Identifying and consolidating coaches’ beliefs on individual aspects of talent in basketball

Abstract

In many sports, coaches observe and subjectively evaluate youth players during competition or practice before making selection decisions. This process is referred to as ‘the’ coach's eye. Coaches’ thought and decision-making processes underlying these selection decisions are not well understood in general and for separate sports specifically. Thus, the present research applied a combination of three in-depth semi-structured expert interviews with national basketball coaches, and an online questionnaire to the wider basketball coaching community (n = 125) to first identify and afterwards consolidate aspects of talent in basketball for different age groups. Findings show that coaches generally have a multidimensional understanding of talent in basketball including mainly anthropometrics and athleticism, fundamental motor abilities, psychological factors and tactical and technical skills. Notably, coaches differentiate the importance of aspects in terms of player age. For example, while motor abilities are highly important at all ages and the most important aspect at 8–11 years of age, technical skills are least important before increasing the most for adolescence and the transfer into adulthood. In summary, this research provides an informational starting point for practitioners and coaches to discuss, and for future studies to explore the role of crucial factors (e.g. age) and complex aspects of talent in basketball and the coach's eye.

General introduction

Coaches play a crucial role within (youth) sport systems. ¹ Besides the family subsystem and the peers, coaches are the most important stakeholder influencing athletes. Their tasks and goals are to nurture youngsters and foster their positive development towards being both a great athlete and an even better person.^1,2 A part of this process is a holistic evaluation of the young athlete focused on the technical, tactical, psychological and physical domains associated with performance. ³

In most sports, athlete selection decisions are made by coaches. In many cases, this process is based on the so-called coach's eye.^4,5 The coach's eye describes a coach's process of evaluating an athlete and potentially making selection decisions. It is defined as being holistic, intuitive, subjective and experience-based, ⁴ and is often discussed in the context of coaches’ intuitive judgements also referred to as gut instinct. ⁶ In many sports, selection decision-making based on the coach's eye is used during competition or practice observations. That is, coaches observe and subjectively evaluate players during drills or play. While this process has justification, research has shown that the quality of selection decisions and predictions can be improved by combining subjective coach's eye information with data from objective assessments, e.g. motor performance tests.^7,8 Furthermore, coaches’ thought and decision-making processes underlying the selection decisions are not well understood and can be object to various biases, e.g. relative age effects or confirmation bias.^9,10 This is crucial because different levels of an athlete identification and development system (e.g. local, regional, national) must work hand in hand and understand each other. Thus, researchers and coaches are required to cooperate to explore and analyse athlete selection processes including coaches’ selection criteria and other systemic factors to improve the overall quality for all stakeholders.

Previous research has followed three approaches investigating the coach's eye and its underlying processes: (1) Qualitative interviews,^11,12 (2) online questionnaires,^13,14 and (3) experimental study designs. ¹⁵ The present research was conducted combining two approaches. In the first study, detailed insights into the perspectives of experts in the field were obtained through in-depth interviews with three youth national team basketball coaches to identify aspects of talent in basketball. In the second study, these resulting aspects were consolidated in the wider basketball coaching community using an online questionnaire. This two-study approach pursued the goal of exploring talent in basketball both in depth and width by combining different methods with different coach samples.

Study 1: Identifying talent aspects through expert interviews

Previous research investigated coaches’ beliefs and selection criteria in different sports games. For example, rugby coaches were interviewed and reported anthropometric and physiological characteristics, game-specific skills and psychological qualities to be important in adolescent players. ¹⁶ In Australian Rules Football, heads of recruitment replied in interviews that they use the players’ game performance, their intent as well as their psychological profile when making selection decisions. ¹⁷ In soccer, Cook, Crust ¹¹ interviewed expert coaches emphasizing the importance of mental toughness including competitiveness, mindset, resilience and responsibility.

