Offseason Training: Looking in the Mirror

With summer arriving now is the time for serious ballers to step up the intensity and take the next step in their development.  Summertime is the perfect time for the serious player to step up his workouts in an effort to improve his game for the upcoming year.  After a year of playing ball and going thru the grind it is now important to evaluate your performance and see what you need to improve on to make the upcoming year even better than the last one.  This takes honesty and the guts to look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself which skills lagged during the previous season and how your going to turn a weakness into a strength for next year.


A good place to start is your coach.  Most good coaches will talk to their players at the end of the year and discuss with them what they need to work on during the off-season.  This feedback is of vital importance because this is the one person above everyone else that you need to impress.  The feedback that a coach gives is also important because you can take his input and compare it to your own and see how far off the two of you are in the evaluation of your game.


A question someone might ask at this point is how should I evaluate myself.  What am I looking for?  I like to break things down into 3 categories:

1. Offense
2. Defense
3. Conditioning/Coordination

Offense - For offense I like to breakdown the skills involved as follows:

1. Dribbling
• Dribbling with either hand
• Ability to dribble in traffic
• Ability to keep dribble when under defensive pressure
• Speed dribbling on the break with either hand
2. Layups
• Finish at the rim with either hand
• Finish at the rim from various angles
3. Shooting in Traffic
• Finish at rim in traffic
• Ability to use fakes and different shot angles to get shot off in traffic.
• Post up ability
4. Mid-Range Shooting
• Ability to shoot the ball from 15 feet and in
• Ability to hit floaters
• Shooting off the dribble
• Shooting off the pass
5. Long Range Shooting
• Ability to shoot the ball from 15 feet and out
• Shooting off the dribble
• Shooting off the pass
6. Passing
• Finding the open man at the right time
• Choosing the right pass to make at the right time
• Hitting the post on his target hand
• Making the right pass on the fast break
• Hitting the outlet pass quickly and accurately
7. Catching
• Are you catching the ball cleanly?
8. Offensive Rebounding
• Are you attacking the rim when a shot goes up and you are not responsible for protecting the backcourt?
• Are you securing the ball consistently when you get your hands on it?
• Are you getting good position and reading the shot well off the shooters hands?
9. Free Throws
• Do you have a good and comfortable routine for your free throws?
• Does the ball feel good coming off of your hand every time you shoot it?
• Are you making 75% of your free throws?
10. Offensive Smarts
• Do you understand the basics of basketball?
• Do you understand what your team is trying to accomplish on offense?
• Are you more concerned about getting your shots as opposed to getting a good shot for your team?
• Do you understand that there is more to the game of basketball than scoring points or getting shots?
• Do you respect your teammates?

Defense - The following skills need to be evaluated.

1. On Ball Defense
• How well can you stay in front of your man when he is dribbling?
• Is your stance correct?
• Are you sliding correct?
• Are your hands out wide and active?
• Are you forcing your player to pick up the dribble quickly?
• Are you pressuring the ball once the dribble is picked up?
2. One Pass Away/Deny
• Are you positioning yourself properly when you are one pass away?  Are you playing the passing lane correctly?
3. Helpside
• Are you positioning yourself properly when you are more than one pass away?
4. Closeouts
• Do you closeout properly to your player?
• Do you closeout quickly with tight steps as you approach so you won't be exposed to a blow by?
• Are you square to your player as you close out?
• Are your hands up and ready to contest a shot or dribble?
5. Rebounds
• Do you box out your player or get caught ball watching?
• Do you time your jump properly and meet the ball in the air?
• Do you catch the ball cleanly at the peak of your jump?
• Do you pivot away and look for the nearest outlet to get the break going?

Conditioning/Intangibles - This is just as important a category as the other two.  When you look at the pros and high level college athletes, many of them use the offseason to increase their strength and conditioning.  When you hear them talking about why they do it, all of them say that the game is much easier if you can outlast your opponent physically when out on the basketball floor.

1. Speed
• Are you quick enough or does your foot-speed need to be improved?
2. Footwork
• Do you find yourself being wrong footed on the basketball floor?
• Does your footwork seem awkward at times while you are out there?
3. Endurance
• Do you find yourself running out of gas when you are out on the floor?
• Are you always asking for breaks thus hurting your team?
4. Will to Win
• Are you prepared to take hard knocks or do you shy away from tough plays?
• If you take a fall do you prefer to come out of the game or do you want to stay in regardless?
• Do you play to win or are you afraid to lose?
• The difference is that when you play to win even when the game is on the line you find yourself being calm and relaxed.  You focus on what needs to be done to make the important play.  When you are afraid to lose you play afraid and panicked thus being more susceptible to making mistakes at crunch time.
• Remember the fact that this is just a game win or lose there is always tomorrow but it's always nice to go get the win!

There you have it.  I like to grade each category using a 1-10 scale with 10 being the highest.