Towards the game critical moments in basketball: a grounded theory approach

Abstract

Exploring the practical knowledge of expert basketball coaches, the present study aims to analyse the basketball game criticality through a grounded theory approach. Data from semi-structured interviews with 17 expert basketball coaches were used to explore the conceptual understanding of game critical moments. Results demonstrated that expert coaches identify different game occurrences as precipitating events. They can be characterized according the basketball game nature. Game tempo, point’s difference and balance/unbalance perception emerged as three situational variables that allowed us to define a preliminary coaching model to explain how expert coaches deal with the critical game situations. This preliminary model allows us to access a whole range of information about game development and to a better understanding of the coaching decision-making. Further studies are needed to investigate and generalize these results and to have a more valid explorative model of the sport games criticality.