For basketball, only one study including qualitative interview data was published investigating coaches’ beliefs and criteria in the context of player selection and development in basketball. ¹³ In this study, five coaches were interviewed on their perceived importance of attributes when evaluating 16–18 year-old basketball players. ¹³ Coaches emphasized the importance of technical, psychological and tactical attributes while acknowledging physical attributes only limitedly. ¹³ However, no qualitative study has investigated coaches’ beliefs on evaluating younger athletes and players. Furthermore, studies comparing different performance or selection levels can give an indirect idea of what coaches believe is crucial and therefore use as the basis for selection. Based on studies mostly comparing selected and non-selected players, selected players tend to be tall and explosive with high levels of both basketball-specific tactical (i.e. perceptual-cognitive) and technical skills.^18–20 In this context, sport-specific skills can be assessed using more or less complex and representative methods, ranging from data from competition analysis to isolated, lab-based assessments, respectively.^21–23 Besides those anthropometric, athletic, tactical and technical aspects, psychological factors are often hypothesized to be important in sports. However, previous studies did not find clear results for psychological variables in basketball.^19,24 While more and more objective tests are incorporated into selection procedures, the highly complex nature of basketball leads to the coach's eye in combination with practice and game observations being the central evaluation method. ¹⁴

Based on these previous findings, the aim of the first study was to identify aspects of talent in basketball through detailed insights from three youth national team basketball coaches as experts in the field.

Methods

Philosophical and theoretical perspective

This research was designed, conducted and interpreted based on a constructivist and pragmatic paradigm. The authors hold the position that there is no ultimate truth and that it is subjective and dynamically changing. ²⁵ Accordingly, coaches’ understandings of talent in basketball are constructed based on their individual, social and cultural experiences. ²⁶ This research embraced these individual experiences, beliefs and perceptions of expert coaches given their long-lasting and successful roles in basketball. Based on the constructivist and pragmatic paradigm, the present study followed a qualitative description approach to better understand expert coaches’ beliefs and to find emerging themes.^27,28 The goal was to compare and to combine the knowledge of various individuals to describe player selection in basketball. Thus, the quotes presented in this article are chosen carefully to be as straightforward and clear as possible without additional interpretation. This mainly descriptive approach is believed to be a powerful tool for the creation of a rich and solid information basis for additional research in rather unexplored fields.^28–30

Participants

Three male expert coaches (M = 41.7, SD = 5.9 years of age) were selected to participate in interviews as a convenient sample. All coaches had extensive professional coaching experience in basketball (M = 19.7, SD = 2.5 years) including substantial work regarding the selection and development of young players. All coaches held the highest German coaching certification (A-license; 310 A-license coaches as of April, 2024) and were still actively coaching. Written informed consent was obtained prior to all interviews. ³¹ All procedures were in full compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the ethical committee of the Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg in Germany (Reference: Drs.EK/2024/032). In the following, results will be presented in detail based on the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Studies (COREQ). ³²

Data collection and interview guide

Interviews were conducted as individual, semi-structured interviews in German language using an interview guide and following a narrative approach. One interview was conducted via telephone and the other via the video call software BigBlueButton (BigBlueButton Inc., Ottawa, Canada). All three interviews were undertaken by male co-author and researcher AC. At the time of the interviews, AC was 32 years old and had many years of experience in international and national (youth) basketball. AC holds the A-license for basketball coaching and, at the time of the interviews, was in the last steps of finishing his bachelor's degree in sport science. Thus, he was trained in various methodological approaches including both quantitative and qualitative methods.

Each interview began with a short introduction by the expert coach describing his previous and current roles and experience (in basketball). Afterwards, the coach was asked to express their experiences, beliefs and perspectives on what talent is in the sport of basketball. This process started with a proposition stated by the interviewer followed by an open question: “One of the hardest tasks of a coach is the identification of talented players. How do you define talent in basketball?”. When the coach finished their remarks, the interviewer reacted by asking questions regarding the themes and aspects stated by the expert, and potentially suggested additional aspects based on the interview guide. This way, a detailed conversation ensued with the overarching goal of having the expert coaches elaborate on their beliefs and thoughts as much and as comprehensively as possible. The final part of each interview had the interviewer summarize all aspects discussed during the interview and offering the coach to add further or comment on those aspects. If the coach was satisfied and had nothing to add, the interview was concluded.

