Two Coaches & a Coffee

Season 2, Episode 18

• Darren Burgess & Jason Weber • Season 2 • Episode 18

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Ever wondered how the Boston Celtics maintain their dominance on the court? Uncover the secrets behind their success as we dissect how Coach Coles and performance expert Jace Delaney have crafted a system rooted in consistency and process. Drawing insightful parallels with the Sydney Swans in the AFL, we explore why stability triumphs over constant upheaval in coaching. Our discussion highlights how establishing sustainable systems is key to long-term victory, avoiding the pitfalls of frequent overhauls that can cripple team performance.

We then transition into the fascinating world of sports science, guided by insights from Simon Harries, head of strength and conditioning at the New South Wales Institute of Sport. Learn the crucial distinctions between lag and lead indicators, and how tools like Vicon testing and heart rate variability (HRV) can forecast athletic performance. Finally, we delve into the art of recruitment, sharing real-world stories like the rise of Dan Zaknich at the Western Bulldogs. Discover how blending skill assessment with character evaluation leads to hiring triumphs and avoidable missteps. This episode is a must-listen for anyone keen on understanding the mechanics of sports success and effective team building.

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Jason Weber:

G'day and welcome to Two Coaches and a Coffee Darren sitting over there in sunny South Australia. How are you, mate? You must be pretty pumped. Some good events in the recent last 48 hours.

Darren Burgess:

Oh, last 48 hours. Yes, I thought you meant the Adelaide Crows who can't buy a game.

Jason Weber:

Oh no no, no, no, we're not on that. So let's talk, let's go global. Let's start with the Celtics.

Darren Burgess:

Celtics massive win Couldn't be more excited.

Jason Weber:

Dominant.

Darren Burgess:

Yeah, dominant, dominant season and you go through all the stats dominant season and dominant postseason. I've done it the slightly less conventional way which I was reading some of the articles about it, some of the stats around what they pay and the superstars versus. You know there's no real dominant superstar in their team. There's obviously some very good players and that's disrespectful to the players that have done well, but you know, the best two players in the league played for two other teams and I think Tatum, their number one ranked player, was ranked seventh or something by whatever the you know some of the object websites. So, yeah, very excited by how they did it because, having had some knowledge of it and been a little bit involved with Some involvement yep.

Darren Burgess:

Yeah, so the Crows and the Celtics, through Coles' department and I guess my department did some PD sharing and consulting and information sharing have done so over the last couple of years. So it's exciting. What it shows me, jason, and hopefully some team owners over there, is that what Colesley has set up, and I would throw in Jace Delaney in there.

Jason Weber:

I was going to say we should mention Jace. Give Jace a call out.

Darren Burgess:

Yeah, one of the best in the business. I believe they've got the best high performance set up that I've seen in some time, if not ever, in that they've got good people with good processes, not doing anything unbelievably fancy or flashy, but they've got this way and this is, you know, colesie and I'm sure Jase as well has got this way of setting up systems and processes so that when something happens they can refer back to the systems and processes that they all agreed on at the start of Coles' tenure and the start of the season. New coach comes in slots into the systems and process, new strength coach comes in, new sports scientist, and lo and behold they have great Success.

Darren Burgess:

Yeah, great availability and the great they look like and all the objective metrics that they collect in the NBA, of which there are plenty, shows that they were able to maintain their energy levels throughout the season. Their load management of their players was outstanding, so, and they got the ultimate reward in one of the more dominant fashions over the last 10 years. So couldn't be more happier for the Celtics and for those guys in particular.

Jason Weber:

I think, mate, you bring up a great point, which I'm going to harp on for a little bit, because I think that idea how long has Cole been there now? He's been there 10 years, 12.

Darren Burgess:

I think no a bit less than that, a bit less 10 years. Yeah, he was at San Antonio Spurs before that?

