking at them, no more challenges.

"I told them, 'It's your team, if you want to go win a championship, go win it. If you want to finish fourth or fifth, do that.'" Servais said. "I told them, 'It's up to you because I've done all that I can do.'"I've pulled out all my stories from 27 years of coaching. I didn't have any more."

The players' reaction?

"They kind of looked at each other and probably thought, 'Oh, he'll never be able to do that,'" Servais said, laughing. "I've tried this before, but it's never lasted more that three or four days. But I haven't raised my voice now for three weeks.

"Outside of family and outside of faith, baseball is more than just a game to us," outfielder T.J. Roemmich said. "It's important that everyone in that dugout and everyone in that locker room knows that. We all have the same goals, of finishing the season out strong and getting in a good position for the Valley tournament."We needed to take ownership of this. Coach can only yell and say so much. It's our responsibility to do the things he asks. I think early in the season we were just reluctant to play the style of baseball that Creighton is accustomed to and that wins games. When we started accepting the system, things started turning around to us."

"If guys held themselves accountable all the time, there would be no need for coaches to yell at them or get on their cases," Roemmich said. "Unfortunately, that hasn't happened throughout the whole season, but now that guys are putting more effort into that, the results are showing on the field."

Communication, discipline, leadership helping the Nuggets

Very good inside look at the George Karl and the Denver Nuggets this week by Ian Thomsen at cnnsi.com. Nugget teams of the past few years were known to put up lots of points and give up tons as well. This year, the coaching staff is focusing more on the defensive side of the floor. Come playoff time, George Karl felt that they didn't have an identity defensively to go deep into the playoffs. Here is a look at the turnaround, which hasn't always been a smooth ride:

1.Going back to basics: Over the previous two seasons in Denver, Karl had focused on developing a passing-game offense aimed at creating gaps to attack the basket. He won't try making that a priority again. "I learned a lot, it was a good experiment, I'm glad I survived it," Karl said. "But there's no question I'm better when I coach the game from the defensive end of the court. My staff is more comfortable when I coach from the defensive end of the court, and deep down inside most players have a trust in that end of the court."

When his Nuggets lost in the first round last season for the fourth successive year -- having won three playoff games in that span -- Karl and his longtime assistant Tim Grgurich agreed on a new way forward: Return to the old system, based on the aggressive trapping defense that dates back to his long run of success with Gary Payton in Seattle.

"I remember the next two or three days [after the playoffs]. We said, 'We've got to go back to the old way,' '' Karl said. "There's too much freedom and openness to coaching offense. The discipline and the toughness and the soul of the game come from the defensive end of the court most of the time."

Karl understands why people say he didn't appear to be plugged in over the last couple of years: He was thinking his way through the game instead of reacting to it.

"So much of coaching is the trust and passion that the team feels from you, and if you're faking that over a 100 games a year, they find that out," Karl said. "I'm not sure I was faking it, but the last couple of years I was confused. When a problem came up, I didn't know how to address it based on my experiences. Now I think I'm back to feeling much more comfortable on how to attack a weakness that we've developed or a situation that has arisen."

2.Embrace discipline: "We were at Grg's camp [in Las Vegas] the first week in August and he said, 'Not only do we have to go back to the defense, but we've got to go back to touching our players and telling these guys that we can still win,' " Karl said. "Because the cloud in Denver was, We're done. No one thought we could win. Everybody predicted the doom."

Each of the assistant coaches reached out to players over the summer.

"I went to Nenê the second week in August, I had dinner with him and his fiancee," Karl said.

"He said some hard things to me, I said some hard things to him. Nenê has never been a guy who went to the gym until he had to. I would say within a week [of that dinner], he was in the gym five days a week from August on.

"Grg went to Dallas -- I think twice in that time -- to talk with Kenyon [Martin], and he talked about how we can't have the nonsense that we've had. And Kenyon bought into that. In our first team meeting, Kenyon stood up and said, 'I have been a problem, but I'm not going to be a problem anymore.' "

Both Nenê and Martin have had resurgent seasons. Nenê is averaging career highs of 14.6 points and 7.8 rebounds while shooting 60.3 percent, and Martin is playing his most minutes since the 2004-05 season.

3.Call it like you see it. "In the NBA we do not coach enough," Karl said. "We manage. We attitude-adjust, we call the league office, we talk to agents.

"I tell Pop [Spurs coach Gregg Popovich] all the time, 'Pop, you coach different than we coach. You have a no-nonsense, low-maintenance superstar.' How many of them exist? When you have a disciplinary problem with Melo Carmelo Anthony and you have an injury here and you have a dysfunctional personality on your team, that's not coaching; that's managing. The more that we have to manage what I call the de-energizers of basketball -- selfishness, non-commitment, not playing hard, attitudes in the locker room -- you're not coaching."

