RealGM

If you ever had a hard a$$ coach, this will give you flashbacks, if you didn't, these are the things you would've been hearing. Bilas can be annoying but this is a d*mn good article:

http://mdbball.com/Documents/ToughnessbyJayBilas.pdf

fantastic.

For the most part the toughness manifesto motivated me last night but I will say the "playing the ball and seeing your man" idea can lead to getting burned on defense, especially if you were taught to "play your man and see the ball" as I was.

i also thought that bit was a bit off-base from traditional fundamentals but it goes in line with the hustle that bilas was preaching. it does suggest an iverson-esque brand of defense but if you hustle hard enough, it can be a legitimate brand of basketball. scottie pippen and MJ made it work. it also takes advantage of laziness on the offensive end. it doesn't work as well in the pros, but if you're in a pickup game? this brand of hustle-defense works a LOT better.

what i really liked about the article was the bit about toughness not being about chest-thumping or courtslapping. i HATE that ish.

Pish posh. What he's describing is discipline, a symptom that results from toughness. Toughness is a ferocious desire to win. That results in an all-encompassing obsession with digging out an advantage over your opponent by any means possible within the rules. That means paying attention to fundamentals. That means playing with discipline.

But it also means you play with desire and that you never give up on a play, that you do everything that it takes to get an advantage for your team, every second you are on the floor.

It also means you are not afraid to play smart. You are constantly studying the game. When you are not working out you are taking the time necessary to study your own film to correct mistakes and to study your opponents.

I mean his main point is that toughness is not playing like a gorilla, and I get that. He's also saying a lot of guys are out there getting playing time because their attention to fundamentals gives their team more of an advantage than the gorilla who gets beat on transition because he spends too much time flexing. But what he describes is just toughness from a coach's point of view -- he takes the "ferocious desire to win" stuff for granted because he's a coach and that's how you become a coach.

^ Weill, the most important type of "toughness" is arguably being mentally tough. A guy can have a "fericious desire to win" but if he does stupid things he will still lose. Perhaps a better way of saying it is "being tough on yourself" in that you refuse to allow yourself to slip into bad habits or regress into sloppy play. Either way, a great article IMO.

I got fired up just reading that.

I feel like he's using toughness as a synonym for fundamental. To me they are different things. A good article nonetheless.