Jason Weber:

Yeah, of course yeah, but your point is the Celtics have made a system and you said specifically they drop a new head coach, they find a head coach that suits the system to come in. He comes in and plays his game, they recruit to the system, yep, and they get going. Now, look, I think that's fantastic. I think in the era of professional sports where we're trying to be reproducible you look at in the AFL you'd have to say Sydney are in that market where they've been able to maintain success their dip in a year is like going to eighth position or seventh, as opposed to what they are now, which is two games clear in the competition.

Jason Weber:

I would have to argue that there are certainly sporting environments I've seen it. There's one massive one that I could speak to at the moment, but I won't name them but where you let the head coach come in and dominate everything, they change everything. And if you were just to look at a silly, like little speedometer, like they go from one aspect to another, so everything changes and the whole place gets gutted. Then the head coach leaves for whatever reason and we're now left with nothing but destruction and turmoil. And we bring new people in and all they want to do is reverse the polarity of the whole thing and we have players going from one thing to another, systems all over the place.

Darren Burgess:

It's madness it's extraordinary that, particularly in that owner-based system. You know in the US and you and I have a fair share of interactions with the US and then the owner-based system in elite soccer as well global football that you wouldn't see this more often. I was speaking to an NFL high performance director this morning and he was saying the systems that they're setting up sound like the exact same. They realise they're at the bottom, but they're just trying to build these sustainable systems and I'm sure other teams will follow suit and hopefully that's good for the industry. And, by the way, colsey and Jase would be the first people to sit there and say listen, we played a minuscule role, but it's still an important role. You know they're both pretty humble people.

Jason Weber:

They're good thinkers, mate. Like again, if we have a little think about that sports science position that we've talked about before, that we've said, you know, sports scientists can't be just processing GPS and move forward. Jace Delaney would be the absolute antithesis of that. Like, he is a smart, inquisitive, like a really sharp cat and he's looking deep. And we've spoken about it would be a little while ago now, but he was talking about some of the assessments he was making of freshness. Now they were doing it in training, in not full-blown team training, but with jump shots. Now, I won't say exactly how he was doing it in training, in not full-blown team training, but with jump shots. Now, I won't say exactly how he was doing it, but man, I thought it was incredibly insightful, user-friendly, player-friendly way to collect data. I mean, I'm one of that mate. I'm, for a lot of reasons, against the idea of shipping people in. We'll jump on forced platforms, we'll do this.

Jason Weber:

We'll do that Because players get bored, senseless of it and they consequently don't put in the effort. So you don't know what the actual output is.

Darren Burgess:

Yeah.

Jason Weber:

Jase was doing some really ingenious things, I felt, on the basketball court. So yeah, man, like they can say, small part, but you know, everybody has to play their role.

Darren Burgess:

Sure. So, those guys are doing a great job. Yeah, really good, really happy for them and unsurprising amount of success. Now next for you.

Jason Weber:

Well, let's talk podcasts, lag and lead time.

Darren Burgess:

You talked to me about lag and lead time.

Jason Weber:

Well, we need to.

Darren Burgess:

Before this podcast, we spoke for literally about eight seconds and you said ask me about lag and lead time. So go, jason. What's lag and lead time?

Jason Weber:

What's a lag and lead time? Well, I'm going to put credit where credit's due. So I was talking to Simon Harries this week. Now Simon is the head of strength and conditioning at the New South Wales Institute of Sport, comes out of Rugby, sevens, gws in the AFL really good, excellent rehab guy. That's really his superpower and that's where he's at Now. He's doing some education in that space. But we spoke through the week and he said man, I speak to people all the time and he did sort of say a little bit more the medical fraternity. But he said we talk about lead and lag indicators. He said they've got. No one seems to have any idea.

