'You Have To Bring Solutions, Ideas and Be Prepared'

Less than 12 hours after his team was eliminated by UConn in the Final Four last month, Alabama Assistant Coach Ryan Pannone took to social media to share a video.

But he wasn’t posting memories of the season or reflecting on the loss. Pannone was highlighting an intricate play from a professional club in Turkey.

“I’m a psychopath,” he said. “Chasing knowledge, trying to improve, trying to be the best I can be drives me.”

“The season’s over. Right away, it’s moving on.”

Pannone has coached in five countries on three continents and has been on benches in the NBA, college, G-League, JUCO, high school and AAU.

The Daily Coach spoke to him recently about lessons from coaching across the globe, keys to advancing a career, and practical applications of data.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Coach, thanks a lot for doing this. Tell us a little about your early years and how you got into basketball.

I grew up in Florida. My father was a really good athlete and played a bunch of different sports. He played professional at different levels as a baseball player, pool player, bowler, ping pong, but was never good enough to make money… Growing up, basically every sport he played, I didn’t. His way of teaching was yelling because I wasn’t as athletic or coordinated. He could just pick things up and be really good at them, and I couldn’t.

I had a step-father who played basketball, and I got really into it. It happened to be a sport my father didn’t play, so that drove me into basketball.

You started high school coaching in Florida at a younger age than most. How did those experiences early on shape you and your outlook on coaching?  

I was playing guys in a way that wasn’t about winning games. It was, how do I develop them and put them in position to go to college? As the reputation grew that we were making players better and I was pushing these guys toward college, more and more players transferred in, and we won more games.

I thought I was good at what I did, but the reality is I wasn’t. Every year, I still don’t know if I’m good. If I don’t finish a season and look back and feel like at the same point the previous year that I was an idiot, I don’t think I’ve spent enough time learning and growing.

The moment you think you know something, you really don’t.

You make the leap and decide to go coach professionally in China. Can you take us through that cultural adjustment and what the keys were to being an effective coach overseas?

I went to China at 27, and it changed my outlook on life. It really helped me grow personally and mature. In some cities in China, there are quite a few people who speak English. Where I was, it was very hard to find English speakers. You had to figure out how to get around, how to navigate, how to problem solve. How do you get in a taxi and tell the driver where you want to go? You also learn the value of learning a language and a different culture.

To the Chinese players, I was just another American coach. I tried hard to learn some of the language, to joke with them, to say funny things to them to get them to come out of their comfort zone because obviously in China, the players are raised in a unique environment that’s very militaristic. They’re not joking or laughing with the coaches. Understanding the value of learning about cultures to try to relate to your players made me a better coach.

I’ve been fortunate to coach in five countries on three continents. Players are all the same. They need someone to love them, to believe in them, to give them confidence, to know that the coach is authentically invested in them. My entire coaching belief is, the more you love the person, the harder you can coach the player. It’s rung true in China, Germany, Israel, Slovakia, South Korea, America, it doesn’t matter.

You’ve had many different assistant coaching stops. What advice would you give assistants trying to advance their careers?

Figure out how to best serve the head coach in a way that he needs to be served, not in a way that I want to serve or a way that I think he needs to be served. You have to be able to put your ego aside and communicate effectively.

Learn the temperament of the head coach. Learn how he wants information. I’ve worked for a lot of head coaches who are super successful. The way Willie Green wanted to receive information in New Orleans and the way Nate Oats wants to receive information at Alabama are very different. And it’s different than the way Simon Pianigiani and Oded Kattash wanted to receive information.

Figure out their personality, how they learn, what are they extremely convicted on? Because if you’re dealing with a coach who’s dead-set in his ways and doesn’t want to change, learn and grow, you’re going to create friction. You’re better off just buying in and figuring out how to make those players the best possible version within the way that head coach thinks they should play.

If the head coach is open, you have to bring solutions, ideas and be prepared. The rule I always had as a head coach with my staff is the best idea wins, but you better be prepared in terms of having the data.

What are the numbers behind your ideas? Where’s the video behind your ideas? Where’s the proof? It has to be extremely well thought out, laid out and prepared. If you just come to me and say “I think this,” I’m definitely not changing what I already believe in. But if you can create a logical argument for why this is a better way to do it, I was always open to learn.

How do you distinguish yourself in job interviews?

One, being extremely prepared — knowing every possible thing you can about the job. Who’s going to be in the interview? Figuring out what is success to them. What success is to me and what is success to another professional organization or club or college athletic director can be very different.

What did they like and dislike about the previous coach? Why did it work great or why did it fail? Gathering as much intel as possible on that is important.

Knowing the roster, really understanding what the roster is and what the potential development of the roster is and how I want to play can enhance those guys. Knowing what kind of people you’re looking for. I always try to talk about the character of the person we’re looking for. I think most organizations, especially that want to win over a substantial period of time, want good people involved. I think it’s hard to win consistently with bad people.

Being willing to pivot. Often times, my answers may pivot based off of what they think is success to them. Being able to pivot within an interview is always super important.

I want to shift to this past season at Alabama. Can you tell us about “Mudita” and what it did for your team?

Most college teams are having this problem. Most young people are having this problem. We live in a world of social media, and everything is about “Let me take a picture of my food,” and this selfie, and everyone’s life is glamorous, and no one’s going through hardships.

We had players on our team who had a good heart and are good human beings who had selfish attributes. But they aren’t selfish people. The selfish attributes showed when another teammate may go in the game instead of them. Their body language and outlook was about themselves.

Our softball coach at the University of Alabama has done an unbelievable job of building culture and creating an environment of selfless joy and love for others. Coach Oats brought him in to speak. He’s amazing. Everything he spoke about with Mudita, the definition and the value of it… When you help and you serve others, if you’re a good human being, it gives you a positive feeling. He was able to speak to the value of it and encourage it. It was a big reason why we had the turnaround that we did.

Your reputation as a program is one that relies heavily on data and analytics. How do you sell your players on numbers when there’s maybe a bit of skepticism?

How does this make you a better player at the end of the day? How does this make you more money and how does this help us win? It’s relatively simple. You’re always going to have players who say, “The numbers don’t matter.”

So, I write up $1 million, $100,000, $10,000, $1,000, $100, $10, $1. Do numbers matter or not? I don’t understand. What’s the difference between $1 million and $100,000. “It’s just one number. It’s not that big of a deal.”

When you’re trying to maximize performance, marginal gains matter. How do you create marginal gains in a competitive environment to try to improve your shooting, or your individual performance, or team’s performance?

Here is the number. Here is the data. Here is the video behind it. Here is the visual proof of how this helps you. If you just throw 100 numbers at them, guys get overwhelmed. You have to choose the numbers that are most important to what the conversation is. 

Q&A Resources

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