In this episode, Alex Sarama outlines his vision for the future of player development in basketball. He emphasizes how contemporary skill acquisition ideas can be used to inform player development approaches. He shares practical ideas based on current trends in the industry, highlighting the need to move away from teaching specific techniques and instead focusing on creating adaptive players who can respond to any scenario. Alex also discusses the importance of moving away from siloed procedures by integrating principles of play into player development.

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Key Takeaways:

3:00 - “Move away from teaching specific moves and focus on creating adaptive players.”

6:00 - “Skills emerge from the backdrop of principles of play, not just techniques.”

7:17 - “There is no such thing as a micro skill; focus on external feedback.”

8:30 -"Reject mental models and embrace multiple ways to achieve task goals.”

9:44 -"Foster degeneracy by creating activities with multiple solutions."

10:18 - “Focus on exploration rather than instruction in player development.”

11:52 - "Develop global players in an individualized manner.”

13:37 - “Identify rate limiters and target them in player development.”

14:50 - “Create environments with repetition without repetition for skill acquisition.”

15:30 - “Develop attunement to the affordance landscape through practice with defenders.”

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