Interview with Men's Head Coach Scott Flemming: "We have the right people in place to grow basketball in India"

Meeting of Minds: Coach Scott Flemming (right) with Strength & Conditioning Coach Zak Penwell, during the SABA qualifiers in Delhi. Copyright Gopalakrishnan R

All the NBA teams have a well oiled coaching staff. There is a Head Coach, a defensive coach and a shooting coach, apart from other assistants. Tell us about the work distribution between you and your assistant coaches Jora Singh and GRL Prasad. Do you plan to add more people to your coaching staff?

Although we all share in the total program, I have given particular assignments to our assistants. Coach Jora focuses on the defense and Coach Prasad focuses on the offense. They both handle many administrative duties and assist the players on and off the court. At this time, BFI designates positions for one head coach and two assistants.

In my earlier interview with S&C Coach Zak Penwell, he mentioned that communication with the players is not a problem, and when players do raise the language issue, it is more as an excuse to escape from training. Although most players would probably understand English, they might not truly appreciate the emotion that you might be trying to express through the use of certain words or adopting a particular tone. Is vocal leadership an issue? Also, who is the vocal leader of the team on and off the court? On the defensive end, is it perhaps Yadwinder Singh? (Question Courtesy Abhipsit Mishra)

From day one I have emphasized the need for enthusiasm and the players really responded. Our veteran players like Yadu, Vishesh, Rikin, Sambhaji and Joginder have all become good vocal leaders.

If you had to pick one current NBA team whose style you would have your team draw inspiration from, which would it be? (Question Courtesy Abhipsit Mishra)

Of course, from my days being in Dallas I have great respect for Rick Carlisle and the system of play the Mavericks have. They were the last NBA Champions prior to Miami. In 2011, they beat the Heat with less talent. That says something about their system and their team chemistry.

Figuring out an identity for a team is always a challenging process. Do you think the Indian team has a distinct identity? Is there a style of basketball which if you see, you would say “that’s the way we play basketball”? What are the traits you would look out for? (Question Courtesy Abhipsit Mishra)

Finding an identity for a team is decided by combining the coach’s philosophy with the capabilities of the players. We are establishing our identity as being a strong half court man to man defensive team. We will have an up-tempo offensive game with a balanced half court attack, with both inside and outside scoring. It is my intention to play 9 to 10 players to keep fresh players on the floor. We will also be known for sharing the basketball.

Sun Tzu once noted, “He who knows his enemy and himself well will not be defeated easily. He who knows himself but not his enemy, will have an even chance of victory”. On cue perhaps, in professional sports, preparation has taken a whole new meaning. Knowledge about the opposition, their strengths, their weaknesses, figuring out their style and identity and poking holes in them is now a bare minimum. Is your preparation, in this sense, exhaustive before a match? Do we have tapes of all our games we well as those of our Asian opponents, especially Bahrain and Kazakhstan who we are facing in the prelim rounds of FIBA Asia? (Question Courtesy Abhipsit Mishra)

We are gathering information on our future opponents. While I worked in the NBA, we had access to Synergy software where we could get detailed video on all our opponents. Unfortunately, it isn’t that easy here in Asia but we will pursue all avenues including video, if it is available.

In a format such as the NBA, there are designated low-intensity periods in the year such as the off-season which gives players an opportunity to work on different aspects of their game. For example, typically, players would work on their strength and conditioning and lift heavy during the off-season but focus more on functional drills during the pre-season. However, that not being the case in India where the players are playing different tournaments throughout the year, how do you differentiate between pre-season, season and off-season and consequently, how do you plan the preparation? (Question Courtesy Abhipsit Mishra)

The nature of a national team is very different than a team that is in a league that plays a regular season schedule. Our training camps not only prepare our teams for the next upcoming event but I see them as an opportunity to train our players for the future. In fact, in our first camp in February we used many of our training sessions for player development. We are giving them drills which allow them to work on their skills daily even when they are on their own between camps. The other need I see is to play more games throughout the year prior to our championship events. This will be my goal for next year.

* The author would like to thank Abhipsit Mishra, a final year law student from National Law University, Jodhpur, for contributing some insightful questions that form part of this interview.