By Jim Catalano
Jim Catalano is an Associate Editor at Coaching Management magazine.
Coaching Management, 8.5, August 2000, http://www.momentummedia.com/articles/cm/cm0805/reserves.htm
Ask six basketball coaches how they use their sixth man and you’re likely to receive six different answers. But most will agree on one thing—the importance of the sixth man.
Most teams, after all, are only as successful as their bench. Even when a team has the luxury of building around one or two star players, the grueling pace of most games places a premium on bench players.
The success of your bench, of course, starts with your sixth man, although that in itself is a misnomer. Many teams rely on more than one player to fill the sixth-man role, spreading out responsibilities by position or specialty. But whether they’re a guard or forward, defensive stopper or three-point bomber, all sixth men must be players a coach can count on. And with proper communication, identification, and deployment, your sixth man can help make your team number one.
Qualities Required
Before you can develop your sixth man, you have to decide which player should fill that role. Sometimes it may be as easy as picking the most-skilled player who didn’t win a starting position, but there are several qualities that are more important in a sixth man than a starter.
One is versatility. “We look for someone who can play different areas on the floor,” says Gary Munsen, Head Boys’ Coach at Mitchell (S.D.) High School. “We run a structured offense, but never have a true post, so everyone can end up all over the floor.”
The odds of finding a talented player who can come off the bench and play any position are pretty slim, though, so many coaches go beyond a strict reading of the term “sixth man” and employ several different players in the role. One common method is to have one backcourt player and one frontcourt player first off the bench.
“We always have a perimeter guy and post guy coming off the bench,” says John Miller, Head Boys’ Coach at Blackhawk High School in Beaver Falls, Pa. “We rotate three or four post guys, and four or five perimeter guys. We play a real fast-paced game where we run and push the ball hard and play man defensively, so the sixth and seventh players are getting a lot of minutes.”
While the sixth man may be called upon to fill several roles, one of the most important will be that of a spark plug. “I think a perfect sixth man is someone who makes things happen,” says Carl Tinsley, Head Girls’ Coach at Oregon City (Ore.) High School. “You need to have someone who can come in and energize your team when your starters are getting tired and the flow of the game is slowing down on you. The sixth man comes in and picks up the tempo.”
This is even more critical for teams that rely on pressure defense or an uptempo offense. “With a team that walks it up,” Tinsley says, “your sixth has to be someone who just gives the starter a breather until you get him or her back in, and doesn’t cost you anything. But for a fast-break team, your sixth man has to be an energizer.”
Since the sixth man is expected to provide a spark and give the team a boost, attitude is another key component. “I don’t think your sixth man can be a timid player, they have to be someone who will sell it out all over the place,” Tinsley says. “For us, we’d like them to be aggressive and a gambler. Sometimes they might mess up, but they’re going to energize you.”
“You want a player who can come off the bench and feel confident, and that comes from accepting and understanding his or her role,” agrees Ceal Barry, Head Women’s Coach at the University of Colorado. “If they know it’s not their role to start this year, but instead to come off the bench, they can stay confident.”
Who does not make a good sixth man? Coaches caution against using the player who enters the game eager to take over and make headlines. “The last thing you want is a player coming off the bench who’s trying to prove that they should be in starting,” Barry says. “They’ll go in and start shooting right away and they’ll take bad shots. So you have to work on the psychological aspect to make sure you have got the right player in that role. Usually you’ll go to the bench when you’re in trouble, and you don’t want a player coming in who is making poor decisions and has a chip on the shoulder. That’s not a good sixth player for you.”
Teaching ‘Attitude’
So how do coaches cultivate the proper attitude in their sixth players? As Barry alludes to above, it’s imperative that you communicate to them the importance of their roles. “It’s all in how you instill confidence in people—you convince them that the role is very important to the team,” says Paul Adams, Head Boys’ Coach at Watertown (N.Y.) High School. “You tell them, ‘You’re coming off the bench to provide a spark plug, and if one of the starters goes down with an injury, you have to be ready to step up and play big-time minutes.’”
“I will sit down with the player,” says Bob Mackey, Head Girls’ Coach at Christ the King High School in Middle Village, N.Y., “and say, ‘Listen, this is the role I really need you to fill. I know that you could start, but I think right now the team could be more successful with you coming off the bench.’ I’ll break down the minutes and tell them who will play what during the game. I’ve had some players who have played great roles off the bench, and what you do as a coach is promote their unselfish play and their ability to come in and lend a spark.”
