Comprehensive Player Development: Pro Skills Campus at the Coach Clinic in Linz

Everybody knows that basketball is mental. But how many coaches actually dedicate time to training the mental side of the game?

📸: Markus Berger

That was one of the questions Stefan Weissenboeck brought to the Coach Clinic 2026 in Linz. Together with Kevin Kositz, he represented Pro Skills Campus at the event organized by the Upper Austrian Basketball Association (OÖBV) at the modern Kepler Hall of Johannes Kepler University.

Around 100 coaches joined the clinic either on site or online, with a full day dedicated to player development, youth basketball and modern coaching. Alongside Stefan and Kevin, the line-up included international skills coach Charlie Torres, who has worked with NBA stars such as Luka Dončić and Klay Thompson, as well as Austrian international Sarah Sagerer.

For Stefan and Kevin, the clinic was an opportunity to share two aspects that are at the heart of the Pro Skills Campus approach: developing the whole player and using feedback in a way that actually helps players improve.

Player development is more than skills

In his session on Comprehensive Player Development, Stefan focused on a holistic approach to developing basketball players.

Technical skills matter. Athletic development matters. Understanding the game matters. But there is another component that can have just as much influence on performance: the mental side.

📸: Markus Berger

That idea itself is hardly controversial. Ask coaches or players whether basketball is a mental game and almost everybody will agree.

The more important question is: How much time do we actually invest in it?

Mental development can easily become something everybody considers important but nobody really puts on the practice schedule. Stefan's approach is different. If the mental side is part of performance, it also has to become part of development.

And that does not necessarily require a complicated program.

Start simple. But start.

Stefan experienced this first-hand during his work with the Bamberg Baskets. Over the course of the previous season, the team integrated mental work into its regular routine.

The basic idea was simple: do it regularly and do it as well as possible.

Instead of treating mental coaching as something external that only becomes relevant when problems arise, the goal was to make it part of the team's everyday work. Topics were addressed internally, players were encouraged to engage with the mental side of their performance and the approach was repeated consistently throughout the season.

The players embraced it.

That experience became an important part of Stefan's message in Linz: you do not need to have the perfect mental-performance system in place before you begin. What matters is creating space for it, talking about it and working on it consistently.

Because knowing that the game is mental does not change anything by itself.

Doing something about it does.

Video feedback that helps players improve

Kevin Kositz followed with another essential part of modern player development: video feedback.

His session focused on how video can be used specifically for individual development rather than simply showing players what went wrong. Using practical examples, including insights from his work with German national team player and elite shooter Andreas Obst, Kevin demonstrated how video can support improvements in technique, decision-making and consistency.

📸: Markus Berger

The goal is not analysis for the sake of analysis. It is about giving players feedback they can understand, translate to the court and use to make their next repetition better.

That makes video another piece of comprehensive development: connecting what players feel on the court with what they can actually see.

Learning and sharing in Linz

The Coach Clinic also provided the opportunity to exchange ideas with coaches from different backgrounds and levels of the game.

NBA skills coach Charlie Torres shared his approach to youth development and preparing young players for the two-man game. His experience includes working with players such as Luka Dončić, Klay Thompson and Aaron Gordon. Sarah Sagerer completed the clinic with insights from 15 years of international basketball and her perspective on developing young players.

📸: Markus Berger

All of this took place at the impressive and modern facilities of Johannes Kepler University in Linz – a great environment for a full day of basketball, learning and exchange.

For Pro Skills Campus, the trip to Linz was about more than presenting two coaching sessions. It was an opportunity to share an approach that shapes our work every day:

Player development should never focus on just one part of the player.