With cell phones and video conferencing Washington Wizards head coach Scott Brooks is staying connected with his team, while he uses this forced coronavirus-related pause in the NBA season to personally connect with his family back home in California.
“I think it’s only been twice in the last 20 years I have been in California in March,” Brooks said.
“We are having family dinners, its walks with my wife, crossword puzzles, puzzles. It’s a lot of Netflix. We have to take this time to reflect and figure out what’s important and have that good balance between work and family.”
Brooks is hopeful the Wizards will be able to finish this season and to that end, players continue to work out with the strength and conditioning staff by video conference.
Players are sent videos to review to help them improve their games.
“It is important to stay connected with our guys,” said Brooks.
“It is such a relationship-based job. We send videos to them from the current season and some of the potential match-ups that they will guard. And we send video of some of the guys that we think they are comparable to and they can instill something in their games,” said Brooks.
When the season stopped, the Wizards were 24-40, in ninth place in the Eastern Conference and 5 1/2 games out of a playoff spot.
In the 30 games before the pause, the Wizards were basically a .500 team (14-16) and were getting healthier and showing signs of improving both offensively and defensively.
“We are still using this time to work on getting better as team,” Brooks said.
“We have time to share more ideas and then include the players in the process. You can have good coaching moments and it doesn’t always have to be on the basketball court.”
And the dialogue with players is not just about basketball.
