The Little Things

One of the most commonly used phrases throughout all of sports is "the little things." Coaches, players, announcers, fans and basically anyone who regulary calls themselves a sports fan has probably heard this phrase and in all likelihood even used it themselves.

But what does it actually mean? More times than not, it used in this framework - "Player X is a great player because he does all the little things." Or, "Gentlemen, its about details...its about doing the little things."

Everyone who hears this phrase, generally understands it, yet it is often left undescribed and left at just that - "little things." So it morphs into this sort of unstated, undescribed intangible. Well, that day is going to end today.

Without a specific time frame or ending, I am going to reach out to lots and lots of fellow coaches and ask them that question - What are the little things that coaches mean when they say..well..the little things? (in context of hoops). Then I will take what these coaches give me and continue to update this list until it becomes this super extensive list of all little things players should be doing to help them improve as a player or coach for that matter.

Of course, Being an east coast guy, I'm going to start there and work my way down, updating the list as often as I see fit.

The list is going to be started with some notes passed on to me by Sam Scholl who is an assistant coach at Santa Clara University. I will try and not have repeat additions and my thoughts are in the ( ).

• Make the extra pass.
• Make all lay ups in warmups. (Amazing how sometimes a player can just coast through warm ups when in actuality they should be sweating and getting ready. Never understand that.)

Well for now that is the list. I've already posed the question out to the twitter folk and will send out my first batch of emails probably this weekend. If you have anything you'd like to add you can either comment with it, or email me at justindif@gmail.com.

Enjoy.