That Basketball Life

In the old days, when a kid began playing basketball he would get assigned a position. Many times what position he played depended on his size, quickness, and his ability to shoot. If you were tall, chances are you played inside. If you were short and quick, chances are you played on the perimeter. What coaches would then proceed to do would be to have the post players exclusively learn post moves and then perimeter players exclusively learn outside moves. What this practice actually did was limit the players development. Lets face it kids grow at different intervals. Tommy might be a tall fourth grader who levels out by the time he is in eighth. The problem lies with the fact that Tommy has been taught post moves all his life and is not prepared to play outside against other perimeter players because his coaches didn't think it was necessary to play Tommy anywhere but on the blocks. At the youth levels, it is so important to keep the kids well rounded. Do not separate your team...

I'm a firm believer in the lessons that athletics in general and basketball specifically can teach kids. It's more than just putting a ball in the basket. There are many parallels between the hard work and focus required to improve as a ball player and to be successful in school and life. I believe that a good coach should always emphasize working hard to improve. I also believe that he should take it a step further and explain to his kids how hard work is a good habit and it should be a part of every aspect of life. He should emphasize that hard work should be used when doing homework, when doing chores, or when doing anything important. An uncle of mine once said that the only thing every man has and he should value is his good name. This uncle emphasized that you need to do everything in your power to keep your good name. Laziness is not a trait that keeps a good name. Hard work and good habits are. Teach the lesson of how valuing hard work is important to your team. It...

Many times I get asked what the most important part of playing defense is. Without hesitation I aways say on ball pressure is the most important element of being successful defensively. Think about it from an offensive point of view. When you have the ball on offense you like to be able to scope out your options. Can I drive or shoot? Do I have an open teammate can pass to? On defense you want to think the opposite. You want to consume the mind of the player you're covering. You want him to be so worried about you that he can't properly focus on making the right play. This is one of the reasons coaches like to press. It helps speed up the thinking process. It forces players to make quicker decisions than they are accustomed to, thus increasing the odds of making mistakes. Think about how much better your team defense can be if you are able to speed up the thought process without double teaming. This is why "on the ball" defense is so important. A good "on the bal...

I've been coaching kids for many years and one of the things that always amazes me is the difference in confidence from one kid to the next.  On the same team you will have kids who no matter what they do wrong they can bounce back immediately and others who can get shattered by making one simple mistake.  Confidence is a very fragile thing and can be lost even in the best of players.  Take a look at sports on TV.  How many times have you seen an extremely confident player at the beginning of the year turn to be just a shell of himself by the end.  Along with confidence comes aggressiveness.  A player will not be aggressive if he is not confident.  This is why I think that some of these drills that you see on the internet as drills that help your team become aggressive are questionable.  I'm all for having kids get comfortable chasing loose balls on the floor but to have these kids beat up on each other in practice so they can "build aggressiveness" is somewhat suspec...

Over the last decade or so we've seen the game of basketball transform before our very eyes. Gone are the days of the dominant big man who could score with his back to the basket. Now a days all you see are players of all shapes and sizes whose main interest is to shoot from the outside. When we're talking outside we're talking from way beyond the arc. The further the better. You see kids in the gym spending more time working on shots from half court than on basic skills. All this has done is made players more one dimensional and easier to guard. We are almost 20 years removed from the Michael Jordan Era and Kobe Bryant's last game was a few years ago. What people forget is how important the post up game was to these 2 amazing scorers. These guys were so unguardable because their game was so multi faceted. Try to negate their speed with a smaller player and they would take him to the post. Put size on them and they would work from the outside. That's what made...

Here at TBL we've spent years refining our coaching philosophy. Early on in our coaching careers, we spent little time looking at footwork and how important it is in basketball. We just assumed that if you do enough reps of a skill you would eventually get the footwork down as a by product. The older we've gotten and the longer we've been coaching the more we've come to realize that if you take the time to coach kids the proper footwork the better they will become as basketball players. Basketball is about coordination and about quickness. Spending time working on footwork helps with both. As a matter of fact, if you spend time once a week for half an hour doing footwork skills you will become quicker. This is a fact because you are committing the practiced skills to muscle memory the more you do them thus making them become second nature to you. So if you want to speed up your shot off the dribble you don't necessarily want to rush your shot but rather speed up the...

I have been coaching 5-6 year olds for the past few years. During that time I have been able to see first hand what kids at that age thrive on and what they need work on. The one thing kids that age really love to do is run. At this age, kids will run all day. This is especially true if they are having fun while doing it. You may be asking how does running help kids get better at basketball. The answer to that question lies in the fact that at this age kids are still working on perfecting their fine motor skills and coordination. Running helps with both coordination and fine motor skills as do many other basketball related footwork drills. I like running the following drills in practice: Stance Running sprints forward Running backwards Defensive slides Hopping forward/backwards over line with 2 feet Hopping side to side over line with 2 feet Hopping forwards/backwards over line with 1 foot Hopping side to side over line with 1 foot Standstill jump 2 feet Standstill...