Hey Playbook Community!

My brother is in the thick of recruitment at the moment and I wanted to share some of what I’ve shared with him based on my career and journey to get to where I am today.

Check out the resources below for some PDFs and videos I had created in the past that might help you on this wonderful sports journey as well!

Keys to Getting Noticed by a College Coach:

Effort Always Counts: Sometimes your shot won’t fall, but if you play hard, communicate, and defend, that effort always counts—even if it doesn’t show up on the stat sheet.

Treat Everyone with Respect: As a coach, I’ll ask your school janitor if they’d let you date their daughter. How you treat people matters. Be respectful and humble to everyone—no matter their role.

Don't Be Too Cool to Help Your Teammates: Always be there for your teammates. Step up when someone is struggling and offer support. Teamwork is key.

Winning Matters More Than Scoring: If you’re a coach, you want winners, not players who just score points but don’t play defense and lose games.

Be the Loudest Communicator: Talk to your teammates during the game. It helps everyone understand what's going on and keeps the team focused.

Effort on Defense: Play hard on defense. Defense can win games, and coaches love players who hustle.

Be Coachable: Being coachable is huge. Listen to your coach, apply feedback, and improve. If you're not willing to learn, it's hard to get better. Coaches value players who are always trying to get better.

Develop Basketball IQ: Basketball IQ comes from: Watching the game (college, NBA, high school) and noticing how players move, defend, and make decisions. Asking questions: Learn about plays, defensive rotations, and strategies. The more you understand the game, the smarter your decisions will be on the court.

Technical Skills (50-40-90): Aim for shooting stats like 50% from 2-point range, 40% from 3-point range, and 90% from the free-throw line. You can learn these skills through resources like YouTube, but remember, it’s not all about shooting percentages.

Understand the Psychology: A coach depends on you to help feed his family. Your performance and your team's performance determine whether he keeps his job, and he keeps earning.

A lot of the above I summarized in a video below on my YouTube channel. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Also, here’s a resource that I put together that should help you start your college email process and what to think about for interviews etc.

• College Email Template

All the best on your journey and let me know by replying to this email or commenting on the YouTube videos what else you would like help with!

Q&A ❓

@ForStrayCats asked on YouTube…

The video mentioned showed a pregame routine of Efes vs Fener, so a game played in Istanbul. So it may seem a little strange that we don’t just go home and sleep/nap/rest back at home before the game. It comes down to a few main points.

Our job is Basketball.

Playing at the highest level and as best we can each game. For that reason, we try to reduce as many variables as possible. For sleep this could kids at home who may wake up in the night.

I LOVE being a dad, and it’s my main ‘job’ in life, but on gameday or nights before games, I have a responsibility to my team and our fans, to make sure I get proper sleep, the best rest, and perform during game time.

So before games, even at home, we typically all sleep at the hotel to ensure we have no additional variables. No one is running late because of traffic or because they forgot something at home etc. We’re all there, we’re ready for the game.

In this video, we didn’t even drive home from shootaround and instead stayed at the hotel next to the Fener stadium. Everyone could do their pregame routines (ie. naps, snack, film, stretch etc) there in the hotel instead of losing the travel time and…. well…. if you’ve been to Istanbul you probably have experienced the TRAFFIC.

🚨Want to see your question answered above? Reply to the newsletter or reach out to me on social. I will group all the questions together and be answering them on the newsletter and vlog in the coming weeks. Cheers!🚨

YouTube Journey▶

This week on the vlog, We take on the two French teams, Paris and Asvel, and we go through the normal gameday routines and team behind-the-scenes. But also (as you probably know from all the rumors/news/gossip out there), there’s a whol NBA Europe Expansion conversation happening now as well as the NBA Paris games. I decided to share my takes on that as well in this video. Hope you enjoy!

Thank you for grabbing your Playbook 🙏

I hope you like the new version of Playbook. If you have comments or questions or suggestions, PLEASE respond to the newsletter about anything. I want to hear from you and I promise, I read every response. My goal is to continue making a great Playbook and building a great community where we all get better together. And you’re a part of that journey!

Let’s Build Confidence + Consistency™ , on and off the court!

Elijah