Interview analysis

Interview audio recordings were transcribed by the researchers using the software f4transkript (dr. dresing & pehl GmbH, Marburg, Germany) and afterwards analysed following inductive thematic analysis.^33,34 First, initial codes were developed through open coding. Afterwards, those initial codes were discussed in peer debriefing and researcher triangulation meetings to reach common and key codes and themes. ³³ Once all three transcripts were coded based on these confirmed codes, the emerging themes were discussed in detail during team meetings. This way, the expert coaches’ perspectives and beliefs were combined into a comprehensive understanding of talent in basketball. The interview analysis was conducted based on the German interview material and findings were afterwards translated into English language for the publication of study results, including the present article.

Interview results

The interviews lasted 42, 62 and 75 min. In the following, key findings and aspects of talent in basketball as mentioned by the expert coaches are presented. Those key findings can be categorized into the two areas of (1) general understanding of talent in basketball, and (2) specific individual aspects of talent in basketball. All three coaches emphasized the complexity of both the concept of talent itself and the process of identifying and developing talents and talented players as part of a system. While systemic factors (e.g. short-term vs. long-term perspective, cooperation of different system levels) play a key role, the present article focuses on the individual aspects related to talent in basketball. Here, coaches stated that sport scientific research can support practitioners:

“Talent in basketball is an insanely complex topic where not everything can be covered on the scientific level. However, I am convinced that it is very, very important to cover as much as possible in a scientific, objective and factual manner.” (Coach C)

In the following, this demand of scientific support is met by presenting the different individual aspects of talent as identified in the interviews.

Anthropometrics & athleticism

The first aspects presented during all three interviews were players’ anthropometrics and athleticism. As the following quotes show, this relates mainly to height and muscular power, but also includes other rather nature-dominated factors like wing span.

“The basic requirements are physical characteristics, specifically height – normally players making it to the top are above two meters – and explosive strength, which to me has increased in importance over the last years.” (Coach B)

“The eligibility for being seen as ‘talented’ starts with explosiveness […]. To me it is inevitable to aim for the 10% of athletes with the best genetic aptitudes in the area of power and explosiveness. Not even a super amazing new approach for technical skills or playing ability will be able to make up for that. Thus, the physical characteristics and the explosiveness are the decisive factor for a 13-, 14-, 15-year-old player.” (Coach C)

Fundamental motor abilities & “learning ability”

All three coaches referenced fundamental, non-basketball-specific motor or coordinative abilities as the basis of everything else. In this context, characteristics and abilities such as balance or inter-limb coordination are viewed as prerequisites for learning sport-specific skills. This idea is also often referred to as a general “learning ability”, a comprehensive concept many (basketball) coaches often come back to, especially in the area of motor abilities:

“Some aspects like height are predetermined. Others can be learned and this learning ability to me is very tightly connected to fundamental coordinative abilities. If one is very competent on a fundamental motor level, then this person has great chances to be able to learn all the technical skills required.” (Coach A)

Psychological factors

All coaches mentioned psychological factors during their interviews. In this context, it is important to note that the understanding of psychological factors is wide-ranging. Often, coaches generally have a dichotomous understanding as in “body and mind”. That is, players not only must have the physical and anthropometrical characteristics but also need certain cognitive and psychological abilities:

“[…] including certain psychological factors, like for example, how is the person handling mistakes, how ambitious and how competitive is he or she – that is something you can already see at a young age, although not finally.” (Coach A)

In this context, coaches refer to various different terminologies and concepts, including players’ assertiveness, motivation, competitiveness, work ethic, personality, character, mentality, and mindset.

Tactical skills & “playing ability”

According to the three expert coaches, tactical skills and game understanding (also referred to as “basketball IQ”) are very important in the highly dynamic and open sport of basketball. They are often used to refer to a combination of various underlying skill and performance areas:

“Playing ability, meaning, how is the player able to make use of his technical and physical characteristics on the court. Is he able to perceive the important information, to be then able to make the correct decisions and to learn this decision-making quickly?” (Coach C)

That is, tactical skills are often conceptualized as including a perception, a cognitive and an action component. Also, the quote includes one term often used within the basketball coaching community: “playing ability” (“Spielfähigkeit” in German). This term is not well defined for certain contexts and can have different vague meanings for different coaches in different situations. The term playing ability can range from describing isolated decision-making skills, to the players’ general ability to “play the game of basketball well”.

