Word Substitution

We worked collectively to figure out the meaning of a phrase from Coach John Wooden's Pyramid of Success. You can view the entire excerpt here.

This is the phrase we were working on:

I believe the players collectively looked for whoever was able to help the team most on any given night

We discussed that collectively was an adverb which may or may not be needed to understand the essay. I asked two questions:

1. What is the purpose of collectively in the sentence?
2. What word does collectively describe?

We looked at the root word, collect and talked about its meaning. According to Ask.com

1. To bring together in a group or mass; gather.
2. To accumulate as a hobby or for study.
3. To call for and obtain payment of: collect taxes

We decided that collectively tells how the players looked. The challenge when students left class, was to find a word to substitute that was easier to understand, but had the same meaning.