In basketball, we talk a lot about decision-making. Much less about what might actually be going on in a player's head before the decision is made. What do they see first, on what basis do they evaluate their options, and why do two players decide differently in the exact same situation?
After a very painful defeat, we were sitting in the locker room. I was still at the beginning of my career, and with great intensity, I called out the team's primary point guard for his game-altering decisions. When I told him he had made bad decisions, I left the door open just a bit so we could watch it again and sit down to analyze his choices together. What does a "bad decision" actually mean? Did he not see the passing option? Was he technically afraid to execute it? Did he fail to recognize the situation in time? Did he not perceive the spatial layout the same way? Or did he simply have completely different information available to him?
That was the moment I realized that I didn't misunderstand the player's decisions; I misunderstood decision-making itself. Of course, since then, I have spent hundreds of hours rewatching games, analyzing players' choices, and trying to understand what might be going on in a player's head. That was when the thought process began for me, which eventually led to my own model. When I say "my own," I mean a picture that came together within me through my experiences and searches, which was then confirmed in practice.
I haven't invented anything new. In basketball, everything that could be invented has already been invented. That is not what I am undertaking. Often, the difference lies not in what we know, but in how we organize what we know into a system.
This first piece is not about answers. I would rather phrase it as the questions that led to the framework of thinking I will present and analyze article by article. To fully grasp this method, it is worth looking first at the elements it is built upon.
Is it truly a choice between multiple options, or rather a continuous process of narrowing them down? In this chapter, I will explore why we falsely believe that the best decision-maker has the highest number of options in their head, and why that is not actually what happens.
Why do I believe that every complex decision ultimately simplifies into a single yes/no action? Why is not making a binary decision also a decision, or how can one balance between the game of action and waiting?
Players (and coaches) with advanced decision-making abilities don't necessarily see more options—though that is also likely. Often, they simply rule out the bad ones faster. How can we practice simplification and elimination?
Can experience be gained purely through observation? How can video analysis turn into genuine development? Is experience only what we have lived through personally?
Why does every decision option in different situations only exist for a few tenths of a second? How can this time window be slowed down through training? How can we slow down time?
How can it truly be developed? Video analysis, game situations, training drills, and error integration. Do we have the specific situations and drills needed for this to work in reality?
Believe it or not, we can integrate errors into the experience of our decision-making, which we then correct through cognitive recognition—or in other words, how quickly do you recognize your own mistakes and how effectively do you use them?
In this chapter, we explore whether intuition is truly a gut feeling, or merely the earlier recognition of patterns. How does our changing personality and ingrained mental schemas affect our decision-making?
How does all of this manifest in my own player development work, and on what principles do I build development practices?
In the next part, we will explore in detail what decision-making actually is. Until then, let's try to ask ourselves the most honest question regarding the topic: Do we truly understand decisions, or do we only see the consequences?