Technical skills

Technical skills in basketball include different actions, e.g. dribbling, passing, rebounding and shooting. This shows that both different positions or roles in a team and the two sides of the game (offense and defense) influence a player's technical skill profile. In the interviews, all three coaches specifically emphasized the importance of shooting in modern basketball:

“Shooting is such a key competence. And if you as a player have a real talent, a real feel for that, then you potentially can compensate for one or two other areas that you not bring along, for example, athleticism.” (Coach A)

General aspects: Compensation phenomenon & combination of aspects for different ages

Besides the importance of shooting skill, the last quote emphasizes the compensation phenomenon present not just in basketball but in many interactive sports:

“As a coach selecting players you must look at height as one talent criterion, but it does not have to be the ‘deal-breaker’. Of course there are also very successful players smaller than 1,85m being incredibly great regarding other criteria.” (Coach A)

This illustrates that coaches and other player selection decision-makers combine various information and evaluations of players’ characteristics and abilities to come up with their overall evaluation. In the interviews, coaches emphasized that this combination and weighting of aspects and information is dependent on different factors, particularly age and experience:

“For very young kids, technical skills play no role at all to me, because I am actually looking for that kid that has no experience and that I can teach everything. This experience factor is like a big parenthesis to me. From a twelve-year-old that has played basketball for four years, I do expect a certain level of technical skills – from another twelve-year-old that has just started to play basketball, I do not, and that is no obstacle. If you are motorically gifted, I believe you can still learn a lot. The older you become, the higher the level of technical skills you must have will be.” (Coach A)

That is, coaches not only combine information for different aspects, they also do so differently relative to the players’ age and experience, again also referring to a “learning ability”. In this regard, players’ biological development and maturation (specifically during puberty) are crucial:

“I believe a final talent prognosis can be made at the end of puberty, because then a lot is clear of where the physical journey is headed and where the player's character is developing towards. Also, I believe a good prognosis is also possible when a kid is coming to school. However, in between, during puberty, it is very difficult to make a reliable diagnosis, because the physical differences are so high between extremely early developing, normal and late developing kids. That has such a big influence on the current performance levels that it is hiding many other areas and people lose their eye for kids’ potential. Thus, I believe that during the Bundesjugendlager [the national selection camp for under-16 teams], at the age of 13–14 years of age, very often not the most talented but the currently best functioning players are selected.” (Coach A)

Interview discussion

This first study was conducted to identify aspects of talent in basketball through detailed insights from three youth national team basketball coaches as experts in the field. In summary, similar to general conceptualizations of talent in sport, ³ coaches have a multidimensional understanding of talent in basketball including mainly anthropometrics and athleticism, (fundamental) motor abilities, psychological factors as well as tactical and technical skills.

Generally, most single aspects of talent in basketball were mentioned in similar ways in all three interviews. That is, coaches agreed on the importance of both anthropometrical and athletic characteristics, mainly players’ height, wingspan and muscular power. In this context, muscular power describes the idea that players must be able to quickly generate high amounts of forces to, for example, jump high and change direction quickly. Coaches refer to these qualities mainly using the vague concepts athleticism and explosiveness (i.e. athletic and explosive players). This was no surprise given the demands by the game of basketball and previous research.^13,14 In this context, coaches do not believe anthropometric and athletic criteria have fixed threshold values. Instead, the definition of complex performance and talent in basketball is characterized by the compensation phenomenon. ³⁵ That is, players may be able to balance a weakness or lower skill level in one area with a strength or higher skill level in another. For example, a shorter player can make up for this lack of advantageous height with extraordinary muscular power (i.e. out jumping or sprinting the opponent) or great technical shooting skills. ¹³ This is where technical and tactical skills come into play. While different theoretical approaches to modeling and understanding these processes (e.g. information-processing or ecological dynamics) are not at the core of this present research, those skills are crucial for coaches’ assessment of performance and talent not just in basketball. ²¹ Regarding technical skills it is interesting to note that shooting skill was seen as most crucial not just in the present interview study, but also in the study by Larkin, Sanford ¹³ where it was referred to as the “master skill” in the context of the compensation phenomenon.