"Melo and I are now at the stage where I can talk to him about everything," Karl said. "Sometimes I do it with [the help of] Chauncey [Billups], and there are still the sensitive areas of shot selection and selfishness and commitment to defense, where sometimes it's easier to be with an assistant or do it through a video. But I would say Melo and I are at the stage now that whatever the headache is, even when he's [angry] he can bring it to me, and when I'm [angry] I can bring it to him. Before we always kind of walked around, holding back."

"I went to Chauncey and Melo in a couple of instances [this season] and said, 'You've got to take this off my plate. You've got to police this team. You've got to take responsibility.

4.Import leadership: The Nuggets were already committed to a new (or old) approach when they dealt Allen Iverson to Detroit in November for Billups, a blockbuster trade that enabled them to eventually limbo underneath the tax threshold even as their team improved -- a most improbable dream in this recession-based league.

"I'm blessed, for the first time in a long time, of having [leadership from a player like Billups]," Karl said. "Sam Cassell was my leader in Milwaukee. Now, come on, Sam's kind of crazy. Sam believes the right stuff, but he doesn't present it on a daily basis. Chauncey presents it on a daily basis. He reminds me a lot of Nate [McMillan] when I had Nate in Seattle, and I didn't know how valuable Nate was because I was still a young coach. People ask me at the clinics, 'Who was your most favorite player you ever coached?' And I say Nate McMillan, because on a daily basis he brought winning and leadership to [our] locker room and to [our] court.

"Chauncey does that. He makes your words be listened to. And when you're coaching five or six years with a team, that's important. Because they get tired of hearing my stories and my repeats and my desires and my demands. But Chauncey has kind of lifted that up."

"There is going to be a surprise team. And what I don't want [my team] to do is throw away the opportunity because of not knowing what it takes. Because we don't have the mature toughness that a Utah might have. We do have a lot of talent that we can throw away five possessions or 10 possessions and make it up, but that's not how you win big. And too many times I say, 'OK, we won, and yeah, you didn't play those first five minutes -- but this is not how you beat L.A. This is not how you beat Houston in Houston. You don't do it this way.' "

'The Butler Way'

Good article this morning in the Chicago Tribune on the Butler men's basketball team, who despite being a 'mid-major' have made 8 NCAA tournament appearances in the last 12 years including 2 Sweet-Sixteen appearances.

So what is 'The Butler Way'? According to Matt Howard, who turned down several major schools such as Purdue, Indiana, and Xavier so he could be a part of Butler's program, it's all about accountability.

"It's just being accountable on every possession," said sophomore forward Matt Howard, voted Horizon League player of the year. "We feel like each guy has a job to do on every play, and you count on teammates to do that job every single time.

"The other thing is playing unselfish. You never let the 'me' get over the 'we.' It's so important, and that's a big part of what we do."

Says coach Brad Stevens:

"You just concentrate on recruiting the right people to represent you, not only on the court but in the classroom also," Stevens said. "There are values we try to adhere to, and you want people who are willing to think and work in terms of those values."

Championship caliber teams focus on the little things

Article in the Boston Hearld on how newly accquired Celtics guard Stephon Marbury is adjusting to playing on a championship-level team:

As Marbury spoke, he still was breathing hard even though he’d been on a diligent workout regimen all year. But this was, he was realizing, quite different. This was Celtics abuse.

“Oh yeah, but it’s good,” Marbury said, summoning the energy for a brief smile. “It was a hard practice today defensively. Defensively this team is amazing. They work at it. They get after it. That’s what it’s about. That’s why they won the championship.”

For now, the road is not smooth for someone anointed as a star/savior in all his other basketball stops.

“I know I’m going to have hiccups,” Marbury said. “Adjusting to these guys is difficult because they play at a high level. It’s not a level where I’m used to. I haven’t played at this level. I’ve never played at a championship level before, so for me, adjusting my style of play, adjusting how I prepare . . . it’s all the same as far as going in with a mind-set, but doing things the way they do things is (what’s) very important.

Paul Pierce offered a knowing nod.

“Even though it was just one day, I think he got a chance to see how we practice, how we get in here early, get our shots up, how we lift the weights - our preparation,” he said. “I think that’s key. A lot of teams, when you’re not winning, you know, the preparation and doing the little things isn’t there. But when you’re a championship-caliber team, you start looking at all the little things from the time you get in the gym to practice and the things you do after. I think him and Mikki (Moore, who is also newly acquired) are starting to see that.”

Team Defense

"It's not overwhelmingly difficult for a committed group of players with only average basketball skills to put together a very good TEAM DEFENSE. Many good defensive teams are far better than the sum of their parts. Certainly each player must decide that he is going to improve as an individual defender as the season progresses to help accomplish this, but he must also make a commitment to the team that he is going to do his part within the system to help his teammates."

