Player Evaluations

Have an honest meeting with each player about where their strengths and weaknesses are and suggestions on how they can improve this offseason.

As the season comes to an end for high school basketball programs across the country the process of player and coach evaluation rises to the forefront. For most coaches is it a common practice to meet with each player individually before everyone parts ways for the Spring sports season. These kinds of meetings are an important step in ending the season on a positive note and beginning the process of a new year. Each season key players graduate and younger players step into prominent roles and the expectations that go along with those changes should be clearly laid out.

The goal of these Exit Meetings or Player Evaluations is to give the players a better idea of what they need to work on to continue to grow as a player. Players should leave these meetings with a clear understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, their expectations for next season, and a general plan for improvement. In this post I'm going to dig into the evaluation I use with my players, but adding things like film and self-evaluations are ways to add another layer to these meetings.

What to Address -

What is discussed with each player will be geared toward that specific player's experience, role, and future expectations. We start the process by asking players to fill out a self-evaluation that we can start our conversation. I have found that for the most part players give pretty accurate assessments of their own skills. From there I will go through my own evaluation of their skills, typically with statistics and game film clips to reinforce my assessment.

Ideally, we want to make sure that these meetings are a mix of constructive criticism and positive reinforcement. At the conclusion of these meetings, I would like players to head into the offseason with a clear idea of where improvement is needed, and a better understanding of what their own personal expectations for next season are. While these meetings are meant to be specific to each player there are going to be common themes discussed with all players.

Common Discussion Points:

Sample Player Evaluation -

What I wanted to provide in this post is a sample Player Evaluation and the thought process that goes into creating it. As we mentioned above we would start the meeting with a Self Evaluation filled out by the player, and then move into the evaluation that I produced. Essentially, the evaluation is going to be broken down into two sections; Strengths & Weaknesses and Coach's Notes.

Part I - Strengths & Weaknesses:

Part II - Coach's Notes:

The sample player evaluation below is from a few seasons ago and follows the discussion format I outlined above. Alongside this Player Evaluation Document, we also looked at Hudl Statistical Data from the season and Hudl Shot Charts to get a better sense of things like shot selection, offensive efficiency, effective shooting percentages, etc. These evaluation meetings can be a good opportunity to teach players how to properly use the technology that is available to them. Lessons on how to watch game film, how to analyze the shot chart, and perhaps even how to put together playlists of positive and negative plays during the season are all great possibilities.

Sample Evaluation -

Player Evaluation Template: https://bit.ly/35dGWtX

Concluding Thoughts -

These end-of-the-year meetings are critical in getting the new season off to a good start. Coaches (myself included) have a tendency to be heavier on constructive criticism than the positives, so I think we should make a point to find the positive aspects of a player's performance to emphasize in the evaluation. That being said, honesty is a critical part of this evaluation. We are trying to give players an accurate picture of what needs to improve in order for their goals to be fulfilled. The only way we can do this is to be completely honest and help the players put together a plan to improve. Hopefully by the end of these meetings players feel positive about a renewed sense of opportunity and an increased chance of responsibility.

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