- Giving it to the best player doesn't make the team better
- Positive reinforcement
- You can't play for them
- You're going to be ignored / Shared understanding takes forever
- The game is not the most important thing
I coached a rec team that had a huge range of talent. One young man was very talented and could have gone on to play junior college basketball. I had a couple that were a level below him and then varying levels all the way down to the kid who was surprised when the basketball was in his hands. I did focus on leveling up everyone in practice, but our in-game style quickly devolved to give it to the best kid and move around him. This was moderately successful, everyone got to contribute, and the games were competitive. Then that kid got sick. Then baseball season started and he wanted to focus on that. All of a sudden my team had no identity and no idea how to win. We couldn't just lean on the next best player, the talent gap was too wide. Before the team could r