-Del Harris

Trying to find and identity

The young Memphis Grizzlies are off to a 11-30 start and just had their head coach fired last night. Here is what center Marc Gasol has to say:

"We don't have an identity. We don't have one. We run around like chickens with our heads cut off. Youth can be a good thing, but we use it as an excuse. We're always making excuses. We make excuses to the referees and to our teammates. We make excuses in practice. That's all some people want to do is make excuses. You're never going to get anywhere like that."

Buc Ball

Tampa Bay Bucs defensive cordinator Monte Kiffin has created a defense over the last 13 years that has dominated the NFL known as 'Buc Ball'.

"Buc Ball isn't for everybody," said Kiffin, a native of Lexington, Neb., who played in the defensive line at Nebraska and later served as the Huskers' defensive coordinator in the 1970s. "You have to buy in to what we do. I think Brooks says it best."

Kiffin is referring to future Hall of Fame linebacker Derrick Brooks. What Brooks is saying could be said for every single sport when it comes to defense. Says Brooks:

"Buc Ball is more of a state of mind," Brooks said. "It's believing what we do, buying into it. It's maxing out every play - whatever your maximum ability is. For instance, if you run a 4.6, you run a 4.6 every play. If you run a 5.0, you run a 5.0 every single play. Max out."

If your job is to take on the fullback and turn the play in to a strong safety, that's what you do, and trust that the strong safety does what he's supposed to do. Not try to turn back the fullback and make the tackle. That might mess up everybody."Buc Ball also is about accountability.

That's the one word that hasn't wavered my entire career here, no matter who you are or where you come from. When you become a Buc, you buy into accountability. That goes beyond football."

"If it's not your style of football or the way you carry yourself, you won't be here long," Brooks said. "You won't get the chance to play Buc Ball."

Commitment to the Team

Good stuff from Bulls coach Vinny Del Negro (shown left) talking about his high draft picks Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah. Both players were top 10 picks in the draft (Thomas 2 years ago, Noah last year) and have not quite reached their potential so far as NBA players. Here is what Coach Del Negro has to say about the situation:

Del Negro said of them: "They're young and have to find their way. When you're on the court, you have to value those minutes. The guys who are focused, know their role, commit to it and come with effort every day will play.

"I can handle mistakes. But I can't handle lack of effort. And I can't handle lack of commitment to the team. Those guys know that. They're working better. That's always a work in progress with a young team."

"Commitment is coming in with energy every day, with focus, trying to get better, lifting weights, being on time, paying attention in meetings, being ready to play, knowing what your role is, who you're guarding, what their strengths and weaknesses are, how you can affect the team in a positive way," he said. "Commitment is being a professional, working every day to get better individually. As that happens, the team gets better."

"It's not just one guy," Del Negro said. "As a team, we have to jell and there are always bumps. If guys commit to the team, they'll get a chance."

Jets’ Jones Lives a Dream of Passion and Purpose

Terrific article in the NY Times today on Jets running back Thomas Jones. His teammates and coaches respect the energy and enthusiasm that he brings to his team everyday:

But Jones’s impact outruns his numbers. Before each game, teammates gather around him looking for a shot of energy. Jones never plans his speeches, nor did he program the tears that welled in his eyes before the Jets’ victory at New England last month.

He speaks — or shouts, or implores, depending on the mood — from the heart. The same as he did while starring at Virginia. The same as he did in high school.

“Everyone feeds off his energy,” fullback Tony Richardson said. “He’s tearing up, yelling. Thomas is a very vocal guy and very passionate. You see a lot of that in the way he plays. Guys look forward to his speeches. They wait for it. Because it gets you going.”

“It’s easy to give a speech at the game and get fired up there in front of 70,000 people,” Jets coach Eric Mangini said. “The hard part is when you’re tired, when it’s Week 10, 12, 14, and you’re still being the same guy, still improving.

“You’re a veteran having a great year, but you’re still doing all the little things that got you here.”

Effort and Attitude

Florida has been rolling teams since Tim Tebow made this comment after their loss to Ole Miss over a month ago:

“I’m sorry. Extremely sorry. We were hoping for an undefeated season. That was my goal. It’s something Florida’s never done here. But I promise you one thing: A lot of good will come out of this. You’ve never seen any player in the entire country who will play as hard as I will play the rest of the season. And you’ll never see someone push the rest of the team as hard as I will push everybody the rest of the season. And you’ll never see a team play harder than we will the rest of the season. God bless.”

Here were his comments after Florida defeated South Carolina on Saturday:

"What I said was something I could control, and that was that we were going to play with a passion, an enthusiasm and love for the game like this university has never seen before," Tebow said. "I knew I could control beyond a shadow of a doubt my effort, our team's effort and the kind of intensity we play with.

"I said what I said to give our fans confidence and our team confidence that we were going to come out and play with the kind of effort and passion that we're playing with right now."