That Basketball Life

I have written a couple of blog posts about form shooting and it's importance to developing a good shot (view them here and here ).  I have found another video that adds a few wrinkles to form shooting that can keep things interesting and also help players with balance and recruiting power from you legs when you shoot. Enjoy and remember to keep form shooting.

As a coach I am always looking for ways to have my kids improve as basketball players.  I try to find time in practice to do as much skill work as I possibly can but the one question that I always have is "Are my kids getting better by going 1v0 all the time?"  The answer to that question is no.  Don't get me wrong there is plenty of room for skill work without a defender but playing against resistance is the best way to apply what you have learned during skill work.  This is why I always try to incorporate Small Sided Games (SSG) into as many practices as I can.  Before I get into the numerous possibilities in incorporating SSG into practice, I want to explain some of the great benefits involved in using SSG. It forces players to apply the skills they have acquired in a competitive environment. It allows players who normally don't get many touches 5v5 to get involved and evolve their game. It allows coaches to better control games by tailoring the games to...

Great article by Randy Sherman on how to attack the zone.  He offers some great information.

The current MVP went to LA and showed the Clippers who's boss.

Penny Hardaway is shaking things up in Memphis.  He brought in the top recruiting class in the country this year and James Wiseman is the cream of that elite crop.  See highlights of his collegiate career below!

Freshman phenom Cole Anthony had a great first game to his college career.

I have been coaching youth basketball for a very long time and I like to tell my team what I expect from them at the beginning of the year.  One of the things I like to tell them on the first day of practice are what my 4 keys to success are.  These 4 items are what I look for from my team during a game.  If they excel in these 4 areas then we are in good shape.  If not then we will be in trouble. The 4 areas for success are: Take more shots in the paint than the opposition. Force more turnovers than you commit. Contest every shot. Rebound the ball. As mentioned earlier, I like to introduce the 4 points during the very first practice and then reinforce the topic each and every practice.  We do this by repeating it at every practice and by making sure that we cover the 4 topics every day in practice also.  So how do we incorporate the 4 areas into practice?  We do it by including the following into our scheme: Aggressive offense that has an i...

Trae Young along with Luka Doncic are the cream of the crop from last year's draft class.  It's good to see him back in action!

Lebron went 3 out of 3 with triple doubles after a solid performance against the Bulls.  The man is still the best even at 35 years old!

Doncic might be the up and comer but the king is still the king! Followed the above performance with the one below!

I will be posting videos on some of my favorite players in the league.  One of them is the yooung gun Luka Doncic who seems to do everything a player can do on the floor really well.  His skill set is probably better than anyone's not named LeBron James. Below is a video of the epic battle between Luka and his idol LeBron. He followed up that performance with the one below.

This is another installment in our series on the best basketball dribble any player can have in their tool belt, the crossover.

After our players have mastered the drills in dribbling part 1 , we quickly move them on to a tougher progression. A word of note here.  We always want to push kids outside their comfort zone.  We believe that this is the zone where they get better.  With this in mind, we never wait for the kids to perfect the tail end of part 1 before we move on to part 2.  Once you start seeing them getting the hang of the toughest drills in part 1 it's time to move on. The intermediate part of our dribbling progressions will introduce a lot more movements of the ball in the horizontal plane.  In the beginner phase we spend a lot of time teaching our kids how dribble up and down or in the vertical plane.  Our goal is for them to get the feel of dribbling the basketball.  Once they advance to part 2 we introduce the movement along the horizontal plane.  In addition to this we also introduce varying heights of dribble along the vertical plane which is very imp...

One of your responsibilities as a coach is to make sure that every player on your roster is pushing themselves outside of their comfort zone.  As we've discussed many times in the past it is outside the comfort zone where a player will increase their chances of making significant improvements.  How do you consistently push your players to their limit without pushing too hard?  A lot of that lies in each player.  Some players just naturally want to get better and will push themselves hard.  Other players are less motivated and need pushing to get up to speed.  Your job as a coach, is to know your team and do what needs to be done for your team to improve. The best way to do this is to stress competition.  You need to show your kids how valuable competition is and make them thrive in it.  I like to do this in 3 ways:  Talk to them in before our first practice.  What I like to tell them is  "We will play many games this year....

In continuing our series on the complete player, the next topic of discussion is dribbling.  There is so much to this specific topic that we will break down this section into multiple parts.  The parts will cover progressions from beginner to elite.  In this specific section we will be discussing what drills to do with kids that are just beginning to play and do not yet know how to dribble. The interesting thing about this specific topic of conversation is that I can't seem to find video which will help me with my discussions.  It's as if most people who make the effort to post something on line about the topic of dribbling completely skip over this part.  Maybe it's because it's boring and way to simplistic, but just like in anything worth taking up we need to build a solid foundation before we build up.  Here is a link to a post that I wrote a few years ago that has basic progressions for beginners. Points of Emphasis  Below are the points you ...

