In practice, don't just run basketball drills, teach the players how to play basketball.
I go to schools in L.A., and I teach lessons. I run with the girls and teach them things about bullying and gossip. For instance, we'd play things like telephone, where you can actually see how words get twisted.
Obviously, like anything else, I have views on how we should play defense but I don't call the defensive plays. I have views on how I want us to run our offense but I don't call our offensive plays. It's in collaboration with Phil Snow, with Joe Brady, with all of our coaches.
Only run special plays for special players; find plays that fit your players.
It strikes me that these days, clubs don't even want players who can truly play any more; they just want athletes, quick guys who don't have a football brain, can just run and run; some of them, Jesus. I can never imagine acting like that.
I think a part of the reason that those early plays were short was that I just kept having these ideas, and I'd just go off and write them. I wasn't trying to write one-act plays - it's just how the ideas would be expressed. Every condition I was in seemed like it could be a play.
I just always wanted to play guitar. I though that was, like, really dope. And then in high school, I learned how to play trumpet and, like, French horn because if the instrument's right in front of me, I'm going to just teach myself.
The thing I know how to do most is write a play. I came up loving plays and learning about plays and writing plays. I actually feel like an outsider when I'm writing movies and television.
I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.
I tell the players all the time: 'There is no magic play.' Players make the plays.
It doesn't matter what play is called, you have to run that play and you have to be successful on it. It just comes down to execution, all 11 players doing the right thing.
Any play, I'm ready for all the plays, ... That's the whole thing. . . . Any time I can get out and show I can do this, do those type of things, I'm going to do it. It was just fun, being able to run and get down the field. Just run, do what I do.
Like I always say, it's not how many great plays you make; it's how few bad ones you make. I know fans, and even some losing coaches, are enamored with long pass completions or the great run plays, but that doesn't offset the interception or the fumble.
Merlin really taught me how to concentrate, that you play each play as if it were the only play. And if you put all the plays together like that, then you'll come out on top.
I'd like to be in a position to have plays run through me and share the ball, make plays. Still score, obviously, but make plays, as well.
I spend a lot of time copying saxophone players and trumpet players. Not to say that it is not important to listen to guitar players, but there's so much music out there and so many possibilities. I like anyone who plays any instrument.