Editor’s note: This story is part of Peak, The Athletic’s desk covering leadership, personal development and performance through the lens of sports. Follow Peak here.
Joe Boylan worked in the NBA for a decade with the Minnesota Timberwolves, New Orleans Pelicans, Memphis Grizzlies, Golden State Warriors and Boston Celtics. He is the co-founder of Cognition Coach.
The first time I saw Jaden McDaniels work out in the summer of 2021, he was down on the far end of the Timberwolves’ practice court doing the Mikan Drill, where the player stands under the net and alternates layups with both hands. It was a common drill for McDaniels, the skinny, 6-foot-10 wing who had recently finished his rookie season in the NBA.
He had shot 66 percent at the rim in that first season, a respectable and above-average number. But when you watched Jaden, you could tell he had an unbelievable touch. With a 7-foot wingspan, he was also closer to the rim than most people when he extended the ball. That percentage should have been higher.
I worked with Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch in New Orleans from 2018 to 2020, and together we helped unlock Brandon Ingram’s efficiency on his path to winning the NBA Most Improved Player Award. Finchy saw similarities with BI and Jaden, and when he got the head coaching job in Minnesota, he hired me to pair with Jaden and oversee player development.
Before arriving in New Orleans and meeting Finchy, I had worked with two Australian sports scientists, Dave Taylor and Dean Little, who questioned everything I did.
“What was the intent of that workout?”
I’d try to explain: “To get 1 percent better. Muscle memory. Perfecting technique.”
One by one, they tore apart my old ideas and introduced me to new ones.: “Read Newell’s work on movement variability.” “Read this paper on nonlinear growth.”
Meanwhile, around the same time, my good friend Noah LaRoche was growing as a coach on the court with WNBA star Diana Taurasi and NBA clientele. He became obsessed with this book with a woman rock climbing on the cover: “The Constraints-Led Approach: Principles for Sports Coaching and Practice Design.”
What the hell is this? I remember thinking about ordering it on Amazon. Well, he’s never steered me wrong.
I read the book. Then I read it again.
The way I thought about practice and player development shifted because of the Constraints-Led Approach (CLA). The book talked about repetition without repetition. Perception and action must be coupled, which meant to me that decisions needed to be embedded within every drill they do.
My use of time on the court began to change. Rather than decontextualized drills such as “Do a crossover to a layup, then relocate behind the three-point line for a shot,” I would put the player into position and explain the game I created, which is what I started to do with Jaden in Minnesota. Before practice, our 6-foot-10 assistant video coordinator, Big Al, would help me create representativeness and variability within our reps.
“Jaden, you’re in the left corner, receiving a swing pass,” I’d tell him. “I want you to step to the ball and rip away from the pass. Big Al, you’re the low man. You can either stay home with me in the corner, or you can rotate and contest Jaden at the rim. Game to 7. Any foul, we shoot free throws. Jaden, if Big Al helps early, you can always kick to me in the corner, reshape and I’ll swing it back to you for a rip away.”
Rather than practicing specific types of layups devoid of decisions, I used common scenarios, tweaked the challenge point and other variables, and practiced in a way that was a little bit different every time.
The CLA contends that skill emerges from the player’s interaction with the environment rather than from top-down instructions. I realized that to be a good coach, you almost couldn’t do all the things that made it look like you were a good coach.
There were no more Mikan Drills. He knew how to lay it up.
Instead, he could start to improve his decision-making and coordination. His adaptability. This is the goal of the Constraints-Led Approach. To help players become resilient problem solvers, with increasingly less dependence on you, the coach.
This was the system I used when I worked with McDaniels, Ingram, Lonzo Ball, Kenrich Williams, Naz Reid and more in the NBA.
I became known as the “games coach.” I was the guy you went to when you wanted a situation with defense and decisions. By that time in my career, I had adopted the CLA as the underpinning of all of my practice design.
Jaden went from shooting 66 percent at the rim in his rookie year, doing the Mikan Drill, to 68 percent in Year 2, to 72 percent in his third season, to an elite 74 percent by Year 4. We exposed him to situations similar to the game, over and over again.
No matter what situation arises, the player knows how to solve it. Maybe it’s a spin move in one scenario but a scoop in another. Maybe changing speed or direction works one time, maybe changing hands the next.
There are thousands of potential solutions. Coaches prescribing specific moves and finishes are only scratching the surface of the total capacity a player has to solve problems in any given moment.
You have to remove your ego as the coach who gives solutions and solves problems and replace it with someone more important: the person who strategically places obstacles in a player’s way and forces them to self-organize into conquering that obstacle.
For example, we would play no-dribble games — a 3-on-3 game in which no one on the court is allowed to dribble. This particular challenge serves many purposes. Being ready to shoot is the first byproduct. Stepping to the ball and filling space with urgency is necessary to win. Crashing the offensive glass. Screening and slipping. The players will figure out how to beat the game, and in doing so, they will unlock skills they might not have known existed.
Lower the rim. Use a lighter ball. Play with no dribble. Give the offensive player an advantage and start from different spots on the floor. Creating a targeted game and then reflecting on it are hallmarks of a Constraints-Led Approach.
CLA doesn’t apply just to basketball. This philosophy applies to business owners seeking to develop managers and leaders within their organizations. Instead of seminars and lectures, put them in “game-like” situations. Let them work through uncertainty, collaborate with others, and reflect on their decisions. Over time, these experiences reveal patterns and principles that no presentation ever could.
There are countless examples: Link’s flight simulators supercharging our pilot training with adaptive decision-making under pressure; medical residents refining teamwork and communication in simulated trauma bays; managers learning leadership through live project crises with shifting constraints and incomplete information.
Instead of telling your child to “hold your follow-through” in a drill, encourage them to play one-on-one against every boy and girl in the neighborhood. My cousin’s wife texted me about their daughter recently.
She gets so anxious during sports that she becomes defiant and won’t listen. But at the same time, she’s very competitive. She’s the one doing cartwheels through the lectures and drills, but when the coach asks who is going to be the best, she runs over and raises her hand.
The CLA is meant for this brand of gamers.
For parents and leaders, the CLA is a framework that explains how dynamic systems (like people) work. To improve, they usually need to self-organize around a challenge rather than the traditional view that they need to “master the fundamentals.” The research says there’s no evidence that starting with slow breakdowns is advantageous.
If you’re a parent, stop barking corrections. Play with your kids, design games, let them explore.
If you’re a manager: stop handing out binders. Build situations that reveal how people think, adapt and lead in real time.
If you’re an athlete: stop chasing perfect form. Put yourself into rich, messy problems. Train harder than the game.
The principle is simple but universal: improvement is not about repetition. It’s about decisions. That’s why there are no more Mikan Drills. That’s why Jaden McDaniels went from a rookie doing layup lines to a $136 million cornerstone.
Stop prescribing. Start designing. And let the game — whatever your game is — be the teacher.