In our first installment on the topic of The Complete Player we will cover layups.  One of the most important facets of the game of basketball is being able to finish around the basket.  As a coach you need to start your players early on feeling comfortable making shots around the basket.  The one mistake made by many youth level coaches however is that they focus way to much on the basic layups and not enough time on the rest. Basic Layups Coaches need to start kids off with basic layups.  Teach them how to dribble to the basket on an angle and to jump off the leg closest to the basket while shooting the layup with the same hand as the side of the basket you are shooting on.  To get kids started you can use the following progressions. Take stationary shots from the spot on the floor where the layup will be shot.  Emphasize the use of the backboard.  Do not rush to the next step.  Make sure the player is comfortable with this step before you ...

Using a crossover dribble is one of the best tools you can use when playing basketball.  The trick is knowing when to use it. Over the next few weeks, I will post some videos that have some of the bet players or trainers explain the move and when to use it. I want to start off with this good one from the GOAT .

When coaching a youth team it is very important that you have some say in scheduling the games your kids will play.  At the grade school level it is very important that you schedule games that challenge your kids but do not discourage them.  You don't want your kids to be involved in too many blow outs one way or the other.  What you want is competitive games against teams that are at the same level as your kids. Many coaches and clubs are all about the wins.  Posting great records on the website and photos of kids from the club with medals around their necks is a great marketing tool but is it really something that benefits these kids.  Before I go on let me say that I have nothing against kids winning medals.  If one of my teams enter a shootout and win their games and yet all of them were competitive I would be ecstatic.  However entering a shootout and playing against teams that are nowhere near as good as your team is a waste of time and effort....

To cut or not to cut, that is the question. One of the most difficult decisions that needs to be made by travel team coordinators is "What do I do if there are more kids than I need for my teams."  The choices are difficult.  On the one hand you don't want to cut kids, especially at a young age.  On the other hand, you can't carry more than 10 players on one team so do you have enough coaches to allow you to form 2 teams?  What happens if your numbers are at 12-14.  You can't have 2 teams of 6.  It increases the risk that you will forfeit some games because some kids won't make it to all games.  What do you do? I like to follow the below template when making my decisions: If I have enough players to form 2 teams then I will.  I want to make sure I have at least 16 players but more preferably 18-20 to do this.  This way I can get 2 teams of 9 or 10.  To do this, we need capable coaches for both teams.  Do not just find anyone o...

It's the time of year where travel teams are holding tryouts for the winter.  As a club administrator it is important that you don't take tryouts for granted.  Regardless of whether you will be cutting kids or not you want to make sure that you evaluate the players who choose to participate accurately.  To do this you need to evaluate players on 3 different criteria: Athleticism/Coordination Fundamentals Skills Application Let's take a look at each criterion individually. 1)       Athleticism/Coordination - Let me preface by saying I'm not a believer that the raw athlete is the player I want on my team so I can mold him into a player.  In a sense I'm not looking for raw athleticism here but rather how coordinated and gracefully a player can move through a couple of athletic drills that have basketball applications to them.  The drills that I choose to run are the following:  a)       Lateral...

I love the game of basketball.  I spend a lot of time each day thinking about it.  I love the strategy, the excitement, the physical fitness involved, and most importantly of all, the development of players.  With this topic comes a big question.  What are the important skills/qualities that a player should work on developing in order to become great? Before I get into specifics, let me answer this question in general terms.  When you play sports, the analogy I like to use is that of a soldier.  A soldier will be a great warrior if he has the following: Weapons needed to go to battle. The training to use those weapons effectively. The courage to go to battle due to the confidence he has in his training, his weapons and his ability to use them. How does this relate to basketball?  If you view a game as a battle and your opponent as the enemy, you will have more confidence on the floor when you know that you have more weapons in your arsenal than...

Back to the basket basketball is a lost art form.  The ability to use size to your advantage does not exist to the extent it did 20 years ago.  Back in the day you had centers that would dominate the game.  Guys like Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul Jabaar, Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing, Wes Unseld,  and Shaquille O'Neil could all influence a game with their God given size and their ability to use their size and coordination to their advantage.  There's no debate that these were all world class athletes where the tag "freak of nature" would aptly apply. However, it wasn't just centers that used back to the basket moves to great advantage, it was great players like Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Adrian Dantley, and Magic Johnson that realized that adding a back to the basket game to the arsenal would only help them compete. Nowadays the big men you see are much more skilled at dribbling the ball and shooting from distance.  They play more like...

My son had a baseball game yesterday and in that game his coach had to sit 4 of the 13 players that showed up to play for him.  He had no choice of course since you can only play 9 in the field at a time.  He decided to sit these 4 players for the first 2 innings of the game and he also had all 4 of these players batting at the bottom of the order.  In essence he had these players sit and watch for the first 30-45 minutes of the game.  In the pros that is not too unusual but we are talking about u10 baseball here.  It's tough enough to keep them engaged when you have them playing, let alone when they are sitting doing nothing.  I decided to pay attention to those 4 boys and see how they would do for the rest of the game.  In the end they all did poorly at the plate and many of them were not as engaged as they should have been in the field.  This got me thinking about basketball and keeping players engaged.  How can you make sure that all of y...