Why Better Decision-Makers Aren't Created by Repeating the Same Drill
- jbgazzaz
- Jul 7
- 10 min read
What basketball has taught me, and what the research confirmed, about developing smarter players.
There are few compliments in basketball that carry as much weight as hearing someone describe a player as having a "high basketball IQ."
It's a phrase we hear constantly. Coaches use it when describing players who always seem to make the right read. Commentators mention it when someone makes the extra pass rather than forcing a contested shot. Fans use it to explain why certain players influence games without necessarily leading the box score.
Yet despite how often we talk about basketball IQ, we rarely stop to ask what it actually means, or more importantly, how it's developed.
Can decision-making really be taught? Or is it something that players naturally acquire through years of experience?
It's a question I've found myself returning to throughout different stages of my basketball journey. As a player, I admired teammates who always seemed one step ahead of everyone else. As a coach, I became fascinated by why some young athletes recognized opportunities almost instinctively while others, despite having similar technical ability, struggled to make effective decisions once the game became unpredictable. More recently, while completing my Master's in Basketball Coaching and Management at the Real Madrid Graduate School, that curiosity evolved into a research question.
Together with my co-author, Adriano Santos, I spent months reviewing the literature surrounding decision-making in basketball. We examined how different training methods, practice environments, and coaching approaches influence the way players perceive information and respond under pressure. Some of the findings confirmed what I had experienced on the court over the years. Others challenged assumptions I had never really questioned.
The biggest takeaway, however, was remarkably simple.
Players don't become better decision-makers because they've repeated the same drill a thousand times. They become better decision-makers because they've solved a thousand different basketball problems.
That distinction may seem subtle, but I believe it changes the way we should think about coaching.
Basketball Has Never Been Just About Skill Execution
One of the easiest mistakes coaches make is assuming that if players execute a skill well in practice, they'll naturally make better decisions in games.
It's an understandable assumption.
Basketball is built on technical skills. Shooting, passing, dribbling, footwork, finishing, and defensive movement all require repetition. Without repetition, those skills never become reliable enough to withstand the pressure of competition.
But basketball games don't test players on how well they perform drills.
They test how well they solve problems.
Every possession presents a different challenge. A defender closes out harder than expected. Help defense rotates earlier. A passing lane disappears. A teammate misses a screen. The spacing changes. The shot clock continues to count down.
The technical skill itself rarely changes.
The context does.
Looking back at my own playing career, that's probably one of the biggest lessons basketball has taught me. Some of the players I've admired most weren't necessarily the quickest, strongest, or most athletic. What made them difficult to play against was their ability to recognize situations before everyone else did. They weren't reacting faster because they were physically superior. They simply processed the game differently.
That's why I've gradually stopped thinking of basketball as a game primarily defined by technical execution.
To me, it's a game of perception.
Execution is simply the final step.
Why We Sometimes Mistake Repetition for Learning
Walk into almost any basketball practice around the world, and you'll probably find some version of the same routine.
Players line up.
The ball moves through a sequence of passes.
Everyone knows where they're supposed to stand.
The next movement is predictable because it has already been rehearsed dozens of times.
There is absolute value in this type of practice.
Repetition builds confidence. It develops coordination. It allows players to refine movement patterns until they become automatic.
The problem begins when repetition becomes the entire learning environment.
Imagine asking a player to take the exact same uncontested jump shot fifty consecutive times from the same location on the floor.
By the end of the drill, they'll almost certainly be a better shooter than they were at the beginning.
Now imagine placing that same player into a game.
A defender closes out aggressively.
A teammate cuts through the lane.
The weak-side defender stunts toward the ball.
The shot clock shows six seconds.
Suddenly, the question is no longer whether the player can shoot.
The question is whether shooting is even the correct decision.
That's a completely different skill.
The research repeatedly reinforced something that many coaches intuitively understand but don't always intentionally design for: technical proficiency and decision-making don't necessarily develop together.
Players can become exceptionally good at performing rehearsed movements without becoming significantly better at recognizing when those movements should be used.
Basketball rarely rewards the player with the cleanest technique alone.
It rewards the player who applies that technique at the right moment.
The Best Learning Environment Looks Surprisingly Like the Game
One idea emerged consistently across the literature we reviewed, regardless of the specific training intervention studied.
Practice should represent the game.
Researchers often describe this as representative learning design, but the underlying idea is remarkably straightforward.
If players are expected to make decisions during games, then practice should also regularly ask them to make decisions.