These findings are similar to those from previous quantitative studies in basketball finding anthropometrical, athletic, psychological, tactical and technical skills to be important. ^{14 18–20} Besides these aspects separately, coaches also consider concepts based on the interaction of the aspects, such as “playing ability” and “learning ability”. These may be assessed based on the coach's eye as those assessments are believed to lead to a holistic evaluation instead of isolated characteristics. ⁴ In addition, coaches appear to use different age factors as references. That is, when evaluating players before puberty, they value players’ playing ability and coordinative abilities, their enthusiasm and their general motor competence. At the end of or after puberty, more basketball-specific aspects including tactical and technical skills appear to increase in importance. Thus, future research should differentiate age groups.

Similar to previous research, all three coaches interviewed mentioned the importance of psychological factors both on and off the court. In this context, a variety of terms and concepts was used to describe desirable player characteristics in different sport psychological areas. Generally, coaches want to develop and select highly motivated individuals with a strong will to be better than both their former selves (i.e. will to improve and learn) and others (i.e. competitiveness) as was emphasized in previous studies.^13,14 For this purpose, coaches demand players to have the mentality, mindset and character to put in and withstand high amounts of deliberate practice and “hard work”. Previous research has shown that this time on task can be a key predictor of (future) high performance.^36,37 In addition, players should be able to deal with mistakes and their consequences, setbacks (e.g. injury) and loses as included in the concepts of mental toughness or resilience. ³⁸ These characteristics are also incorporated in the concept of grit defined as passion and perseverance in the long term. ³⁹ Grit also includes setting and pursuing (long-term) goals and has recently be shown to be linked to positive development and competitive success. ³⁹ However, varying definitions and understandings of different concepts presented in the interviews as well as diverse approaches to operationalizing and assessing them may complicate evaluation and selection processes. Here, future research and coach education should aim to bring clarity and unite concepts.

Study 2: Consolidating talent aspects through online questionnaire

Qualitative and quantitative study designs can provide relevant information on a phenomenon by analysing it from different angles and with varying foci. The first study followed a qualitative approach with in-depth interviews with expert coaches of the national level to identify aspects of talent in basketball. While this provides deeper insights and understanding of the beliefs of a few influential coaches, its prevalence and explanatory power for the whole coaching system may be limited. Previous research has aimed to reach more extensive samples. Ribeiro Junior, Vianna ⁴⁰ conducted an online questionnaire study with 94 coaches and found that technical and physical factors were considered most important, varying by playing positions. Rogers, Crozier ¹⁴ conducted a three-round Delphi survey with 90 elite athlete coaches and identified a range of psychological, tactical, physical and motor skill indicators that are considered important for player selection in basketball. Similarly, Larkin, Sanford ¹³ used an online questionnaire to cover a larger sample size of 40 basketball youth coaches and talent scouts from Australia, Canada, the UK and the USA. Results showed a hierarchy of important attributes including tactical decision-making, sport-specific technical skills and psychological factors. In summary, those three studies show that coaches and scouts aim to apply a holistic multidisciplinary approach to talent identification. While Rogers, Crozier ¹⁴ had no focus on young players and rather covered adult elites, participants in the study by Larkin, Sanford ¹³ were asked to rate the importance of attributes in relation to players aged 16–18 years. While the age of 16–18 years clearly is a decisive phase, the developmental path of young players starts earlier and is seen as highly dynamic within a system offering different support at different levels. As also shown by the quotes from Coach A (e.g. “The older you become, the higher the level of technical skills you must have will be. […] I believe a final talent prognosis can be made at the end of puberty”), differentiating for the factor age is crucial for deeper insights in coach (selection) behavior. This demands research to include a wide range of coaches as player pathways lead through a complex identification and development system consisting of various coaches and decision-makers on local, regional and national levels. Here, effective and efficient systems can benefit from a clear set of goals and criteria shared by all stakeholders. ⁴¹

Thus, the aim of this second study was two-fold: First, to consolidate the findings by testing the prevalence and explanatory power of the aspects identified in study 1 by asking a wider range of basketball coaches. Second, to investigate the factor of player development over time by including three age groups crucial to player development (i.e. 8–21 years of age).

