That Basketball Life

 When we go to youth games we like watching how the kids warm up.  To us youth basketball is an easy game to coach.  As a youth coach you need to teach your kids how to play good aggressive man to man defense and on the offensive end teach them how to pass and move towards the basket.  In a pass an move offense, layups are so important.  This goes back to our opening statement about watching youth level warm ups.  Most of the teams warming up spend a lot of time shooting shots, but the good ones are always working around the basket.  We've always found it entertaining that youth teams spend so much time working on jumpers and so little time on layups.  In addition, the little time they do spend on layups is spent doing basic layups using the right hand on the right side and the left hand on the left side.  There is so much more to it than this however and kids should be exposed to different types of layups in practice.  No one can predic...

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 ...

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.

Here is a nice video on some basic layups. Aside from these I would also add practicing making layups from each baseline off the backboard on the strong side.

When coaching basketball the fundamentals are critical.  Here at TBL, there is nothing more important than teaching the fundamentals.  One of the most basic yet most important skills that kids need to learn quickly when they begin playing the game of basketball is how to make a basic layup.  Layups are one of the basic building blocks that scoring is built off of and without a proper grasp on how to make a basic layup, building to more complicated shots such as layups in traffic or shooting floaters in the paint cannot be accomplished. As with almost everything in basketball, a proper layup comes down to footwork.  Proper footwork is so important when attempting a layup that I like to concentrate on the footwork part of the layup without a ball before we progress to making layups.

Here at TBL we are all about the fundamentals.  Nothing is more fundamental and nothing is more important than layups.  At the end of a close game, the difference between a win or a loss can usually come down to which team made more of their layups.  It's not enough to have a play drawn up that will get your team an easy layup.  It's not enough to spend time in practice just practicing uncontested layups.  You need to simulate game conditions. Below is a nice layup drill which can be used to put your players in a situation where they are not just dealing with the basket but with an opponent chasing them.