Jason Weber:

Really, simply, we're all on this monitoring thing. We always want to collect data. But when you look at the field of economics, which has been monitoring things for a lot longer than sports science has, they talk about two things lead indicators and lag indicators. So a lag indicator is a data point that you might collect that really doesn't give you any information moving forward but allows you to look at what has happened in the recent past, whereas a lead indicator might be something that gives you a piece of information about what's happening going forward. So, for instance, if you were saying our major economic indicator is, you know, gdpr, economic growth. Now the lead indicator for that in Australia could be something like wheat sales. So if wheat sales and wheat price goes up, we know the economy is going to follow. That Same thing being in sport would be if we've got an indicator that gives us some information about injury or about performance. What are those? But distinguishing between them is something that I don't think seems to be being done and that's been reported to me. So how would you?

Darren Burgess:

Give me an example of each for a people, or a hammy or a calf, or you pick your poison.

Jason Weber:

Yeah, right. So if you pick your poison, if you go, well, let's use what I do now running mechanics. If you were able to put someone through Vicon testing, so in full-blown three-dimensional assessment, and you did that in January and then you did that again in June, that would be a lag indicator. You're not getting information along the way that's helping you understand where players are at, whereas from a speed-seek perspective, the objective is to be able to try and measure things on the field regularly. So what you're looking at is one of the critical variables is sensitivity to change over time, so we can detect changes over time. So that change over time, if you saw a little bit of a dip in a particular variable over a period, you might go okay, that's now starting to change. Is that giving me information to get in front of the possibility of injury and or drop off in performance?

Jason Weber:

So you're doing, you might do things like I think HRV is very much in that market where you're trying to get in front of the curve. So I think that's the simplest explanation in a short period of time. But let's change tact again. Let's really bounce this thing around like a ping pong ball. Mate, you've had some movement. We talked about that last week some staff movement.

Jason Weber:

And there's a bit of action in that space.

Darren Burgess:

Yes, so I've got a couple of comments, a couple of friendship requests.

Jason Weber:

then I'll call that contact with us on linkedin friendship requests yeah, yeah, they sent you a little bracelet in the mail and said darren, will you be my friend, let's be honest.

Darren Burgess:

Um uh, they um dms. Yeah, just saying they heard the podcast and you know they heard there's roles going, so they want to put their hand up for it.

Jason Weber:

That's a unique way. That's a unique way to source them, isn't it?

Darren Burgess:

And the local news last night evidently mentioned that we'd lost a couple of staff members. So, yes, so there's some advertisements that will go out shortly and we'll look for the best candidates for the roles. One of the positions will promote internally but the other two will source externally, which means there's three positions that we'll be looking for. Interesting process. You and I have both done our fair share of that.

Jason Weber:

All right. So I've got a question's. I've got it. I've got a question. Before we do advice, I got a question for you. So you're hiring, do you model in your head this is the person I want, this is exactly the job I want them to do. Or do you go to market with a bit of a broader idea? But if you find someone with a skill set that's a little bit off to one side, that you might manipulate your environment because that person let's say that person's so good, you really like them, you think they'll fit the environment, but they're just their skill sets. Specialize a little bit, else Would you manipulate your environment. Or do you go? That's what I want, that's what I'm getting, so I've got three positions On two of them.

Darren Burgess:

That's what I'm getting. So I've got three positions On two of them. I'm going to be pretty specific on the skill set that I want and on the third, there will be that flexibility.

Jason Weber:

There you go.

Darren Burgess:

Depending on the skill set. So it's an interesting one because, yeah, the first two, yeah, I'm going to be pretty definitive. So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see how we go in that in that space. Um, uh, I guess the the question will be um in the generalist, because there's one of the roles will be quite a generalist. How do you go about finding out whether um or Jane Smith is the skill set's? Easy enough, right, because it's on the CV. You can speak to previous employers, you can do all of that sort of stuff. How do you find out about character, work ethic, applicability to your environment?

Jason Weber:

I'll go. I'm just going to go the other way. I'm going to say that you've got no time to understand their personality or who they are or any of that, so you're going to have to rely on can I speak to someone else as to their that, that work ethic, that quality, I think, worth it. Work ethic to a degree, I think, if nothing else, graduate study tells you where they're at with that, like how, what have they done? Yep, but I will say the skill set is one that I've changed my tune on massively. Okay, I, I and I'll tell you exactly why.

