“With a player-coach relationship, it’s all about sweat equity. I think that’s how Kenny Atkinson with the Nets describes it. Nobody cares how much you know, unless they know how much you care and the way you do that is by investing in players.”
Johnny Carpenter – Director of Player Personnel at UVA Men’s Basketball
Get The Edge
We are excited to bring you into the world of college basketball this week, as we sit down with Johnny Carpenter, the Director of Player Personnel for the University of Virginia.
This was one of our favorite interviews of the season – Johnny talked to us about his role on UVA’s basketball staff, and shared a story about how a handwritten note led to a job with the Dallas Mavericks. We also talked about UVA’s incredible championship run last year, and:
- How UVA approaches the use of technology as a team
- How video has evolved over the years in basketball
- His time working in Macedonia with Slovakia’s U18 team
- Being around Dirk Nowitzki, Tyson Chandler, and Rajon Rondo early in his coaching career
Hope you will enjoy it as much as we did!
Available wherever you listen to podcasts. Full show transcript available here.
Where to Listen
On this Episode
On how he approaches building player trust:
“With a player coach relationship, it’s all about sweat equity. I think that’s how Kenny Atkinson with the Nets describes it. Nobody cares how much you know, unless they know how much you care and the way you do that is by investing in players.”
On working with Dirk Nowitzki, Tyson Chandler and Rajon Rondo:
“You see these guys who are just elite in what they do. People say, Oh, this guy can’t shoot, but it’s like, no, he can, he can really shoot. It’s just that’s not his role.”
On Virginia’s 2019 March Madness Championship run:
“The thing that sticks out to me the most during that time is by far, and not to sound cliche, but the actual process, of our staff and our players about handling adversity.”
