which instructions are important enough to follow and which ones are small enough to disregard. That’s disastrous to a team and yields team results far below what the talent should provide.

The coach decides what is important enough to merit instruction, and the player’s job is follow that instruction as well as he possibly can. That makes teams much, much better.

Using examples that are obviously too small and arbitrary to be important to a player (like color of socks) teaches this lesson very well. It invites them to stop trying to pick apart what is worthwhile or outright disregard coaching, give up their own ego, and become invested in being a member of a team led by a coach.

If he can’t get them to buy in to that, he’ll have defections. If he can get them to buy in, he’ll have a team that plays better for their level of talent than his opponents for their level. That’s his whole job.
I hope it works.