I recently heard Idaho head basketball coach Alex Pribble talk about something he calls “NBT” — No Basketball Talk. During practice, he intentionally builds in moments to talk with his players about anything but basketball. I love that approach. A season is long. Practices can become repetitive. Relationships can quietly slip into being transactional. I tried this with a group of my middle school players one season, and it was refreshing. We talked about what was going on in their lives, what they were into outside of basketball, what they were excited about. You could feel the shift. Walls came down. Trust went up. If you coach, consider building in intentional “no basketball talk” time. The season is long. The relationships are what last.

Here's some book notes + a summary from the book "Leaders Eat Last" that I've used with some of my teams in the past. Feel free to take bits and pieces of it for yourself or for your team to use! Great stuff here. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1I2mJcUSdNXwyBlJ0BUGhCGyEuaHbQA93?usp=drive_link