If you are going to play the game at speed, which everyone should be doing (IMHO). Then you can be as fast as you want but if you can't bring the ball with you its all useless. Everyone needs to be able to handle the ball.
I don't mean everyone needs to be able to dribble the ball. I hate this idea that gettting from one end to the other unguarded and keeping control means they can dribble. I can roll out a basketball and my dog can get it from one end to the other and still end up with the ball. Everyone needs to be able to handle the ball = everyone needs to be able to attack defense with the dribble, handle the ball under pressure, protect the ball from 1st, 2nd and 3rd line defenders.
Protecting the ball from the 2nd and 3rd line defenders is more an issue of recognizing when they are going to be a problem and avoiding that problem. This means handling while scanning. I prefer the term scanning to head up because then kids need to know that the head up is doing something other than just not looking at the ball. Basketball really comes down to math: who on the floor can count to 10 fastest and figure out the best thing to do according to where the 10 are first wins.
The issue is that 1st line defender. They have to be a non factor. If the player with the ball is concerned the player guarding them, then they are never getting to worry about whats actually happening on the rest of the floor. Players need to be able to pivot, move in all directions and still maintain control of the ball, and their options with it.
Drills to practice ball handling:
Note: You don't need one thousand drills a few will do if you add to or load the drill to keep it challenging.
-Line dribbling: Exactly what it sounds like lines of kids going one at at time dribbling a ball.
Loads to the drill: ALternate hands, weak hand only, speed, changing speed, stop and go, change of direction moves, mutiple balls, mutiple moves, obstacles to negotiate, defense, scanning for things, off the catch, intersecting dribblers, race, complex series at speed.
- King Drills: Pass ball around head, pass around leg, pass around both legs, pass between legs.
Loads to the drill: Add bounces, remove bounces, add stance, add pivots, hops, lunges, complex series, defensive pressure, alternate direction.
- Spin outs: Being shadowed by a partner (Mimicing / guided defense) toss the ball to yourself catch with proper foot work, in a stance and pivot.
Loads: Add sweeps/clear offs, pivot and re pivot, contact, live defensive, add dribble by, add primary/secondary attack, add escape dribble, add competitive component.
- Chase: Catch pass and go hard in an assigned directions.
Loads: Add finishes, changes of direction with and without the ball, alternate hands, mix in change of direction moves, add defense.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
What the game means to me!
All of us come from different backgrounds. Basketball means different things to each of us. We come to it, have learned it, and take away from it different experiences. Lets talk about basketball for a minute and see if we can find some common ground.
For me basketball is not a series of events or actions. It is the sum total of moments that go beyond good or bad, right or wrong, it stems all the way down into purity of thought, emotion and action. For me all the hard work is worth it if it leads to those moments. Let me share a couple of those moments, with you, that make basketball important to me:
1) Have you ever stood in a school gym in the dark.
In those moments, a peace is created by the absence of life and activity. As you breath, your own soft echoes reverberating you will inhale and absorb the sensation of those places. The potential energy is electric. The smells, dents, banners, worn flooring, nicks and markings are not just wear and tear; these are a legacy of years, of lives lived, blood, sweat, tears, passion expressed and of success and failure.
Sports are a topic of nostalgia. Whether good or bad everyone seems to have had an experience that translates into a story. These are stories of heroes, embarrassments, fond memories and painful ones. An all-American backing out of the spotlight so their team-mate can get a win. Thousands of fans screaming and crying, faces coloured as much by their passion as by school colours. The roar of improbably victory and joy earned through hours of prior effort. The meeting of adversity and the growth of a team to overcome it. Young men and women enjoying the only success they might find in life, and a lifetime of memories built out of a uniform and a moment.
There are stories of heartache and of suffering. A young man sitting on the floor with tears streaming down his face, a childhood dream lost to him forever. Young women collapsing from illness, or exhaustion related to too hard, too much, or not enough. It could be the story of the girl that didn't want to do pushups in gym class , or of a teenage sensation turning professional and falling victim to adolescent maturity in a adult world.
For every story of joy there is one of suffering. Good or bad, anguish or elation, sports hold a tradition of passion and emotion. Fire and fury, found at a time in young people's lives when emotional attachment is at a premium, sports are a major source of concern. When people of all ages are brought together by sport changes in noise, energy, meaning, potential learning, and danger found with randomness ensues.
Sports builds moments. It can make heroes or victims. Spots helps to shape and create identity by making success and failure more concrete. In doing so it makes winners, losers, and all the variants in between. It forces the guilt, ego, frustration and triumph of life to be brought out in rivers of cascading moments.
All of this from an empty gymnasium. That which came before, allows voice to that which comes after. Those four walls and that floor have held a plethora of dreams, hopes, wins, losses, successes and failures. Hundreds of thousands of tears, hurt feelings, hugs, handshakes, drops of sweat and blood have mixed with years of effort and a million personal victories and epiphanies to make it that way. These places are a tribute to the power of sport, the potential of individuals and the test of the human condition. When you stand and breathe your breathing legacy.
2) Next time your in a huddle look up.