“We spend more time explaining that it’s not so important who starts but who plays in the crucial minutes,” Tinsley says. “We try to downplay starting, rather than play up the sixth man, and convince them that who we start isn’t as important as who we finish the game with. Because on that night, those are the people who we feel are getting it done.”
“One of the things we try to instill in our bench players is to look at themselves as kind of a second wave,” says Nancy Fahey, Head Women’s Coach at Washington University in St. Louis. “There’s a different mentality required when you’re coming off the bench, and they have to embrace that role. So we work on that. ‘There’s the first group, now here comes us.’ That’s the type of attitude they have to have.”
“If you convince players that coming off the bench is their role, and it’s a vital one, it positively affects the chemistry of the entire team,” adds Dave Butcher, Head Girls’ Coach at Pickerington (Ohio) High School. “There’s nothing worse than having one or two kids upset about playing time, because it seems to filter down through the entire team, and all of a sudden you’re in trouble. In sports and athletics these days, playing time is critical, and as a coach, you’ve got to deal with that issue.”
Problem Parents?
Playing time is also critical to many parents in the stands, and even if the player is ready and willing to fill that sixth-man role, parents may balk at the fact their child isn’t in the starting lineup. “In many cases, that starting position is paramount to the parents, sometimes even more than to the kids,” Mackey says. “The hard part, then, is getting parents to work with you and not against you. At the collegiate level, I’ve even seen parents get involved and cause the player to resent the coach because he or she isn’t starting. That can breed more problems, and contempt—and a cancer that most coaches try to avoid.”
Mackey preaches that honesty is the best policy in delineating roles. “If you’re not honest with the kid early on, the animosity can grow,” he says. “If you’re honest and tell them they’re not going to be a significant player, some players can handle that, and some parents can handle it—they may not like it, but at least you told them. I’ve always found that being honest with the parents as to the role that their child is going to play has really been the best way. No doubt, it can cause problems, but being up front and explaining works best.”
Others, though, focus on convincing the player of the importance of the sixth-man role and relying on the parents to learn from the player. “I sell the kids on their role and hope they can sell their parents as well,” Butcher says. “Can you confront a parent with it? Maybe, but I’m not saying you’re going to convince the parent. If the kid is convinced, then when the parents say he or she is not starting, he or she can say ‘I’m still playing 20 minutes a game and coach says I have this role.’ So we try to convince the kids first and keep the parents out of it.”
Deploying Your Weapons
Once you’ve identified your sixth man, or men, and have convinced them of the importance of their roles, you’ll need some strategies on how to deploy them. There are two schools of thought: have a set system, or play it by ear based on what happens in the game.
“My subbing is more by feel, unless someone gets two quick fouls, then they’re out,” Barry says. “With the starters, I’ll have a good idea which player will get tired when or will start making errors. But I won’t yank a player who’s doing great just to get in the sixth man.”
“If things are going well and you put a sub or two in, then everything could break down,” Adams adds. “By the same token, the next game those kids could come and turn it around the other way. It’s all about the situation that you’re in and how the flow of the game is going. If there’s no flow, I’m more apt to put someone in the game to get something going.”
“When I sub, I want something to change, whether it’s defense or outside shooting,” Butcher says. “That’s where the sixth player can be important.”
On the other hand, many coaches have regular substitution patterns. “I think we’re creatures of habit,” Fahey says. “It’s important for kids to have some kind of routine as to when they’ll get into the game. It becomes difficult to come off the bench when they have no idea when they’ll be playing.
“But in the second half of games,” Fahey continues, “I’m much more erratic with my subbing because I think the players are okay with it. At that point everyone has had a shot, and it’s a matter of who’s playing well that day.”
Mackey also likes to stay with a regular rotation. “In certain games, you have to vary that according to the situation, but usually I like a set pattern—I like to get my first sub off the bench anywhere between the five- and six-minute mark, and generally the players who come out will stay on the bench for a minute or two, and then go back in the game. We rotate seven or eight players in the first quarter, which gets people ready. You don’t want a player sitting on the bench until the game comes down to the end, and all of sudden, have him or her go in when a player fouls out or gets hurt.”
Developing the sixth man can often be the difference between a mediocre team and a successful one, and may require a different approach than working with the starting five. But if all goes well beforehand, you’ll be able to call upon your sixth man without a second thought.