When you are in Love nothing else matters.

Week 3/11-3/17

You gotta know the language to know the beauty

Indian music at Harpeet’s, the Indian Barbershop where I get my haircut, sounds like gibberish to me, he told me it says, “when you are in love nothing else matters.” 

I assume that you all have a deep love for hoop, which is why we get along so well, but to really dive deeper into that love you have to learn the language of basketball. A language you can only learn by continuing to study and practice your craft. 

This week was a big week with the cup championship this weekend, so I sent my notes to my business partner and best friend Kyle to put together this week’s newsletter. Without further ado… let’s dive in: 

Basketball Ideas I’ve Been Experimenting With

Your follow-through needs to be the most disciplined part of any shot.. Don’t do it halfway, if you do anything do it all the way. 

This week is a cool progression for the newsletter because basketball ideas from previous weeks blended with one I have been fixating on this week. In practice,  I held my follow-through even on aggressive closeouts, wasn’t concerned about contact after the shot, avoided flinching, and attacked the reject well. Overall it helped me play well at practice and is something I want to continue to implement into my game. 

The importance of the deep roll against drop rim coverage: 

The big difference here is a half step but trust me it’s a game changer… being the aggressor first, playmaker second.

The power of the skipping into all actions: 

Skipping into a ball screen, skipping into an iso, it allows you so many options. Trey likes the push cross reject or the in and out reject, on both moves the sharpness of the angle is very important. Trey focused on skipping into my decision-making in practice and it really started to open things up. Here are some examples: skip one-hand pass, skip in-out reject, skip push dribble around the PnR to a pull-up.

Mindset Ideas I have been working on: 

Some thoughts from the book Originals by Adam Grant: 

You need a baseline of understanding for your intuition to benefit you. Your intuition is always a helpful tool, but it is not always as good as it could be with some experience. In the section where we look at basketball things Trey is implementing, all of those actions are less intuitive the first time he does them, rather than after the thousandth time he uses it. Long story short, work on new actions and moves, that’s how they become intuitive. 

Peers are better judges of what will succeed than managers. Your coach is going to be a source of a lot of truth, they are watching the game as a sum of its parts rather than through your super specific lens. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t listen to your teammates. Your teammates are the ones who are also honing their crafts, maybe they have a tip for you to help you shift your hips and make your driving angle sharper, or they see you not setting up a pick-and-roll the way that can benefit you and the team. The power of feedback is that you don’t only benefit from the tip but also gain from the unique perspectives. 

To judge what creativity will work you have to be actively pursuing creativity. This point flips the onus of control back onto you. Do you want to make your teammates better? Do you want to win big games? You have to earn that voice in their lives by being a hooper who actively pursues the knowledge and practices those things day in and day out. 

The last thing we wanted to talk about, you are way more likely to build a successful “company” if you have creative interests on the side. One thing, Trey and I talk about all the time is that it’s not just an athletic pursuit, He truly approaches basketball as his art form. The reason he started making video content in his spare time was because he wanted to have a creative outlet outside of hoop that helped him hone his creativity for the court. Trey’s channels stem from a core mission, “Be the mentor I wish I had when I was coming up” and each week he tries to find a creative way to carry out this mission. 

A look into my days this week: 

@treydrechsel

Full training day in the life of an overseas pro basketball player playing in Lisbon, Portugal 🇵🇹 #basketball #dayinthelifeofaprohooper #d... See more

Some workout inspiration

@treydrechsel

5 types of training I do IN-SEASON as an overseas pro basketball player. #basketball #basketballtraining #probasketballtraining #overseasp... See more

Big week this week with two videos:

Closing thoughts: 

This week is unique because Benfica is playing for the cup Saturday and Sunday, so at the time of writing this email we actually don’t know the results of the final game. I thought it would be cool to end this weeks newsletter with some of Trey’s thoughts going into Saturday’s game, and then maybe I will give a little update on Sunday’s game. 

Saturday Gameday thought,  fully present and what that feels like. Lost in the doing and the thinking becomes clearer… lost leads to found. You can only find who you truly are when you lose yourself, clarity through confusion, perspective when you look back on the journey. It's a bit poetic, but it helps me focus. 

Saturday game: 

It was a dog fight… sometimes when playing a worse team than you it’s not about schemes or anything, it’s about just matching their competitiveness, energy and physicality. 

Some thoughts  from my minutes: I was a solid playmaker, and should have shot some more catch and shoots but I competed, and helped my team secure the W. 

Sunday's Game:

Losing never hurts less. If what you are pursuing means something to you, then it’s gonna suck every time you miss the mark. We missed the mark tonight…. by 3 points to our rivals. No way around it, it feels terrible. But…. There is one thing I can guarantee, I am whole heartedly committed to this process: I am going to be even better because of it. I choose to see L’s with perspective because I know the opportunity they are. I am not going to get super into the game, but keep an eye out this week for the vlog drop about the cup, it should be very fun but also very educational.

You gotta understand the language to know the beauty, don’t just work your bodies this week, work your minds. Learn the game, know why you do what you, and execute at the highest level possible.

Kyle