That Basketball Life

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...