Not after the drill.
Not during the scrimmage at the end of practice.
Throughout the entire session.
That means reading defenders instead of running around cones.
Recognizing space instead of memorizing patterns.
Communicating with teammates because the situation requires it, not because the coach reminded them to talk.
I think this was one of the findings that resonated most with me, particularly through coaching younger players.
When training becomes more representative, practice often becomes less tidy.
There are more turnovers.
Spacing breaks down.
Communication isn't always immediate.
Players hesitate because they haven't encountered that exact situation before.
At first glance, it can feel like the session isn't progressing.
In reality, something far more valuable is happening.
Players are learning how to think.
They're gathering information before acting. They're making mistakes, adjusting, and trying again. Instead of waiting for instructions after every possession, they begin discovering solutions through the game itself.
I've noticed that some of the most productive practices I've been part of weren't necessarily the smoothest ones. They were the sessions where players were challenged just enough to have to search for answers on their own.
Those moments are rarely perfect.
But they're often where the deepest learning happens.
Coaching Is More Than Delivering Information
One thing that became increasingly clear while writing this review is that coaching isn't simply about transferring knowledge from coach to player.
If it were, basketball would be much easier to teach.
Instead, coaching is about designing environments where players can experience the game in meaningful ways.
That's a subtle but important difference.
For many years, coaching was often associated with providing answers. Correct the mistake. Explain the solution. Repeat the drill until everyone performs it correctly.
Modern research on skill acquisition encourages us to think slightly differently.
Perhaps our role isn't always to provide the answer.
Perhaps our responsibility is to create situations in which players learn to find it themselves.
That doesn't make the coach less important.
If anything, it makes coaching even more demanding.
Because designing meaningful learning experiences requires far more planning than simply organizing drills.
It requires understanding not only what players should do, but why they're doing it, what information they're using to make decisions, and how practice can recreate those demands.
The coach is no longer just teaching basketball skills.
The coach is designing basketball experiences.
And I think that's one of the most exciting shifts taking place in coaching today.
Small-Sided Games Do More Than Increase Ball Touches
When coaches talk about small-sided games, the conversation often revolves around player involvement.
More touches.
More movement.
More possessions.
More opportunities to compete.
Those are all legitimate benefits, and they're part of the reason small-sided games have become a staple of modern basketball training. But after reviewing the literature, I think focusing only on those advantages misses the bigger picture.
The greatest value of small-sided games isn't simply that players touch the ball more often.
It's that they think more often.
Reducing the number of players on the court changes the nature of every possession. There is less time to hide behind teammates, fewer opportunities to become a passive participant, and a greater responsibility to constantly interpret what's happening around you. Offensive players are forced to read defenders more frequently, while defenders have to communicate, rotate, and recover with much less margin for error.
Every possession becomes a sequence of decisions rather than a sequence of movements.
That's an important distinction.
A player might receive the ball twice in a five-on-five possession, but in a three-on-three game, they're constantly processing information, even when they don't have the ball. They're adjusting spacing, recognizing numerical advantages, anticipating defensive rotations, and preparing for the next action long before they're directly involved.
Those repeated decision-making opportunities accumulate over time.
What begins as uncertainty gradually becomes familiarity.
Patterns that once felt overwhelming become recognizable.
The game doesn't necessarily slow down.
Players simply become better at understanding it.
Elite Players Don't React Faster, They Recognize Earlier
One of my favorite concepts from the research wasn't actually about physical performance at all.
It was about perception.
We often describe elite players as making the game look easy. Watching them, it almost feels as though they have an extra second to make every decision.
Of course, they don't.
They're playing under the same shot clock, against the same defenders, and within the same space as everyone else.
The difference lies in what happens before the decision itself.
Elite players gather information continuously.
They scan the court before receiving the ball.
They recognize defensive rotations while the offense is still developing.
They identify passing lanes before they fully open.
They anticipate instead of react.
That's one of the reasons basketball experience is so valuable. With enough exposure to meaningful game situations, players begin to recognize familiar patterns without consciously considering every possibility.
What once required deliberate analysis eventually becomes instinctive.
It's important to recognize, however, that instinct isn't magic.
Instinct is experience organized efficiently.
That realization changed the way I think about basketball IQ.
For years, basketball IQ felt like one of those qualities players either possessed or didn't. The research paints a much more encouraging picture. While every player develops differently, decision-making can improve when athletes repeatedly experience representative situations that challenge them to observe, interpret, and respond.
