That Basketball Life

Below are 3 lists that I have created which will help greatly with ball handling.  Phase 1 is the easiest and phase 3 the toughest.  All 3 are advanced so the ball handler who is new to the game will have some difficulties doing the phases.    

Nice video by Coleman Ayers on how important changing speeds is in basketball. He provides some great tips also.  

Nice breakdown of what made Steve Nash so good.

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...

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 ...

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 .

Practice is a very important part of preparation.  As a coach it is important to expose your players to as many game like situations as possible in practice.  This way they know what to expect when they are in a game.  With a good practice plan, your players don't have to deal with the element of surprise. Have you ever noticed that many times, when your team loses a close game, you always think back to the layups missed.  I often catch myself saying, "if only we made a couple of the layups we missed the result would have been different." With this in mind, I believe in having competitive layups in your practice routine.  There are many to choose from and below is one that I like a lot because it is full court and allows us to cover multiple facets with one drill including passing, dribbling, conditioning and layups.  Enjoy.

Below is a nice workout emphasizing the fundamentals.

In basketball the rip is one of the moves that all players should get into the habit of using.  This move allows the person with the ball an opportunity to create space when being guarded closely and can also allow that person to begin a drive by the defender who is covering them.  The are 3 types of rip moves and all 3 can be effective when properly used.

Here at TBL we're all about the details.  This video shows how to work the basics of a good low rip move.

Two of the most ignored fundamentals to the game of basketball are passing and footwork.  Most coaches will make sure to find time for dribbling and shooting drills in practice and then figure that footwork and passing will be covered during drills that cover these other fundamentals or during scrimmage time. 

Footwork Progressions for all ages.