Courtside for an NBA play-off match between the Philadelphia 76ers and the New York Knicks is not the place you might ordinarily expect to see a Premier League manager.
But as the television cameras panned to the Sixers’ head coach, Nick Nurse, over his right shoulder viewers could see Oliver Glasner, the Crystal Palace manager, alongside his chairman Steve Parish and fellow general partner Josh Harris, who also co-owns the Sixers.
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There was a practical reason for Glasner’s trip to Philadelphia. Palace are now ramping up their preparations for next season after securing Premier League safety, so the chance to speak face-to-face with Parish, Harris and fellow Sixers owner David Blitzer will have been useful.
But the Austrian will also have relished the chance to go to the Wells Fargo Center, given his keen interest in the NBA – which he has followed since his youth – and his “intrinsic motivation” to better himself.
Glasner is ambitious, eager to learn and gain knowledge in whatever way he can – an attitude apparent in his work in his homeland, Germany and now with Palace, where he has made a promising start to his Premier League career.
“We were Chicago Bulls fans – he is a great fan of the NBA,” Roland Hofpointer, a lifelong friend of Glasner who still lives in their childhood village of Riedau, tells The Athletic.
Hofpointer recalls their admiration for Michael Jordan, the superstar who dominated basketball in the 1990s. Though it is Jordan’s former Bulls team-mate Steve Kerr, now head coach of San Francisco-based NBA side Golden State Warriors and a keen football fan himself, from whom Glasner has seemingly drawn more inspiration. He spent a week with the franchise in November studying how they operate, including Kerr’s coaching techniques.
Hofpointer is keen to point out that Glasner’s interest in basketball did not influence his early years in management – “Maybe now, from when he was in San Francisco watching the Golden State Warriors,” he says – but nobody can dispute the 49-year-old’s desire to learn. He completed a business-administration degree while still playing in Austria and acknowledges he is relentlessly curious.
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“I tried to educate myself in different areas, to keep exchanging ideas, including other sports,” Glasner said. “I was with the Golden State Warriors NBA team to gain experience. With other sports, maybe you can take one or two things with you.”
Palace’s players have been struck by Glasner’s attention to detail and his readiness to demonstrate clearly what he wants from them. This way, Glasner believes, he can best convince them that improving is not only in the team’s interest but their own.
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That time spent with the Warriors and Kerr – who has spoken previously of his admiration for Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp – and previously watching basketball when managing Eintracht Frankfurt was rewarding for Glasner. It appears to have been a greater influence on his approach to man-management than his tactics, but he would not be the first football coach to draw strategic inspiration from the sport.
“The way you turn depending where the ball is, and where the basket is, it is very similar,” said Gus Poyet, the former Sunderland manager whose father was an Olympic basketball player for Uruguay, in 2015. “You mark facing the player and the ball and that is the same in basketball.
“You never see a player in basketball running towards his own basket to mark without looking over his shoulder. These little things help you because you have to mark in a certain way. Certain movements become natural.
“The analysis is similar. You use your strengths and look for their weaknesses, look to isolate a player.”
Likewise, Joe Mazzulla, head coach of the NBA’s Boston Celtics, told The Athletic in February how Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola had influenced him and the importance of transitioning between phases of play in both sports.
“Everybody tries to break basketball up into offence and defence, but it’s one game,” Mazzulla said. “It’s your spacing and your decision-making and your shot selection, then it’s your transition defence.
“Where basketball and soccer are the same is the transition is happening so fast. You can be on offence and two seconds later, you can be on defence. So the game is constantly changing.”
Loran Vrielink, a former professional basketball player in the Netherlands whose company, Tactalyse, works with footballers on individual tactics, believes a focus on individuals is essential.
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“There is a lot of one-vs-ones and two-vs-two superiorities and inferiorities,” he says. “All the aspects of the team and individual are the same, maybe the execution is different because it’s hands vs feet, but I use a lot of basketball things in football.
“Football was always a team sport, but basketball we see as an individual sport, which is why we have different coaches in basketball. The amount of players means the individual attention is doubled in basketball. If you have more individual coaches, you can develop more on an individual level. Basketball is further ahead than football with knowledge and tactical decision-making.
“The culture in basketball is not comparable to football. You need to spend more time on the individual.”
It is analysis that Glasner picked out as something basketball does well, while his commitment to improving individuals may also have seeped into his consciousness over time.
“There were three or four very interesting points (that I took),” he said of spending time in San Francisco. “Basketball is different, but the individual development and training is much higher than in football. They have three player development coaches, the coaching staff is almost (a ratio of) one player to one coach.
“They analyse the player on video with individual sessions but also go out on the court and train with them one to one. With 26-27 players, we would need 27 coaches to do that.”
Glasner’s coaching staff do not stretch that far at Palace, but he did bring a five-strong team with him to Palace to complement the two – Paddy McCarthy and Dean Kiely – who remained after Roy Hodgson’s departure. That has surely allowed for greater focus on individuals, with most of his coaches also having specialist areas of expertise such as defence or set pieces.
There are other crossovers between basketball and football: Golden State, for example, took inspiration from Barcelona’s tiki-taka style under Guardiola.
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At Palace, there has been evidence of a change towards something more akin to that. Their opening goal in the 2-0 win over Newcastle United last week was evidence of sharp, short interplay and one-touch passes – in that case between Jean-Philippe Mateta and Jordan Ayew.
Above all, however, Glasner’s system is predicated on efficiency. It is a term he uses frequently and his side uses certain triggers to press the opposition at the opportune moment and play high up the pitch, rather than with all-out intense pressing.
Glasner had previously dismissed any suggestion that he might seek to learn more about the 76ers, although he hinted that it could be something that takes his interest in future.
“Not at the moment, but it’s always important to not just see football,” he said. “You don’t have so much time to think about different sports and situations (as a football manager). I like to meet with people in other sports. You can learn from everybody.
“It’s about leadership, organisation and one big world becoming more important for mental care. It’s important for the players and staff. I try to develop myself to learn every day. That helps you but also keeps you young.”
Basketball appears to be an important part of his life and even if the crossover is mainly incidental, there are similarities in the way he approaches management.
From SV Ried to Wolfsburg, then Eintracht Frankfurt and now Palace, Glasner has shown a dedication to self-improvement. Palace already appear to be reaping the rewards.
(Top photos: Getty Images)
