The Drills section provides information to support your development as a basketball player. Here you will find drills and video clips demonstrating many of the skills referenced. You can create a personalized workout, by clicking Save on the drill(s) you want to include in the workout. Click on Saved Drills (upper right) to show the drills selected. Click Print to produce your workout. Read on to understand how we construct our player development plans. Coaches are often faced with a dilemma – kids love to play. They would rather play than do drills. Coaches know that the play is enhanced by the execution of the basic skills. To compete and win – the object of the game – your chances improve when you have the skills to play the game correctly. The game is also more fun when played skillfully. The problem is that learning technical skills is not as interesting or engaging as playing – even playing poorly. But if you want to be good at basketball, or anything, for that matter, there is no escaping the work. Ultimately, skill development should lead to performance on the court. Research on performance tells us that it is not just putting in the time that leads to high performance, it is also about the quality of the work put in. We believe that the quality of your work can be influenced by a combination of techniques. To fully develop basketball skills, players need to be instructed on new skills, practice and refine those new skills using drills, and compile enough quality repetitions to develop neuroplasticity / motor learning, what most of us call muscle memory. Then they need to compete in game like scenarios to learn how to apply their new skills in game competition. Many of us get sped up while engaged in game competition – we rush our shots, throw passes into traffic, pick up unnecessary fouls, and run faster than we can and drag our pivot foot trying to stop. Technical drills do not help us with that. We need to learn how to apply those new skills in game like situations. It is one thing to execute a crossover dribble in a drill and another thing to execute it in a game under pressure. Using a bounce pass in a layup line is different than using a bounce pass to a player making a backdoor cut while defended. Lots of players can knock down shots in the driveway but come up empty with a defender’s hand in their face during a game. Small sided games provide an efficient way for players to gain game experience. They isolate and modify a full game scenario to focus on a specific skill, action, strategy or movement. Through small sided games players can learn, for example, not how to throw a bounce pass but when to throw it. They can learn how much space they need to get off a fundamentally sound jump shot. Typically, there are fewer players – 1V1, 2V2, 3V3, 4V4 – and constraints* involved. Small sided games can emphasize a team / player strength or weakness. Play, through small sided games, also provides decision making and experiential learning opportunities. The use of small sided games offers many benefits –  With fewer players each player gets more opportunities to pass, dribble, shoot and defend – and make the decisions involved with each. You can’t hide in 3V3.  With fewer players there is more space to play, challenging players to assess the game and react and move quicker to situations that occur.  With more touches players use, learn and improve dribbling, passing and shooting skills. They learn about the benefits of good spacing, player movement and the importance of communicating.  The learning occurs in a game like situation. This translates more easily to real games than structured drills.  Because kids love to play, they are more engaged in the learning process. *Constraints are structured limitations or rule modifications that are designed to focus players on a specific aspect of the game experience. The limitation or rule modification influences players towards a specific game like action. One coach says that when using constraints “you are not telling them what to do, you are designing the game so the players have to do it.” Some examples of constraints –  The team cannot shoot unless the shot comes of a pick and roll action.  Every offensive player must touch the ball on a possession before a shot is taken.  Teams earn 1 point for a field goal and 2 points for an offensive rebound.  If the team fails get the ball into the post player within 10 seconds, it is a turnover.  If a defensive team gives up a baseline drive they lose a point.  The ball must be reversed from one side of the court to the other before a team can score. Constraints can also limit or expand the space available for play, or limit certain players (can only pass, or score with their non-dominant hand). Some of the benefits or constraints -  The learning is in the context of game like play.  Players do not memorize plays and actions, they learn and find solutions through game experience.  Constraints can increase competition. The Drills section of our website is intended to support your work. Our approach looks to combine both teaching technical skills and using play to practice and apply those skills. The drills in each skill section are labeled as either, Technical Skill drills (Tech) or Small Sided Games (SSG). Use the** **technical skill drills** (Tech)** to learn new skills or warm up, refresh or improve existing skills. Use the **small sided games (SSG)** to apply those skills, improve decision making related to the execution of those skills and learn what works and doesn’t in game like situations. INTANGIBLES The intangibles separate the performance of good / great players from the OK players. These include decision making, commitment to do the work of getting in quality reps, the ability to self-correct that comes with experience, the humility to know what you don’t know, and a passion for learning and perhaps most importantly, coachability. Coachable players are those who seek out feedback or accept it when given, and use the feedback – their actions demonstrate an understanding of the information and a willingness to work to get better outcomes.