Wall Street Journal recently stepped up its sports coverage, which is especially great since most newspapers are cutting back and more than a few are folding.
Today, WSJ has a great feature on Idan Ravin, a former attorney-turned-hoops-whisperer. His methods are unconventional:
Mr. Ravin's goal is to create so much chaos and stress on a player during workouts that the physical game becomes less cerebral and more automatic. He uses a combination of humbling psychological tactics and exhausting, unorthodox and sometimes spontaneous drills. He's been known to fire tennis balls at players while they're dribbling or make them stare straight ahead while dribbling two balls in each hand in uneven rhythms and walking from side to side.
The subject of basketball trainers is more interesting today with all the talk on agents, NCAA rules and college coaches. As financial incentives increase among all the participants (players, coaches, agents) coupled with a more intertwined market among high school, college and pro basketball, it is reasonable for top players to seek the best trainers, and vice versa. The market forces kick in and everyone does what is in their enlightened self-interest. Coaches desperately want top players. Players want to fulfill their hoop dreams. Agents want clients. How can everyone get what they want? Hopefully within the rules, but that is probably not a compelling enough force to stop this activity. There absolutely may be some sinister motives involved, but I hardly blame high school or college players for wanting to get the best training possible.
Yes, this may be an extra benefit in the NCAA's eyes, although it does appear that many college coaches are in on the joke. And as much we want to pile on UConn's Jim Calhoun, he is surely not the only coach to figure out how to play this game.
--Marc Isenberg
UPDATE: Mike DeCourcy, my college hoops Yoda, emails: "Foolish NCAA rules are at fault for the presence of the trainer in the picture. If college coaches could work with their players in the offseason, especially the summer, trainers would serve no purpose. I understand that might be coming soon, but it'll be several years too late."