VILNIUS (Lithuania) - You better be ready, because you never know who will call tomorrow.
That is probably the best way to describe my life right now.
For the first summer in over a decade, I am without a club. After so many seasons of preparing for the next game, the next opponent, the next practice, suddenly there is no game tomorrow. There is no roster to build, no Synergy clips to watch late at night, no scouting report to finish.
And honestly, with a new baby at home, I can't complain about the timing.
Our baby was born while I was still working. My wife was amazing the way she managed that whilst we were in the middle of the season we just had. And now, for the first time in a long time, I can really be at home. I think my wife is happier. I think my daughter is happier. And I am definitely grateful for it.
You lose sleep when you have a baby. You discover new challenges every day. But I wouldn't change it for anything.
Staying in shape
But, at the same time, I am still a basketball coach. That will never change and that part of me never completely switches off.
So with the new season starting, I've been looking for ways to stay in shape. Not physically, of course. I mean staying in coaching shape. This game waits for nobody and you can't switch off or you risk getting behind.
The great thing about the globalization of basketball now, is that coaches are really open to sharing and allowing people in. The rise in coaching clinics and availability of coaching information on line, means that there are no secrets anymore.
I've been very lucky that I can just pick up the phone and set up a visit to a team.
Four months without a game is a long time for a coach. You can forget small things. You can lose the feeling for the rhythm of a practice, or the speed of decisions in games.
So, I've been on the road seeing how other coaches work.
Right now, I'm mainly focused on Basketball Champions League teams.
After a pre-season trip to Olimpia Milano, first stop was Badalona to connect with Coach Dani Miret. Badalona is a winning organization - they were so impressive winning the Supercopa to start the season - and it was such a privilege to spend time inside that environment.
(The fact that it was a direct flight that saved me time and money didn't hurt either.)
The best thing about the trip was being able to stay for the full week. I watched the practices, I watched their games and not just the BCL game, I watched the Liga Endesa games and tried to put myself in their shoes, understanding Spanish basketball from the perspective of one it's most storied clubs and how they manage that at the same time as preparing for the BCL season to start.
Extra coach Ricky Rubio
I was really trying to understand not just what they were doing, but why they were doing it.
That is the interesting part that you can't get from the outside.
When you are fortunate enough to lift the curtain and get behind the scenes, you see things differently. You can concentrate on the process.
The way that Coach Dani organizes his coaching staff, the hierarchy is so clear. The players knew who was responsible for the defense, who was responsible for the offense, and who was the head coach.
Those things sound simple, but trust me, they matter. Players instinctively know when a coach isn't 100 percent sure of something. They even know when if a coach isn't ready for a practice.
On the court, it's fascinating to observe when does the coach raise his voice? When does he push a player? When does he allow something to go? When does he stop the practice?
And then there is Ricky.
Having an extra coach on the court like Ricky Rubio is obviously a luxury. But what impressed me was his body language. It seemed almost the same all the time.
He was calm, but he was constantly trying to make the younger players better. He would go over, say something quietly to a teammate that almost nobody would notice, but those things can have a huge impact.
Ricky knows exactly what it takes to win. It's not the stats, the touches or the roles everyone is given, it's the ability to keep everyone on the same page.
You can feel his experience from the sideline.
Of course, there were basketball differences too.
European basketball is European basketball, there will always be similarities in the way we all want to play, but the details are different. The players are different, so you cannot expect them to play in exactly the same way.
Badalona are stacked with veterans, for example, so aren't always going to play at the same pace that we did with Rytas last season. But the way they execute in the half-court is really special with Ricky and now Nico. What is also unique with them is that they don't always need to go so deep into every option of each offense.
And that is exactly why I wanted to go.
Maybe I see something that is completely different. Maybe I see something that is exactly the same. Maybe I remember something I had forgotten.
Global European basketball
One thing I keep coming back to is how much European basketball is changing. I've coached in Asia, in Indonesia and everywhere I went, I always wanted to infiltrate it with the European basketball system because as coaches we live and die by what we believe in and this basketball is what I believe in.
In Europe you still won't see too much one-on-one, too much dribble-dribble-dribble and then a hero shot. The extra pass is still what makes this basketball ours.
But as I said, European basketball is also becoming more global and that is changing it.
The gap between the traditional basketball countries and the so-called smaller basketball countries is getting smaller. You see it in FIBA windows, you see it in the BCL Qualification Round Tournaments, you even saw it in the first Gameday with Salon Vilpas almost beating AEK.
