Basketball: Top coaches gather to hear the plan

About 30 of New Zealand's top basketball minds will assemble in Wellington over the next three days as Tall Blacks coach Tab Baldwin unveils his national programme to those responsible for preparing this country's promising players.

"The idea is to get the coaches influencing the top level of basketball in this country on the same page in terms of development structure, and implementing offensive and defensive systems," said Baldwin, who is also the national high-performance head coach.

"I don't expect all the national coaches to run the same systems, but teaching fundamentals should stay the same.

"For high-performance coaches, I'm looking for the programme to be implemented in exactly the same way. We're not getting that right now - there's too much variation."

This is an extension of the concept under which national league coaches last year accepted the principles that helped the Tall Blacks through to the world championship semifinals.

"I want coaches to focus on developing players, not just winning games," Baldwin said.

"Believe me, I know how hard that is, especially in the NBL.

"But I have found an amazing willingness among national league coaches to find out what they can do to help.

"It's been a great response and quite humbling.

"They want to know how they can help their players get into the national team."

- NZPA