Look into someone's eyes and see if you can see beyond. See if you can see past the moment, past the frustration, past the emotion. Look and find that feeling that you would do anything, go anywhere and that nothing else in the world matters, because all you can see is the rest of your life. Feeling your body aching, but putting it aside instantly to push forward. The sudden certainty that you are part of something bigger then yourself. A sense of team and fraternity that makes you want to push yourself beyond pain, beyond illness, beyond healthy sacrifice without care because of what you can prove to yourself and those around you.
Look and see the unbridled passion of youth doing something it loves. Witness desire to a point of utter frustration melt behind passion, belief in ones invincibility, and refusal to ever stand down. Feel the wholesomeness of soundless feeling, lungs burning, adrenaline flowing, muscles aching but all leading to clarity of thought and certainty of purpose.
Search for that gleam in the eye of those performing or desperate to perform the impossible. Every ounce of their being will vibrate with the need and want, but they will know that they can never be in over their head, frightened of possible consequences or trying and failing. They will know this because in that same moment they will be looking for that same thing in you and finding that same certainty, that same life, that same belief shining through in your eyes.
These are just a couple of the thousands of moments that this game has that keep me coming back for more. Maybe as time goes on I'll add some more.
I hope there are moments that bring you passion and joy. In the journey of basketball and life you need only hold the same thought in mind: "There is no such thing as can I, can't I, will or won't it happen. There is only - Do I care enough?"
For me basketball is not a series of events or actions. It is the sum total of moments that go beyond good or bad, right or wrong, it stems all the way down into purity of thought, emotion and action. For me all the hard work is worth it if it leads to those moments. Let me share a couple of those moments, with you, that make basketball important to me:
1) Have you ever stood in a school gym in the dark.
In those moments, a peace is created by the absence of life and activity. As you breath, your own soft echoes reverberating you will inhale and absorb the sensation of those places. The potential energy is electric. The smells, dents, banners, worn flooring, nicks and markings are not just wear and tear; these are a legacy of years, of lives lived, blood, sweat, tears, passion expressed and of success and failure.
Sports are a topic of nostalgia. Whether good or bad everyone seems to have had an experience that translates into a story. These are stories of heroes, embarrassments, fond memories and painful ones. An all-American backing out of the spotlight so their team-mate can get a win. Thousands of fans screaming and crying, faces coloured as much by their passion as by school colours. The roar of improbably victory and joy earned through hours of prior effort. The meeting of adversity and the growth of a team to overcome it. Young men and women enjoying the only success they might find in life, and a lifetime of memories built out of a uniform and a moment.
There are stories of heartache and of suffering. A young man sitting on the floor with tears streaming down his face, a childhood dream lost to him forever. Young women collapsing from illness, or exhaustion related to too hard, too much, or not enough. It could be the story of the girl that didn't want to do pushups in gym class , or of a teenage sensation turning professional and falling victim to adolescent maturity in a adult world.
For every story of joy there is one of suffering. Good or bad, anguish or elation, sports hold a tradition of passion and emotion. Fire and fury, found at a time in young people's lives when emotional attachment is at a premium, sports are a major source of concern. When people of all ages are brought together by sport changes in noise, energy, meaning, potential learning, and danger found with randomness ensues.
Sports builds moments. It can make heroes or victims. Spots helps to shape and create identity by making success and failure more concrete. In doing so it makes winners, losers, and all the variants in between. It forces the guilt, ego, frustration and triumph of life to be brought out in rivers of cascading moments.
All of this from an empty gymnasium. That which came before, allows voice to that which comes after. Those four walls and that floor have held a plethora of dreams, hopes, wins, losses, successes and failures. Hundreds of thousands of tears, hurt feelings, hugs, handshakes, drops of sweat and blood have mixed with years of effort and a million personal victories and epiphanies to make it that way. These places are a tribute to the power of sport, the potential of individuals and the test of the human condition. When you stand and breathe your breathing legacy.
2) Next time your in a huddle look up.
Look into someone's eyes and see if you can see beyond. See if you can see past the moment, past the frustration, past the emotion. Look and find that feeling that you would do anything, go anywhere and that nothing else in the world matters, because all you can see is the rest of your life. Feeling your body aching, but putting it aside instantly to push forward. The sudden certainty that you are part of something bigger then yourself. A sense of team and fraternity that makes you want to push yourself beyond pain, beyond illness, beyond healthy sacrifice without care because of what you can prove to yourself and those around you.
Look and see the unbridled passion of youth doing something it loves. Witness desire to a point of utter frustration melt behind passion, belief in ones invincibility, and refusal to ever stand down. Feel the wholesomeness of soundless feeling, lungs burning, adrenaline flowing, muscles aching but all leading to clarity of thought and certainty of purpose.
Search for that gleam in the eye of those performing or desperate to perform the impossible. Every ounce of their being will vibrate with the need and want, but they will know that they can never be in over their head, frightened of possible consequences or trying and failing. They will know this because in that same moment they will be looking for that same thing in you and finding that same certainty, that same life, that same belief shining through in your eyes.
These are just a couple of the thousands of moments that this game has that keep me coming back for more. Maybe as time goes on I'll add some more.
I hope there are moments that bring you passion and joy. In the journey of basketball and life you need only hold the same thought in mind: "There is no such thing as can I, can't I, will or won't it happen. There is only - Do I care enough?"
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