If I Wanted My Coach to Trust Me More, This is the #1 Thing I’d Focus on

In 1997, an 18-year-old Kobe Bryant found himself on the floor in one of the biggest moments of his young career. The Lakers were facing the Utah Jazz in an elimination game in the Western Conference semifinals. With the game on the line, Kobe kept shooting.

And he kept missing, again and again.

Not just misses, either.

Four airballs in a row.

One came near the end of regulation. Three more came in overtime. Eventually, the Lakers lost, their season ended, and Kobe walked off the floor having experienced the kind of failure that could haunt a young player for possibly the rest of their career.

But Kobe didn’t spend the offseason hiding from those shots.

He studied them.

Years later, he explained that the experience taught him something important. His legs simply weren’t strong enough yet to maintain his shooting mechanics after the grind of an NBA season. So he went to work strengthening his legs and preparing his body so that the same thing wouldn’t happen again.

The airballs mattered.

But what Kobe did next mattered much more.

That’s something every young player needs to understand, because your coach isn’t expecting you to play mistake-free basketball.

Your coach is trying to figure out whether you can be trusted after you make one.

Your Mistake Response Is Always Being Evaluated

PGC Basketball Founder, Dick DeVenzio taught players to pay close attention to their mistake response.

Missed shots, turnovers, silly fouls, and bad reads are bound to happen. You’re going to get beat defensively, disagree with an official, and occasionally get taken out of a game when you desperately want to stay in.

None of those moments destroy a coach’s trust.

What can destroy trust is what you choose to do next.

A player turns the ball over and drops their head while the other team attacks in transition. Another misses an open shot and spends the next possession thinking about the miss instead of communicating on defense. Someone gets called for a foul, argues with the official, and fails to recognize what’s happening around them.

The original mistake may have cost your team one possession.

A poor mistake response can cost them the next one, too.

That’s why coaches aren’t simply evaluating mistakes. They’re evaluating whether mistakes multiply.

The bigger your role becomes, the more important this becomes.

If your coach gives you more opportunities to handle the ball, you’re eventually going to turn it over. If you’re assigned to guard the opponent’s best player, you’re eventually going to get beat. If you’re trusted to take important shots, you’re going to miss some of them.

So before a coach gives you greater responsibility, they need to know something about you:

Who do you become when things stop going your way?

The Next Play—and the Next Day

There’s another lesson from Kobe’s four airballs that’s worth understanding. Your mistake response isn’t only about what happens during the next three seconds after a poor decision, missed shot, or bad foul.

It’s also about what you do in the future with the information the mistake gives you.

Great players don’t pretend mistakes didn’t happen. They don’t shrug their shoulders and say, “Next play,” while refusing to learn anything from what just happened.

They respond immediately and they reflect later.

In the moment, get back on defense. Stay engaged. Communicate. Make the next winning play.

At night, in your room, ask why the mistake happened.

Was your footwork poor? Did you make the wrong read? Were you physically unprepared? Did you lose concentration? Is there a skill you need to develop?

Kobe couldn’t go back and change those four airballs.

But he could make sure they taught him something (that his legs weren’t strong enough).

That’s the kind of mistake response that turns failure in the moment into long term development.

How Do You Put this Habit Into Practice?

Easy! The next time you make a mistake, pay attention to your next action. Not your emotion. Not the referee. Not your coach’s reaction.

Your next action.

Does it contribute to your team or contaminate it?

Then, after the game, go one step further: figure out what the mistake can teach you. Talk it through with a teammate, friend or your parents. Or, just take a moment in bed that night to reflect on your own.

The goal isn’t to become a player who never screws up.

It is to become a player whose mistakes rarely happen twice.

For Coaches

If you want players to respond well to mistakes, make sure they understand what a great mistake response actually looks like and then show them an example.

And be careful not to create players who are terrified of making mistakes. If every turnover immediately earns a trip to the bench, players may learn to avoid risk rather than make better decisions.

Teach the response as deliberately as you teach the skill.

For Parents

The car ride home gives you an incredible opportunity to reinforce this.

Instead of focusing only on whether the shot went in or why the turnover happened, notice what your child did afterward.

“I loved how quickly you got back after that turnover.”

“I noticed you stayed engaged even after you came out of the game.”

When you praise the response instead of only the result, you’re teaching your child that mistakes aren’t something to fear.

They’re something to respond to.

Your talent may help you earn an opportunity.

Your production may help you earn a bigger role.

But when things inevitably go wrong, your mistake response helps determine how much your coach can trust you with.

And the players coaches trust are usually the players they want on the floor when the game matters most.

Keep THINKING the game,

Mano