Alex Sarama

And I've talked about this with them.

Alex Sarama and some folks from Transform Basketball and Keith Davids, I believe.

And that is in a complex system, you have to separate the outcomes from the decisions or the process, right? So you'll hear a lot of coaches around high school talk about how awesome they are because they're recruiting, they're poaching these players that are really good.

And that doesn't make them a good coach.

But I think it's important to make sure our listeners understand that.

And, you know, I have Alex Sarama's new book, which I think you looked at and reviewed, but it goes into complex adaptive systems.

And in that, it's the interactions, the quality of the interactions that matter more so than the quality of the agents.

And that to me is an environment thing.

So how do you do that? You've got to also simulate the environment where there may be lots of players around distracting the goalkeeper, trying to put the goalkeeper off physically, interacting with them at times.

And he has learned to do that and manipulate the task constraints really well.

So he, for me... is right up there alex sarama's another one yeah basketball but it's not just um limited to team sports people i've seen some real misconceptions when they say oh yeah ecological dynamics you know it's just limited to team sport it's not i've seen it in springboard diving i've seen it in track and field uh cricket bowling um run up in long jump for example the idea is inclining you know the individual on the vertical surface swimming in a pool yep They're being applied all

over.

They're just stuck.

And so when I was at a WNBA practice with Alex Sarama recently, and he talked a lot about the shapes on the floor.

He's like, I really want my athletes to be attuned to only two ending conditions, where the athletes are in terms of shapes on the floor and the shape of the shot.

Everything else is just an emergent way to get there, right? So I want them to be able to recognize like, okay, what is the spacing? Where's the spacing likely to end up? And like, I'm really deeply attuned to like the shape, the shot I need to create from the spot on the floor that I'm at, right? And so our job, you know, I think a lot about, you know, I was talking to an AGM about this today, actually, like, Much of our job as a pitching coach is, what is the worst outcome for a pitcher? The yips is the worst outcome.

Can you expand on that a little bit? What was it that you saw as the aha moment and how it helped you?

It's really funny because I think that you and Yurik and Alex Sarama and Chris Oliver were all in a clinic in Regina in 2019.

And I just sort of started to come around to some of that stuff at that point and spend a weekend just being like, okay, I've been doing this.

Not all wrong because, I mean...

If we have a mismatch, we can't cope, right? And there is no way out.

Hey, welcome to the show, Alex Sarama.

So thrilled to have you here.

I understand that you may be the youngest coach in WNBA history.

All right.

Today, my guest is David Perroque from a bunch of place, Brown University, working a little bit with Alex Sarama on some projects.

Bridgewater State University,

right, is

Um, so that's going to be, uh, uh, that's a project that we're working on now.

That's, um, going to be, uh, out in, in next year or so.

Uh, but that's a broader project about what sports are and why does this constraint thing work well in this context? Uh, and then, uh, another project that I'm working on that coaches and people might be interested in, uh, is you mentioned at the beginning, um, Brown university athletic department, uh, which I am, but I'm also working on a project with Alex Sarama.

He's a close colleague of mine.

Yes.

Alex Sarama.

I've been reading his stuff.

And one of our good Canadians works for him with his team to fire

And that, that is the thing where it's like, and of course, you know, when I go to big 10 basketball media days, it's like, of course, everyone's coming up to me talking about the links and their thoughts and just like, so it felt like this kind of like, like wave of just like the emotions of it again and like kind of reliving the end of the season and stuff.

So while a part of my brain is like, all right, it's calling basketball season right now for my intents and purposes, it still felt like, oh, wow, there's still just so many thoughts and stuff that people were like coming up to me with, you know, players, coaches, staff members, like it was all over the place.

Yeah.

Part of it is it's so abrupt.

Can't think of his name offhand.

Howard Mechel? Yeah, Howard tweeted out or posted out.

It was either on Instagram or Twitter, but he tweeted out a copy of the pool report where the referee said there was a miscommunication at the end of the game between the coaches and refs, which...

Kind of sounds like, you know, maybe someone thought New York didn't have any timeouts.

... hoops at Oregon.

There's that automatic immediate connection there, and then may- maybe Alex Sarama can put her under the CLA and try to make some magic out of her.

And she, she can regain her confidence actually just, like, running an offense and getting to just gun, as well running more pick and rolls than anybody else in the league.

I could see it.