My Favorite Basketball Drill

Of all the dribbling drills I advocate, this one is far and beyond the best.

You can immediately see the dribbling strengths and weakness of each player.

Basically it’s a dribble suicide.

The following information was written by Ed Riley and posted by Steve Jordan on his website:

http://www.akcoach.com/index.htm

This is what Coach Riley writes:

There are several different types of suicides. This is a simple one.

A. player runs from baseline to closest free throw line and back

B. then player runs from baseline to half court and back

c. then player runs from baseline to furthest free throw line and back

d. then player runs from baseline to opposite baseline and back

Try running this yourself at full speed, and you’ll understand why it’s called a SUICIDE. Now the drill is to see who is fast, who is able to start and stop, and who has endurance. Have them all run a suicide, but they must slap the floor when they reach a free throw line, half court line, or a baseline. At the end, rate your players.

This is how the traditional suicide is run, but look what happens if you add dribbling.

Have them compete in groups, so you can pay more attention to each player. They do a suicide while dribbling a basketball. They still have to slap the floor at the given intervals. This will start to let you see who your ball handlers are.

A very simple drill where you can the dribbling skill level of your players.

Do this and you will have saved yourself a lot of time.

Enjoy and feel free to share and post comments

Purpose of Youth Basketball Coaching

This is where the fun begins!



You have chosen your team and it's practice time.



At the youth level, you have to be careful not to get too involved with wins and losses. Ten (10)years from now the kids won't care or remember how many games they won or lost.



They will remember whether or not it was an enjoyable experience.

They play because it's fun. If it wasn't fun, they would just quit.

You can have a team that will win consistently, but are you developing players individually?



My belief is at this stage (U-13), the coach is a teacher who needs to stick to the basics and develop the individual player. This doesn't mean they don't play to win, you teach them winning basketball by teaching them the basic fundamentals.



For example: You have the tallest player in the league, and he/she is great at grabbing rebounds and scoring off those rebounds.

The player is a center on your team, and you play the 2-1-2 zone.

During your practices, all the player does is hang out under the boards and grab rebounds. Your team wins lots of games.

But what have you fundamentally taught the player?

What happens when 2 years later the player is no longer the tallest player in the league or your team? Can he/she dribble to create their own shot? Is the player able to play man-2-man defense out on the wing?

My true basics are dribbling, defense (foot movement), passing, proper layup form, and shooting form. Then everything else falls as a sub drill of the above basics.

This especially holds true if you are coaching in a rec league. The time you have with your players is very limited, and the basics are necessary if you want you players to move up to more competitive leagues, such as select/travel, AAU, and high school.

We all like to win, but there is limit to what effect you have on a player to just play to win. Teach a player for a lifetime with the basics, and you will help create a winning player.

What to Look For When Selecting Your Team

There are generally 2 ways of selecting your youth basketball team.

1) You have tryouts and choose a set number of players from those either invited to the tryouts or from an open tryout. This is mainly the select/travel teams choose their players.

2) You have an open evaluation where you normally have coaches ranking players based upon such skills as dribbling and shooting, and in some cases how they perform in a scrimmage. This method is primarily used for selecting players in a draft for house or rec leagues.

Regardless, what type of tryout you are holding, there skills you are looking for are basically the same.

When I drafted my team recently for a house league, the keys I looked for were:

1) Dribbling capabilities

This probably the most important attribute to have at the youth (13 and under) level. It allows you select who will be your guards. For me, the guards aren't necessarily the shortest players.

To me, this is more significant than shooting. If I have a player who can dribble well, especially if they a good defender, then layups or 10 foot shots will comprise most of their scoring.

Watch any youth game, most of the points are scored from a short distance.

2) Height

You can't teach height. Tall players are at a premium, and tall players who can dribble is even better.

Just remember, you can always teach an athletic tall player how to dribble.

3) How well they played during the scrimmage

Here you can review lots of skills at once. You can see whether the player can dribble against pressure defense, if they can pass, shoot, and most importantly, play defense.

Thankfully, the scrimmages are usually 3 x 3 where you can get a better feel for the basic skills, and they should play man-to-man defense.


4) Energy/Attitude

Does the player seem to enjoy playing? Are they coachable? Do they keep playing when things don't go their way or do they sulk?

These tips hopefully give you some idea of what you to look for when selecting your team. The next article which ties into this one will discuss the purpose of coaching.