Jason Weber:

I was referenced a guy to come and work rehab for me many years ago and the person who reviewed him to me I trusted and I thought you know that's great. When I got him in, he didn't know squat about what he was doing, not, no, not well, yeah, he was pretty useless. In fact, I'm going to say he fucked up two serious senior players quite massively to the extent that I took over the rehab and it was a really, really big year for the team I was in at that time. So we're talking top of the league sort of stuff. So my challenge with that was I started interviewing differently. So I don't like doing the suits. So if you do a job interview with me if I've there's a few guys around that would remember this when you come to the job interview, don't wear a suit, don't wear any of that shit. Wear your gear to go to the gym. We're not going to get flogged, but we go to the gym and we're going to have a discussion and that discussion is going to go across all the skill sets that I want to deal with and we're going to talk and you're going to show me a couple of things. If we talk about running, tell us about your running philosophy. What sort of drills would you use to address this? That the other thing when you're lifting, what type of lifts do you focus on? Do you focus? Would you change from one person to another? Could you show me, show me, how you'd coach? What are your key points? So I would, these days, now I would, I want to know. Now I had.

Jason Weber:

I interviewed a female for a position in my strength staff, my strength and conditioning staff, a couple of some years ago now, and she was of unquestionable personal quality. She was awesome, in fact. Now I mentioned I did two, two different. I spoke to two different ones. Both had different skill sets and I both would hire them as people in a heartbeat, but the genuine nature of their skill set was insufficient for what we needed.

Jason Weber:

And I only learned that when I let's go in the gym, let's just talk, it's no pressure, let's just go through it and I'll just work through it. In my head I won't have an agenda. This is what we're doing, but you get a feel for what they know. And from a philosophical perspective, for me it's like well, you've got to be somewhat close to me in terms of we can come and fit and work together. Now, by that I mean if you come in and you're a CrossFit person and we're going to do a thousand reps of power cleans and we're going to work to fatigue, that's not going to be me. So philosophically we're in different places really won't happen. But if we're a bit closer aligned, so, mate, I figure out. I figure you've got to go and test it. You've got to go and look.

Jason Weber:

And one of my guys who I hired in that fashion, who is now the head of high performance at an AFL club, he actually got the job. I had him second to another guy. He got the job because of what he did in that process on the floor, the other guy I thought was more experienced and better and all the rest of it and blah, blah, blah. But the guy who I'm talking about now, who is now I'll tell you it's Dan Zaknitch, who's now head of high performance at Western Bulldogs. He was awesome and for me has been. You know, I've had a handful of really great guys work with me over the years and Dan is very much one of those who is an extraordinary operator and now moved well past me. Now you know he's doing his own thing.

Darren Burgess:

He's doing a great job at the Bulldogs.

Jason Weber:

Clearly they're hitting a real purple patch, so he's clearly doing it Well it's interesting when you talk about we go back to the Celtics thing they don't. Celtics didn't have a star. Well, western Bulldogs do have a star in Marcus Bonampelli. And for the team to be up and going and for Dan to be facilitating a player of that magnitude he was unbelievable last week Anyway, great. So that's my interview process, mate. That's how I do it.

Darren Burgess:

Yeah, I do like putting people on the spot with a practical scenario. I've done that with data people in the past. Show me what you can do with this. I'll certainly look to do that again for one of the positions. The running mechanics will be a requirement of another of the positions, so it'll be interesting to get them out there. I'll get them to coach me, which will be real low-end stuff. Yeah, so we'll see how we go.

Jason Weber:

Mate. What's interesting is I'll give you the opposite story. I was in a position again quite a number of years ago now, where I'd taken over. I was in rugby and I took over this sort of national development network and I basically said, look, we're going to get everybody in and we're just going to go through from ground up. I want to see what people know.

