The wealth of knowledge gathered from a two-hour phone conversation and 75-minute lunch were more than Josh Schertz could have dreamed of accruing, coming from the mind of the NBA’s coach of the year.
Three years of success at Indiana State put Schertz in position to have an audience with Oklahoma City Thunder coach Mark Daigneault this summer, and his notebook overflowed.
Then came the final piece of his visit as they stepped into the film room with other Thunder coaches. That’s when the script was flipped.
“When I walked into the film room, they had our (Indiana State) film cued up,†Schertz said. “They asked, ‘Why are you doing this?’ and ‘What are you thinking here?’ It was pretty cool. Good NBA coaches — and the same with college and high school — are continuous learners. You can get good stuff anywhere. Just because I’m a college coach and they’re in the NBA doesn’t mean they have all the answers.
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“The closest approximation to the way we play is the NBA level. We spent an hour in the film room going through what we do. It was an unbelievable experience to sit with a guy who I think is one of the best coaches in the world.â€
The first-year ºüÀêÊÓƵ University men’s basketball coach has studied NBA teams and their systems since his time at Lincoln Memorial at the NCAA Division II level. He has visited professional training camps and practices since 2015, when he took lessons learned from the Boston Celtics and immediately reached the D-II championship game.
This offseason will be his most immersive yet in the NBA world. He visited Oklahoma City before the summer league started and has plans to attend camp with the Utah Jazz and Denver Nuggets at the end of September and early October.
But this obsession runs deeper. Schertz is having assistant coach Zak Boisvert go to the Memphis Grizzlies’ training camp, and assistant Phil Gaetano will watch the Celtics for a few days. Schertz’s studies don’t stop with the NBA. He’s already thinking about a trip to Spain next offseason to visit some coaches there.
“He is such a curious learner with an insatiable desire for more knowledge,†said Boisvert, who met Schertz at Celtics training camp in 2015. “As assistants, it’s a little dangerous. He comes back armed with a ton of ideas and might throw a project at you and say, ‘Get me six clips of this,’ and you’re diving into the archives trying to find it. But I’m not trying to play victim. I do that plenty to him.â€
Many of the opportunities arise from coaching relationships developed over the years. Boisvert knows an assistant with the Jazz. Gaetano knows Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla from their days on the staff of the Maine Red Claws of the NBA’s G League.
Others have grown from Schertz’s growing profile and system that mimics some of the NBA teams he has studied — Oklahoma City, Denver, Sacramento, Miami.
“It’s funny, one of the first things (Schertz) and I ever talked about when we met was my time in the Boston G League and how they went about camp,†Gaetano said. “Before I worked for him, I went to the Celtics’ camp, and I gave him a couple of drills they do. We do one or two of them frequently now.â€
The most notable comparison of Schertz’s recent teams has been made to the 2023 NBA champion Nuggets and center Nikola Jokic. Schertz spends a lot of time watching their games as he tries to translate how Jokic is employed to how he uses center Robbie Avila. The same goes for Sacramento and Domantas Sabonis and Oklahoma City with Chet Holmgren.
Schertz was invited to speak last month at a clinic at the University of Alabama, where other speakers included coaches from the NBA. He met Denver assistant Charles Klask, who expressed a mutual admiration, so Schertz is planning a stop to see the Nuggets practice.
“Watching guys practice, to me, is the best thing you can do,†Schertz said. “Denver might be more hanging out and an exchange of ideas. There’s overlap. We steal a ton from them. I guess they like to watch us as well.â€
During a visit to Dallas two years ago, Schertz gained some additional access, such as attending meetings with Jason Kidd and his staff. During such encounters, he scribbles notes and later transfers the information to his computer before sharing with his coaches.
Sometimes he takes an idea from a practice drill and tweaks something in his own practices. He has instituted NBA ideas for pregame warmups and for off days following games. Some visits result in radical change.
Schertz returned from his first NBA camp in Boston a month before the start of the 2015-16 season at Lincoln Memorial. He informed the staff that he was changing everything about the offense after going 30-3 and reaching the second round of the NCAA Tournament. The team went 34-3 and ended up the D-II runner-up.
“The goal is to make trips and come back a better coach,†Schertz said. “I’ve got to be a learning machine and come back better, not just say I hung out at an NBA practice.â€
Schertz previously visited the Utah Jazz when former Mizzou coach Quin Synder was leading the charge there. He’s been to Brooklyn multiple times as well as Boston. But the ideas can come from anywhere, and Schertz shares the obsession with many on his staff.
Boisvert recently sent a text in a thread including Schertz and graduate assistant Jason Fang about a set the Indiana Fever run for Caitlin Clark. As he scrolled the text thread, he found a link from Fang of a video Boisvert made eight years ago of former NBA player Charlie Villanueva. There are texted videos of an action run by BYU, one of a pro team in Australia, one of the French team at the Olympics and others of the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Spanish team.
“He’ll send Fang and I clips of action in the Turkish league at 11:30 at night,†Boisvert said.
Schertz’s infatuation with studying others started earlier than his launch into NBA. He spent several years visiting the University of Kansas to soak in Bill Self’s methods and meticulously analyzed every Jayhawks possession one season. He said his Lincoln Memorial team “ran that system to a ‘T’†for a time.
The NBA, though, is now the focus. Schertz watches more professional basketball than he does college, and doors have opened in the past year.
“He’s done some cutting-edge stuff,†Gaetano said. “I do think NBA people are interested in why this guy’s offense is so good and what new stuff he’s doing.â€
Boisvert calls the staff nerds in their preoccupation with seeking one more piece of information, another video clip, a practice drill.
It makes sense that his introduction to Schertz came as both were looking for scraps of knowledge at Celtics camp. Schertz had been there three days when Boisvert arrived. They went to eat between sessions and returned for more. A few years later, they were working together.
“Maybe we’re enablers to each other,†Boisvert said. “We’re drawn to it.â€