Richardson came up with an easy fix. He expected every player to give it their all every second they were on the court. Two issues were resolved by this. Because he was able to maintain a higher level of player satisfaction and engagement during practice and the game, waves of new players continually flooded the court, wearing down the opposing team.
Richardson said, “That’s why I played so many.” “It was a madhouse trying to get the kids in during the period I had back then, when we had 15 scholarships. I kind of assumed that we had twelve or thirteen. I had no doubt that I could include them all in the game. However, my playing style allowed me to do that. because we have a strong desire to play and outperform everyone. Nobody works more efficiently than us. You don’t care if your players give you one minute or four minutes, but those minutes have to be the hardest they can give you if you want flawless work from every player that steps onto the floor. It was irrelevant.
There are players under Musselman who, according to Richardson, can set the kind of tone necessary to essentially force more players on the roster to demand playing time, despite the fact that fans may long for the days of mass substitution, when a second group of men eager to prove themselves worthy of playing time also came in to spell the starters.
As in Devo, Richardson remarked. “Devo never lets a play go.You need to take a break when you’re a young man who never takes a play off. You need to take a break because, although some players don’t play as hard as others, you are giving it your all throughout the game.They may not play as hard on the defensive end as they do on the offensive end.
Richardson’s refusal to commit to a first team during practice was one of the ways he was able to add depth and adaptability to his lineups.
“If your first team, and I never knew about a first team because I mixed them so much, but most teams have a first team and a second team,” said Richardson.”The first team doesn’t get any better because they are playing the second team, but your second team starts to get pretty good because they are playing the first team.I’ve always mixed mine because I said, “Hey, I don’t know how this is going to work.” In practice, there was no first or second team.”
This created circumstances that not only improved his starters but also gave Richardson the chance to research a wide range of factors that aided him in making snap decisions about substitutions during the game.
“You mix it up because you never know who you gon’ get caught with on the floor,” said Richarson.”Because some players perform really well when they are on the floor with specific players. You’ll have issues if you bench some of the players who are essential to keeping the team cohesive.
“We cannot see that with the naked eye, but I can see that since we removed him, the young player will not perform as well as he would if he were surrounded by someone who could pick up the slack and improve his game, such as a Lee Mayberry, Todd Day, Oliver Miller, or someone else. That’s the part where, in my opinion, players should make sure they are with the right players in order to hopefully improve their performance.”