Jason Weber:

One of the coaches, who was an older guy at the time a little bit older than me at the time, which really he wouldn't have been 40 at the time, I was probably about 35. Anyway, he came in and he refused to do it. He said I'm too experienced, I'm too old for all this stuff. And he pulled out. And the reality was, mate, he didn't know what he was talking about. And that's where we get down the track of saying, well, if you've got confidence, I just want you to teach, I just want you to show me. It's not about me berating you. I'm not saying I'm better than you. I've been in some of these interviews. There's another kid I interviewed who's also doing really well now, who I was interviewing and as he's doing it, he's showing me stuff. I'm going, man, that's hot, like you've really got a great perspective on that. I like that, so straightaway, I'm learning.

Darren Burgess:

So I think people who are very, very defensive and wouldn't say, you know, I'm too good for this man, I think that shows their lack of confidence in their skill going for one of my early job interviews and the question that was I was at N-Swiss and a question was put to me early on and I thought, yeah, I've done everything, I've prepared, I wore the suit, everything, I'm good to go. I was only young and it was one of many jobs I got knocked back. They had I think I was a year out of uni. If you train, train somebody, which direction would you hope the lactate curve would shift? And I froze and had no idea and the guy handled it really well and just said okay, mate, we might come back to that one.

Darren Burgess:

Let me ask you another couple of questions. And and from then I was done and it was just a real simple, practical question. But it wasn't tell me about your time at the you know Fremantle Dockers? Or tell me about your time at the you know freemantle doctors? Or tell me about your time at the like. It was a literally practical question. Failed. Next, didn't get the job.

Jason Weber:

Fair enough mate, I already I remember doing one of my master's level physiology degrees courses and we had to do a, an oral exam and sit there and get fucking quizzed and I still to this day remember that being. I don't think I did very well, to be very honest, probably skin of your teeth type passing but I still remember to this day that there was a real difference in sitting down and writing about it versus hey, here's a practical example, exactly like your lactate curve, and the lactate curve in itself is interesting.

Jason Weber:

What athlete am I talking about? Am I talking? About a track sprinter or am I talking about a triathlon runner?

Darren Burgess:

Like there's different answers 25, 26 years ago, so maybe more.

Jason Weber:

Well, but it's mate, so I'll be interested to hear how you pursue your interviews. But if someone's going for a job with Berger and he says don't wear a suit, you turn up ready to rock and roll.

Darren Burgess:

Absolutely, I think, back yourself in, back yourself in.

Jason Weber:

Same with the data stuff. If you're going for a data job and this is quite, very, very common in larger scale businesses here's a data set Hack.

Darren Burgess:

It Show me what you can do, yeah 100% You've got That'll be part of the part of the scenario, so be be warned, yeah you've got.

Jason Weber:

You've got 12 variables. There's the dependent. Tell me which one is the closest to a lead indicator. Tell me which is the worst. You know that's. That's the stuff you would need to know, um and mate if I got a data dude coming in, I'd be smashing them with machine learning questions. Yeah, absolutely, because it's such a valuable part of what we do now.

Darren Burgess:

Yeah, for sure. We're involved in one with Arsenal and we hired a data scientist there, and there was actually four different projects that we put to whittle down to one between me and the StatDNA team.

Jason Weber:

And we got the right guy for that.

Darren Burgess:

And we actually hired the girl who came second as well, because she was so good. So, yeah, it worked out pretty well. But, mate, we're out of time here. Let's keep it to the short, sharp thing that people seem to like.

Jason Weber:

Well, what we need to do. We've just had a quick review of our podcast. What we need to do is everybody who's listening to the podcast weekly. Which data would suggest it's the same people every week. We need you to tell some friends. If everyone tells one person, we'll go. You know great, we're not trying to achieve anything magical or commercial, but yeah, we'd like to reach out to a few more people and have a wider story. Anyway, mate, it's been a pleasure, as always. We will catch up again next week.

Darren Burgess:

Enjoy the week, Mike.