Arena: NBA finals, basketball’s influence on other sports, coaching in the future

Ciaran O'Sullivan posts up with Maurice Brosnan on this week's Arena. 

This week on Arena, we preview the NBA finals and talk about how basketball is influencing other sports with Ballincollig coach Ciaran O’Sullivan.

Ciaran was recently awarded coach of the year after a super season where Ballincollig won the National Cup and Super League title. They discuss how the NBA finals between the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs should have something for everyone, how to defend the 7-foot-4 alien that is Victor Wembanyama and the coaching concepts likely to shape the series.

The conversation also delves into the challenges of coaching modern athletes and the importance of effective communication. How does a coach deal with the constant tension between idealism and pragmatism in high-performance sport?

Arena, from the Irish Examiner, is a weekly feature-style reflection on Irish sport. Listen free on the Irish Examiner website or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can read some of Ciaran’s recent columns here:

Ciarán O'Sullivan on coaching: Sport thrives in turbulence, where problems solve themselves through movement

Coaching's quiet theft: every time we name the threat, we pickpocket tomorrow's intuition