You cannot afford to underestimate anybody.
You cannot look at a team and say, "I don't know this name, so they must not be good."
That doesn't work anymore.
And this competition won't forgive your mistakes if you do underestimate your opponent. You can lose one game in the Regular Season and suddenly you are under huge pressure.
Maybe you lose at home. Maybe your goal difference situation puts you in second place.
Then boom! January arrives and your team has injuries while your opponent is in perfect shape. One false step and you are in Play-Ins that starts at home, and all of a sudden, you have problems.
Badalona's homework ahead of Herzliya
Every game matters and every opponent can give you a homework.
That is why I love the BCL.
That was something I was also reminded of while watching Badalona.
They played against Bnei Penlink Herzliya and, two days before the game, they were already preparing their zone offense. They knew perfectly well that Israeli teams love to throw different types of zone defenses at you, so they prepared for it.
Then the game arrives and as expected the zone defense arrived.
There was no panic. Pass. Pass. Basket.
Again.
Again.
Again.
It looked simple because they had prepared it. But for me, that is discipline. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I believe consistency is about discipline. You can't just hope to pick up discipline when you get to a big-budget team, how you do one thing, is how you do everything.
The same is true defensively. Basketball is becoming more complicated. Teams are switching, hedging, dropping, plugging, changing coverages and trying to force players into difficult decisions.
I was talking with coach Dani about Tuomas Iisalo who really is the founder of the Hedge and Plug defense to stop the short roll. He told me to watch Ante Tomic because he is so good in the short roll, that he was the only one in Europe that could really break that scheme.
And now with Simon Birgander, he's clearly been learning from Ante.
At the same time, as coaches, we can give players too much information.
At some point, you have to simplify.
Last season with Rytas, we were trying to do exactly that. Instead of always trying to find the perfect complicated answer, we wanted to give the players rules they could understand quickly. At all times we wanted to stretch the floor and maybe simplify things to let the players focus on execution.
You can't give a player 15 different reads and then expect him to play freely. Players need to play the game. They need to feel like they are playing and enjoy it.
So sometimes the best coaching decision is to simplify.
That is probably also how I think about my own situation now.
I could sit at home and wait for the next opportunity.
Or I can prepare.
I can watch. I can learn. I can visit another club and see how another coach solves a problem.
Next stop: Germany
Next, I am hoping to go to ALBA BERLIN. I want to watch the German League, understand the competition, understand the rhythm and learn how another basketball culture works.
Because who knows what is coming next and when it is coming.
There is also something else that has been bugging me whilst I have been paused to think during this period.
We talk too much about coaches as if the only measurement of their work is whether they won or lost.
For me, that is too simple. Of course, results matter, we are all doing this because we are competitors and we want to win.
But it's also about so much more than that. Winning and losing can be such a reductive way to measure the impact that a coach can have.
What happens to your players after the season?
Where do they go?
What kind of teams do they sign for and have you improved their careers?
What did you do in the most difficult moments of the season?
How did your team react after an unexpected setbacks?
What did you find when you arrived, and what did you leave behind when you left?
Did you build a culture?
Those things matter to me.
One of the most important things for a coach is how they treat humans that play for them.
It doesn't matter if the player is a captain, a young guy, a local player, an import, the team's leading scorer or somebody who rarely plays.
If you treat one player differently, eventually the others will notice. And then you can expect problems later for sure. For me, I will always speak with my leaders. I tell them something very simple:
If I need to jump on somebody, I will start with you. I want the people at the top of the team to understand that they have responsibility. Then it becomes easier to reach the young players and the new guys.
That's how you build culture. And that's where I come back to discipline because culture takes time and consistency. If you want to enjoy the memorable wins, you need to suffer through difficult losses and keep believing in what you are doing.
Maybe one season you lose a game in Istanbul that you think you should have won. Maybe that painful experience becomes part of the reason you win the same kind of game a year later.
That is how I see coaching.
There are no magic tricks.
You build something every day.
And sometimes, when the opportunity comes, you are lucky enough to see the result.
For now, I am enjoying being with my family.
I am enjoying watching other coaches.
I am enjoying remembering things I had forgotten and learning new things I didn't know.
But I am still a coach.
So I will keep watching.
I will keep learning.
And I will keep myself ready.
Because you never know who will call tomorrow.