That Basketball Life

As a coach you are concerned about a lot of things regarding your players.  You're concerned about what offense or defense your team is going to run or whether they are in good enough shape to play through a game or what nagging injuries they may have.  The number one thing on the list for me is player development and because of this the main question that I always ask myself is what is the best way for my players to acquire a given skill?  The question is answered in 4 steps, 1v0, 1v1, small sided games (ssg), and 5v5.  The first of the 4 steps deals with skill acquisition and the next 3 deal with skill application. 1v0 - Skill acquisition In 1v0, the player is just practicing on his own at first introducing the skill to his body and mind and then trying to get comfortable doing the given skill.  As he gets more comfortable with the skill he will need to push himself to do it faster and faster until he is up to game speed.  He can help himself get better b...

 I coached a game yesterday which my team came just short of winning.  In this league, each team is given 1 time out in the first half and 2 in the second half.  The team was down by as many as 13 points in the second half.  We put on a full court press to get back in the game and with about 2 minutes left I used 1 of my 2 second half timeouts to draw up a play in an effort to tie the game.  My thinking at the time was to get the ball to my hot hand and put pressure on the other team by tying the game.  The time out worked as we scored and the game kept going back and forth.  With about 50 seconds left I called another timeout as we had possession and were down 2.  We set up another play and it worked to tie the game but I was out of timeouts.  At the end of the game the other team called a timeout and I decided to continue pressing them.  The logic was to continue to go with what has worked.  The other team broke the press and got ...

Scrimmaging is one of the most popular parts of practice for players.  They love the idea of forgoing drills and just playing.  This drill makes a coach very popular with the players but is it beneficial in preparing your team for games?  The answer to that question is yes if used correctly.  There are different ways to run a scrimmage and all of the ways that will be described below are designed to help your team become more of a team. Types of Scrimmaging: Let them run - I like to use this type of scrimmage at the beginning of the season.  With let them run the whole idea is to split the team up and let them go up and down the court.  There are no fouls called, and the ball is pushed up the floor even after makes.  What I'm looking for with this drill is how the participants play with each other.  Do they play well together or is there a lot of "I'm getting mine" out there. The up and down action also allows for conditioning to take place in an ...

 I've spent some time on the topic of confidence building.  Over the many years I have spent coaching I have witnessed all kinds of players.  In general players fall into one of three categories: Player with plenty of skill but no confidence Player with little skill but plenty of confidence Player that has both skill and confidence The ideal category for a player to be in is category 3.  Between the other 2 categories, I would argue that it is better to have a player with confidence without the equivalent skill level.  This is how valuable confidence is.  Confidence can make an average player so much better and on the other hand a lack of confidence can make a very skilled player look bad.  The question then is how can you build confidence in your players?  Just like every other talent bestowed on people, confidence can be ingrained in some while for others it needs to be dragged out.  How can you as a coach make your players more confident i...

 I've spent many hours thinking about this topic over the last few days as I have had some issues with some of the effort some of my players exert during a game/practice.  As a coach it frustrates me greatly when I see a kid out on the basketball floor making no effort at all.  When I see this I always ask myself the same question "If this kid doesn't like to play then why is he wasting his time and money doing this?"  After some thought I have figured out that there are some kids that just don't understand the whole concept of effort.  They don't understand that bringing a ton of energy and effort to a practice or game will make that session so much easier to get through.  What I have to understand is that if a kid does not have this max effort ideal in his DNA I have to nurture it out of him.  I believe that just like anything else effort needs to be taught. Think about it for a second.  For some it's easy and for others it's hard.  Some ha...

One of the things I like to do with the kids I train is video them while they train.  In today's day with all the technology around it is easier than ever to do so and the feedback these videos give are priceless.  As a coach or as a player who manages to video training sessions what should you look for?   To begin with I want to make clear that we are talking about training here and about individual improvement.  A coach will be looking for other things not included in this post if he is filming his team practices, his team's games, or opposition games (we'll cover these in another post).   With that out of the way, what do we look for when we review a training session on film?  There are a number of things: Form when performing the drill - how does the form look?  Say you are teaching a reverse layup, how does the kid look when finishing with no one defending?  Does it look effortless or does it look like there is a lot of discomfort w...