In this special series of how to organize your coaching staff I want to introduce Method #2, which is also centered around the video-scout but also involves the cooperation of an Assistant.
This is another example of a coaching staff that exists of four professionals. One Head Coach, two Assistants & a dedicated Video Scout. Remember that this series continues with the focus on European staffs that have limited resources and have to find a way to work close together by communicating each other’s roles as well as being a team off the floor.
Here we go…

The Technical Part:

The Scout is still the main-man in this system. He is the one responsible for downloading, converting and cutting the opponent’s 3-4 previous games. He also is responsible for preparing the scouting report and the playbook for the coaching staff & the players accordingly. The coaches usually receive the bigger part of the playbook, not necessarily the full playbook but the main plays and the full team and player analysis whereas the players receive a filtered-down version of it. This usually occupies the scout throughout the days leading up to the game as he focuses mostly on the opponent that comes after the game. Essentially, the scout has to be a step ahead all the time. Most of the report has to be prepared before you play the game against a different opponent and be ready to hand over all the information about the next opponent to the coaches right after the current game has been played in preparation for the next one. The head coach (HC) decides on how much information is being funneled to the players during the process after having several meetings with the staff. Does it make sense to hand out sheets of paper if you have 2-4 video sessions on each opponent? It’s up to the HC to decide, some coaches prefer not to overload the players too much as other coaches demand from their players to inform themselves as much as possible and be able to apply that information to the game, this decision is very subjective and would depend on what the HC prefers himself.

As the scout finishes cutting and analyzing the games he hands all the offensive & defensive clips to Assistant Coach #1 (AC1) after the current game that was played. He is responsible for creating the final video report over the next couple of days. The video report will consist of all the games that the scout chose to prepare for him leading up to the game, usually a maximum of prior games, depending if the games were relevant and competitive and not blow-outs.
Depending on if your coach wants to show the opponent’s roster in a separate session, either the scout or AC1 will present the players to the team as well. All of this happens in a span of 2-3 days with usually 3 video sessions before practices/game day shoot-around.
AC2 is solely responsible for the feedback/post-game video of the team, he analyzes and cuts the game himself, chooses the clips he wants to show and prepares next day’s video session/analysis. AC2 is usually the one who knows exactly what the Head Coach wants and usually takes the role of the lead Assistant.
The scout doesn’t touch the “post-game” at all and focuses solely on the next opponents! The scout basically starts on the next opponent as soon as he hands over the information to the Assistants, sometimes even having to re-focus on the game at hand while already working on next week’s opponent!

My ‘Two Cents’:

The advantage of this system is that the scout is still the one who knows the opponents the best and is able to recognize and has the best ‘feel’ for the opponent as game time approaches. Now you also have AC1 who is involved in the process and is able to add his valuable “two cents” during games as he recognizes the “Playcalls” as well and can direct the defense. In addition, you have AC2 totally dedicated to analyzing your own team’s game and carry responsibility together with the HC, as they spend the most time watching these games. All coaches are putting a certain amount of work in with the video, the scout still being the one who does most of the work with the opponents but in this scenario he has a helping hand to finish the process for him. AC1 being the “Final Filter” in this case, always good to have a 2^nd set of eyes on the final product.

The disadvantage that AC1 has, is that he probably never watched the opponent’s games in a ‘natural flow’ and does not have a great feel for the pace of the game, instead bases his opinion of the team based on the number of clips in each category, which the scout provided for him. Another question-mark would be on how proficient AC2 is with editing and preparing a ‘post game video edit’. This system requires everyone to be able to work with video editing programs one way or another and communicate fluently during the process.
A system that is slightly easier on the scout but still a very big burden nevertheless, often times leading to exhaustion and inefficient work…not my favorite.