Methods

Participants

A total of 125 basketball coaches participated in this study by filling out the complete online questionnaire. Coaches had the C-license (n = 32 of 3229 C-license coaches as of April, 2024), the B-license (n = 49 of 898 B-license coaches as of April, 2024) or the highest formal coaching level in Germany (A-license; n = 36 of 310 A-license coaches as of April, 2024). ³¹ Eight coaches answered “Others” for this question. Coaches ranged from coaching mainly under-8 teams to coaching professional adult basketball. Coaches showed a wide range of quantitative coaching experience (M = 13.4, SD = 8.3; Min = 1, Max = 50 years of experience).

Data collection and questionnaire

The online questionnaire was created based on previous research and distributed online in January and February 2024 with a focus on basketball coaches in Germany from various geographical, performance and experience levels. ¹³ The questionnaire was created and distributed using the software LimeSurvey (LimeSurvey GmbH, Hamburg, Germany). Coaches filled out the questionnaire online anonymously and completion was planned to be maximally 15 min. The questionnaire consisted of 21 items across two parts: (1) General understanding of talent evaluation and athlete selection in basketball, and (2) evaluation of specific aspects for different age groups. Similarly to the interviews in study 1, the present study focuses on the latter part of the questionnaire.

Coaches were asked to rate the importance of the different aspects from 1 (“Less important”) to 5 (“Very important”) for the three different player age groups 8–11, 12–16 and 17–21 years of age. The different aspects evaluated in the questionnaire were based on the combination of findings from study 1 and previous research. Accordingly, it included various areas of talent and performance in basketball: anthropometrics, athleticism, motor abilities, psychological characteristics, tactical skills, and technical skills. The age groups were chosen based on the German basketball development system consisting of a) the basic youth sport, b) the advanced level organized by federal states including the national under-16 league, and c) the transition phase into the adult and professional level including the national under-19 league. This structure is similar in various other countries and sports.

Questionnaire analysis

The participants ratings were analysed both descriptively and by means of inferential statistics using SPSS Statistics version 29 (IBM Corporation, USA). The latter included repeated-measures analyses of variance (RM-ANOVA) checking for differences between coaches’ ratings for the different player age groups 8–11, 12–16 and 17–21 years of age. All statistical significance levels were set at α < .05 and effect sizes were calculated where appropriate.

Questionnaire results

Coaches took M = 8.8, SD = 7.4 min to complete the questionnaire. Table 1 and Figure 1 show the importance ratings for the aspects technical skills, athleticism, psychological factors, tactical skills, anthropometrics and motor abilities differentiated for the three age groups.

Figure 1.

Importance ratings for aspects of talent in basketball differentiated by age groups. Note. Whiskers show standard deviations.

Results show that importances of all aspects but (fundamental) motor abilities increase with player age and reach the highest possible importance rating in the oldest age group (see Figure 1).

This was shown by statistically significant differences for coaches’ ratings in the RM-ANOVAs (p < .001, η_p² = .20–.72; see Table 1).

Table 1.

Descriptive and ANOVA results for importance ratings of aspects of talent in basketball differentiated by age groups.

	Importance ratings
	8–11 years	12–16 years	17–21 years	F(2, 248)	p	ηp2 [90% CI]	Power (1-β)
Technical skills	2.38 (1.10)	3.64 (0.82)	4.50 (0.62)	320.31	<.001	0.72 [0.67–0.75]
Athleticism	3.37 (1.11)	4.00 (0.78)	4.55 (0.59)	95.24	<.001	0.43 [0.36–0.50]
Psychological factors	3.56 (1.10)	4.12 (0.71)	4.66 (0.52)	89.84	<.001	0.42 [0.34–0.48]
Tactical skills	3.53 (1.15)	4.12 (0.79)	4.64 (0.64)	77.84	<.001	0.39 [0.31–0.45]
Anthropometrics	3.57 (1.12)	4.03 (0.81)	4.18 (0.92)	31.06	<.001	0.20 [0.13–0.27]
Motor abilities	4.26 (0.80)	4.26 (0.80)	4.28 (0.91)	0.03	.974	<0.01	.99

The highest increases from age group to age group can be seen for technical skills starting at a relatively low importance of 2.3 (p < .001, η_p² = .72). That is, sport-specific technical skills are not as important at the younger ages but they end up being highly important in adolescence and for the transfer into adult sports (contrast 8–11 vs. 12–16 years: F(2, 248) = 231.10, p < .001, η_p² = 0.65, 90% CI [0.59, 0.69]; contrast 12–16 vs. 17–21 years: F(2, 248) = 179.12, p < .001, η_p² = .59, 90% CI [0.53, 0.64]).