Basketball intelligence isn't fixed.
It's built.
Constraints Aren't Restrictions, They're Teaching Tools
One topic that appeared throughout our review was the use of constraints.
If you've coached for any length of time, you've probably manipulated constraints without even thinking about it.
Maybe you've reduced the size of the court.
Limited the number of dribbles.
Awarded bonus points for extra passes.
Created numerical advantages.
Adjusted the shot clock.
At first glance, these changes might seem like simple variations designed to keep practice interesting.
They're much more than that.
Every constraint changes the information available to players.
Reduce the available space, and players must make decisions more quickly.
Limit dribbles, and they begin moving without the ball more effectively.
Create a numerical disadvantage, and defenders learn to communicate with greater urgency.
The drill itself hasn't become more complicated.
The environment has.
That shift is incredibly powerful because it encourages players to adapt rather than memorize.
Looking back, I've realized that some of the best coaching moments I've witnessed didn't involve long explanations.
They involved a single small change to the environment that completely altered how players approached the game.
Sometimes a single rule forces players to discover something no speech ever could.
Research Doesn't Replace Coaching, It Strengthens It
When people hear the phrase "research-based coaching," they sometimes imagine replacing experience with data.
I don't see it that way.
If anything, writing this review reinforced my appreciation for coaching experience.
Research doesn't coach teams.
People do.
Research doesn't build relationships with players.
People do.
Research doesn't understand the locker-room personality or the emotional context of a season.
Coaches do.
What research can do is provide another lens through which we evaluate our own practice.
Throughout this project, I found myself repeatedly connecting scientific findings with moments I'd already experienced as both a player and a coach.
Sometimes the literature confirmed what I'd long believed.
Other times, it challenged assumptions I'd never questioned.
Both outcomes were valuable.
I don't think coaches should blindly follow every new study, nor should they dismiss research because it doesn't perfectly resemble their own environment.
The best coaching often exists somewhere between evidence and experience.
Research helps us ask better questions.
Experience helps us answer them.
What I'll Take Onto the Court
Every project leaves you with something.
Sometimes it's new knowledge.
Sometimes it's a different perspective.
For me, this review changed the way I think about practice design.
If I had completed this project five years ago, I probably would have finished by asking, "What drill should I use?"
Now I find myself asking something different.
What decisions does this activity actually require players to make?
That question has become a filter through which I look at almost every practice.
Does this drill encourage players to scan?
Does it require communication?
Does it create uncertainty?
Does it reward perception rather than memorization?
If the answer is no, then perhaps the activity is developing technical execution without fully developing basketball understanding.
There's still a place for isolated technical work.
Players need opportunities to refine mechanics and build confidence.
But technical practice should prepare players for the game, not replace it.
The game remains the greatest teacher.
Our responsibility is to create opportunities for players to experience it as often and as realistically as possible.
Final Thoughts
Basketball has always rewarded players who think well under pressure.
Not because they know every answer, but because they're comfortable solving unfamiliar problems.
The more I studied decision-making, the more I realized that basketball intelligence isn't built through perfect repetition.
It's built through meaningful variability.
Through uncertainty.
Through representative experiences.
Through opportunities to make mistakes, adjust, and try again.
As coaches, we naturally invest enormous effort into planning practices.
Perhaps one of the most valuable questions we can ask ourselves isn't whether today's session looked organized.
It's whether it challenged players to think.
Because long after players forget the exact drill they completed on a Tuesday evening in practice, they'll remember how to recognize a defensive rotation, identify an open teammate, or solve a problem under pressure.
That's what transfers to competition.
And ultimately, that's what we're trying to develop.
From the Notebook
One unexpected benefit of writing this review was realizing that many of the coaching ideas I believed in weren't just personal opinions; they were supported by evidence. At the same time, the research reminded me that coaching is rarely about finding the perfect drill. It's about creating meaningful learning experiences that encourage players to observe, adapt, and make their own decisions.
The best coaches I've learned from, whether as a player, student, or observer, didn't simply teach skills. They created environments where players learned to understand the game.
That's an idea I'll continue carrying with me, both on the court and in future research.
Further Reading
This article is inspired by our review paper, Decision-Making in Basketball Players: Training Interventions, Task Constraints, and Practical Applications, co-authored with Adriano Santos. If you'd like to explore the evidence behind the ideas discussed here, including the methodology, reviewed studies, and practical recommendations for coaches, you can read the full publication in the Work section of my website.