Jay Bilas: I Played For Arguably the Best That’s Ever Done It

Former Blue Devil discusses the key characteristics of leadership

Former Duke player and current ESPN commentator Jay Bilas was the host of the fourth annual Junior NBA Leadership Conference. In addition to introducing speakers and moderating panel discussions, he took questions on leadership from the conference’s virtual attendees.

Bilas was asked about whether a coach could put a young player in leadership positions or if it needed to be one of the more experienced members of the team.

“It depends,” he said. “Are you asking the young player to be one of your leaders or the leader? There are different levels of leadership throughout a team.”

Bilas, who played for Mike Krzyzewski’s first Final Four team and later won the national title as a Coach K assistant, has had a close-up view to one of the sport’s best leaders.

“I’ve always felt that coach-directed teams can only go so far,” he said. “The best teams are player led. There’s not some switch you flip. It has to be nurtured, brought along and taught. Like, for a high school coach, you might want to use the freshman team, the JV team, leading up to varsity and put players on those teams in positions and situations where they have to lead. A player can take a huddle or take a portion of practice to help bring that out. Also, you have to define what leadership looks like. It’s different for different people. Certainly, it’s a process. Defining what leadership is for your team is really important.”

Bilas also looked back on his career to identify the characteristics of great leaders.

“The three most important traits of leadership are character, competence and humility—Having high character, being an expert in your field and being humble enough to know it’s not about you. It’s about the people you’re leading. Whether it’s Coach K or Roy Williams, Jay Wright, Tom Izzo, Bob Huggins, Bill Self, you name it, it really has to do, in my judgement, with putting players first. It doesn’t mean you can’t be demanding. You can be demanding without being demeaning. Put your players first. I played for arguably the best that’s ever done it in Coach K, and I’m very grateful.”