Athleticism, psychological factors, tactical skills and anthropometrics start around a rating of 3.5 in the 8–11 age group, indicating that a medium level is expected. Besides anthropometrics, the other three aspects’ importance ratings increase with the age groups as shown by statistically significant contrasts (8–11 vs. 12–16 years: F(2, 248) = 48.42–53.53, p < .001, η_p² = 0.28–0.30; contrasts 12–16 vs. 17–21 years: F(2, 248) = 55.73–70.56, p < .001, η_p² = 0.31–0.36). The importance of anthropometrical factors increases significantly between age groups 8–11 and 12–16 years (F(2, 248) = 41.15, p < .001, η_p² = 0.25, 90% CI [0.17, 0.32]) with only a small increase between age groups 12–16 and 17–21 years (F(2, 248) = 3.95, p = .049, η_p² = .03, 90% CI [0.00, 0.07]).

Lastly, (fundamental) motor abilities are highly important in all age groups and the most important aspect for coaches in the youngest and the middle age group before other aspects overtake. At the oldest age group of 17–21 years of age, all six aspects show an importance rating of 4.18 or higher.

Questionnaire discussion

This second study was conducted to consolidate the findings by testing the prevalence and explanatory power of the aspects identified in study 1 with a wide range of basketball coaches. As a result from study 1, the crucial factor age was included in the design of study 2.

In accordance with previous research using online questionnaires, present results showed coaches’ beliefs that anthropometrics, athleticism, motor abilities, psychological factors as well as tactical and technical skills are generally important for athlete selection in basketball.^13,14 As a new insight, the present study differentiates aspects based on player age. Based on the present data, sport-specific technical skills must be seen as less important during younger ages with a focus on other areas of the game within this period. This finding holds true in the context of selection and is not to say that technical skills and their development in (game-like and representative) practice should not be an integral part of player development at early stages. This is also shown by sport-specific technical skills appearing to be highly important for older youth players at the transition to adult (elite) sports as shown by the increasing importance. ¹³ Athletic, psychological and tactical factors show a similar trend with a steady increase in importance with increasing player age. Also, the close connection between tactical or perceptual-cognitive and technical skills is important to note. Similar to previous research, present data suggest that psychological factors increase in importance over time, ending up as the most important factor in the oldest age group and at the adult level.^13,14 The results regarding the anthropometrical factors can be interpreted as becoming crucial at the end of maturational changes during puberty before leveling off.

Finally, (fundamental) motor abilities are considered most important at younger ages compared to other aspects. At older ages, they are still very important, but other aspects overtake. This may be interpreted as part of the idea of a “learning ability”. This ability to be able to control and coordinate your body movements well in various contexts is believed to allow players to learn and adjust quickly in different sports, which then can help them improve quickly in sport-specific areas.

General discussion

The aim of this research was to explore basketball coaches’ beliefs and understandings of talent in basketball as part of their coach's eye player selection decisions. To achieve this goal, two separate studies investigated the topic with varying foci. First, a narrow focus on elite level coaches to identify aspects that were afterwards tested for their prevalence in the broader coaching community. Findings from in-depth interviews and a richness-aiming online questionnaire allowed for a holistic analysis of talent in basketball. In summary, results showed that talent in basketball is a highly complex and dynamic matter including mainly anthropometrics and athleticism, (fundamental) motor abilities, psychological factors as well as tactical and technical skills.

