Hard Work, Preparation, and Trust:

RICK CARLISLE SHARES REFLECTIONS AND ADVICE AS HE ENTERS YEAR 22 AS A HEAD COACH

BY AJ MCCORD

Hard work, preparation and trust are the mantras that have served Rick Carlisle well as a head coach and President of the National Basketball Coaches Association. With more than 30 years in the game, Carlisle offers insights for players looking to continue their careers on the hardwood.

When Nets head coach Bill Fitch pulled a then 30-year-old Carlisle into his New Jersey Nets office in 1989, he had news that no player wanted to hear.

“He called me up and basically told me that I was waived,” Carlisle remembers more than 30 years later.

With those words, the Nets head coach closed that chapter of Carlisle’s life. But with his next sentence, Fitch turned the page to a new chapter.

“He told me if I was interested, he had an assistant coaching position,” Carlisle recalled. “He thought I could be successful.”

He was grateful when the opportunity presented itself, but this didn’t make the news from Fitch any easier to swallow. It helped that through his five years in the NBA, the Ogdensburg, New York native understood as much as he loved playing, it wouldn’t last forever.

“When I was playing, I was very aware that I was a role player and that every year I was fighting for a job on a roster,” Carlisle remembers. “I think there was only one year, maybe two, that I had a guaranteed contract heading into the season. So, I was always very guarded and realistic about my future as a player.”

Coaching always fascinated Carlisle, he even attended several coaching clinics in high school. Between his freshman year of high school and last year of college basketball, he’d had seven coaches in eight years of playing. He’d certainly experienced plenty of different coaching styles to pull from and help mold his own.

“I’ve played for many tremendous coaches,” said Carlisle. “I was exposed to a lot of different approaches, different teaching styles, etc., and I just kind of absorbed all of it and stored it away.” His first assistant job with the Nets involved a lot of scouting, time Carlisle used to observe players and their coaches.

“I was scouting all the teams in the league,” Carlisle remembers. “So, it was a master class, an opportunity to study everyone. If you are a musician learning how to play jazz, for example, it’d be the same as listening to other musicians and getting a feel for different styles and approaches.”

Two of the ‘musicians’ he observed most closely were the ones he was coaching for with the Nets in his early years as an assistant; Hall-of-Famers Bill Fitch and then Chuck Daly.

“It was an unbelievable beginning to my coaching career.”

Carlisle’s chance to play his own music came a few years later when he was named the head coach of the 2001 Detroit Pistons. After two years, he moved on to Indiana and, later, the Dallas Mavericks — where he became one of just 12 people to win an NBA Championship as a player and as a coach. Along the way, he discovered his own coaching style was heavily influenced by two key ingredients: experience and trust.

“Having played in the league is an advantage,” said Carlisle of his ability to connect with his players. “You’ve done it, you’ve competed on the floor, you’ve played for different coaches. In my experience, I was fortunate enough to play on a championship team in 1986, and those things helped. But when you get into the job, it’s going to be less about what you’ve done in the past and way more about what your approach is. The things that really matter are the way you build relationships, your knowledge of the game and your ability to impart everything effectively to your players so they can have success.”

As he built relationships, he was reminded of a quote most commonly attributed to Kevin A. Plank, the founder of Under Armor; “trust is earned in drops but lost in buckets.”

“Trust is something that has to be gained gradually, it has to be gained authentically,” Carlisle explained. “It’s gained through sweat-equity, being in the gym with players. It’s gained building relationships, and so all those things are very, very important, and NBA players know authenticity. If you’re not authentic and real with them, you’re going to struggle to earn trust.”

Trust is something Carlisle earned plenty of throughout his career. From the moment Fitch asked him to go from player to coach, to the way he led his 2010 Dallas Mavericks team to an NBA title, and in the way coaches around the league voted him as President of the NBA Coaches Association in 2006. In his role with the NBCA, Carlisle sees the impact he has on both present and future coaches by working to negotiate things like coaches’ pensions and broadcast access during the season.

"COACHING IN THE NBA TAKES YOUR EXPERIENCE AS A PLAYER AND PUTS IT TO WORK. SO, IF YOU PLAY IN THE NBA AND HAVE AN INTEREST IN COACHING, IT’S A GREAT STEP AND A GREAT TRANSITION TO STAY IN THE GAME THAT YOU LOVE.”

RICK CARLISLE

“We work with the league on things that impact our present coaches a great deal, things involving content, access, signed appeals, rule changes, it’s very wide-ranging, and it’s very relationship-centric,” Carlisle, now in his 16th season as President of the NBCA. “It’s very much related to how strong our relationships are with whoever we’re working with, whether it’s the league, the referees, fellow coaches, or past coaches.”

Carlisle is entering his 22nd year as a head coach, his second stint with the Indiana Pacers, a team he led from 2003-2007 to a 181-147 overall record, and offers this advice to players interested in making their transition within the game.

“Transitioning from playing to the next phase of your life is one of the great challenges as a player,” Carlisle empathizes. “Coaching in the NBA takes your experience as a player and puts it to work. So, if you play in the NBA and have an interest in coaching, it’s a great step and a great transition to stay in the game that you love.”

“If you are a player in the NBA and interested in coaching, you should study the game, you should build relationships with coaches, and you should let people in front offices know that you’re interested in coaching. If you do those things and prepare, there’s a good chance that your preparation will be an opportunity at some point.”

SHARE