070 - Beyond the Box Score: The Traits Coaches Actually Recruit
In the tactical and athletic worlds alike, performance isn't just built in the weight room—it’s shaped in how athletes think, prepare, and respond to stress. This rings especially true in high-level team environments, where physical talent alone doesn’t guarantee success. To sharpen our profiling and recruitment processes, we need to ask: What do elite coaches actually value most when selecting and monitoring players?
This study tackled that question head-on, using a Delphi method to poll elite basketball and strength coaches across 23 countries.
The result? A clear ranking of the non-game performance indicators that truly matter when it comes to building elite performers, and it’s not what most people think.
What They Found:
Using a Delphi method involving 90 elite-level basketball and strength coaches, the study identified and ranked 35 non-game performance indicators for player selection and monitoring. Coaches overwhelmingly prioritized psychological characteristics over physical or skill-based metrics. Key highlights:
Top-rated indicators included attitude, competitiveness, coachability, and work ethic.
Physical metrics like speed, strength, or vertical jump were rated lower.
Coaches favored subjective observation (the “coach’s eye”) for evaluating psychological and game-intelligence traits.
Objective tests were used primarily for fitness measures, not decision-making or mental toughness.
What This Means:
This study confirms what seasoned coaches in tactical and athletic fields have observed for years: mental traits outlast physical metrics. In selection and development, your vertical doesn’t matter if your attitude fails under pressure. Coaches want athletes who show up early, stay late, and thrive under stress. For tactical roles, where reliability and resilience define career success, these findings are a call to embed behavioral screening and psychological profiling into your selection protocols.
Tactical Implications:
Screen for Character: Add structured evaluations for traits like composure, effort, and adaptability alongside your physical tests.
Coach the Mind Like the Muscle: Develop mental resilience drills and mindset education as core parts of your program—not extras.
Train Observers, Not Just Testers: Teach your staff how to identify intangible traits through structured observation.
Balance Your Assessment Battery: Objective tests are essential, but they're just one piece. The whole operator includes more than force plates and sprint splits.
Questions To Consider:
Are you prioritizing what really predicts elite performance, or what’s easiest to measure?
How are you tracking intangible traits like decision-making, attitude, and composure?
Could your best performers be hidden behind average test results?
Do your selection and monitoring tools reflect what your coaches actually value?
What’s missing from your assessment process that could help build better people, not just better numbers?
Rogers M, Crozier AJ, Schranz NK, Eston RG, Tomkinson GR. Player Profiling and Monitoring in Basketball: A Delphi Study of the Most Important Non-Game Performance Indicators from the Perspective of Elite Athlete Coaches. Sports Med. 2022;52(5):1175-1187. doi:10.1007/s40279-021-01584-w