The interview study showed that the evaluation of aspects of talent in basketball is dependent on different age-related factors. Accordingly, factor age was included in the second study. Age-related factors can be separated into players’ chronological age (including players’ relative age ⁴² ), their “biological age” (i.e. growth and maturation status ⁴³ ) and their “training age” (i.e. amount of practice and experience in a specific sport, here basketball ⁴⁴ ). That is, coaches aim to assess and compare players using different reference information. The importance differences regarding age groups identified in study 2 are supported by the expert interviews. This aspect appears to be particularly important in the context of technical skills where coaches believe they can teach a tall, explosive person dribbling and shooting skills and thus make them a good basketball player. For example, coach A stated “[…] I am actually looking for that kid […] that I can teach everything.” This coaching perspective is based on the idea that the coach cannot influence nature-dominated, fixed capacities (e.g. anthropometrics) but even more so nurture-dominated, coachable characteristics (e.g. technical skills) as the basis of successfully nurturing and forming players. While the general importance of (deliberate) practice and experience has been researched extensively,^37,45 the focus here is on how coaches use information regarding players’ “training age” (or “basketball age”) to interpret their talent. Coaches appear to imply a certain talent and “learning ability” when a player improves and learns new skills within a shorter time than others. These concepts, among others, emphasize the importance of longitudinal approaches covering players’ development over time instead of cross-sectional assessments, and must be considered when implementing selection procedures within a youth sport and player development system.

In the context of “biological age”, coaches acknowledge the importance and influence of maturational development and differences, especially during puberty. ⁴³ Previous research in various sports and specifically in basketball has shown that coaches have selection biases leading to the over selection of relatively older and/or early maturing players. ¹⁸ This may be explained by the beliefs stated above where the first focus is on rather fixed capacities before also including and focusing learned and nurtured skills.

Lastly, psychological factors ending up as the most important factor (descriptively) at the adult level emphasizes how crucial not just physical and body-related characteristics are. However, based on the wide ranging and unclear use of sport psychological terms and concepts ranging from will to improve and learn, competitiveness, mentality, mindset, character, mental toughness, resilience to grit shown in study 1, this confusion and ambiguity can hinder effective and efficient team work in selection processes. ⁴¹ This is not only true for psychological factors but also other characteristics and their assessment. Different levels of an athlete identification and development system must work hand in hand. That is, local, regional and national (expert) coaches and decision-makers work together in selecting and developing athletes. For this purpose, a clear set of goals and selection criteria shared by all stakeholders is the foundation of effective and efficient procedures. ⁴¹ Accordingly, it is very worthwhile but not enough to analyse few national expert coaches, and the present research incorporated the bigger picture of the coaching community to consolidate the aspects of talent in basketball.

In summary, this two-study approach showed that coaches aim to assess a player's multidimensional profile including anthropometrics and athleticism, motor abilities, psychological factors and tactical and technical skills. Generally, previous research has shown that those aspects are of predictive or explanatory value for selection and development decisions. However, varying definitions and understandings of different concepts as well as diverse approaches to operationalizing and assessing them may complicate evaluation and selection processes. This is crucial as the different levels of a youth sport and athlete development system must interact throughout pathways, from the education/school system to the local and regional club and to the national levels.

Limitations

No research comes without limitations. First, study 1 only included a small sample size of three coaches and thus limited perspectives. However, the population of youth national team coaches is small and thus three coaches can already be seen as sufficient. Second, the present research focused on male basketball players. While many aspects are certainly transferable, future research should include other populations. Lastly, the present article focused on the individual aspects of talent in basketball not analysing systemic and environmental factors.

Conclusions and practical implications

All in all, this research aimed to explore basketball coaches’ beliefs and understandings of talent in basketball looking for both depth (i.e. expert interviews) and richness (i.e. online questionnaire) in the data. Coaches showed a multidimensional understanding of talent in basketball that can and must be differentiated based on various age-related factors (i.e. chronological age, “biological age”, “basketball age”). Future research should aim to help find a clearer understanding of aspects and characteristics and their assessment (including both subjective and objective methods). This is specifically important for psychological factors. Finally, these findings are hoped to be included in player selection processes and coach education programs to spread the knowledge and to provoke further discussion within the basketball community. Continued debate between all stakeholders affords the opportunity to improve the quality of selection decisions and with that the overall quality and experience for all stakeholders, from fans to coaches to parents and perhaps most importantly, the (young) athletes.