Stop Waiting for the Perfect Stop. Great Defense Is What You Do After You Get Beat.
Stop Waiting for the Perfect Stop. Great Defense Is What You Do After You Get Beat. Read More »
Basketball Training
How to Score Without the Ball in Your Hands
You Don’t Need the Ball to Take Over a Game Most kids think scoring is something that happens to them. The point guard decides to pass, or the coach draws up a play, or the ball just happens to find them in a good spot. And when none of that happens, which is most of
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Are Your Habits Actually Matching Your Goals?
I had a kid tell me he wanted to play college basketball. No offers. Small school. No AAU. He was a good shooter, but he was small, and his handle and his footwork had a long way to go. He was lifting occasionally, shooting around a little, playing pickup with his friends, and he genuinely
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Why Losing 1v1 to a Bigger Player Might Be the Best Thing for Your Game
I had two of my players going at it in pickup the other day, and it was not a fair fight on paper. One of them’s a big, getting ready for high school, already carrying that size. The other one hasn’t hit his growth spurt yet, so he was giving up a lot of height
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Push and Pull: How to Create Space Without Being the Fastest Kid on the Court
I had a middle school kid who could shoot the lights out from the perimeter. Catch and shoot, money every time. But the second he put the ball on the floor to drive, he got stuck. The defender would stay glued to him, he’d pick up his dribble, and then he’d just stand there holding
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Give Your Shot Some Bones: When a Smooth Stroke Is the Problem
Most of my job is making shots smoother. This one was about the opposite. I worked with a middle school girl who had a beautiful stroke. I mean it. If you handed me a clip of just her upper body and asked me to grade the shot, I’d have given her high marks and moved
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You’re Showing Up to the Wrong Game in Your Head
I’ve got an 11-year-old who’s smaller and younger than everyone in his group. He plays up, against bigger kids, older kids, and most days he’s getting cooked. He knows it. He signed up for it. A few weeks ago he finally got a shot to fall. One bucket. And he celebrated like he’d just won
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Be More Like a Skateboarder
I had a brand new player, never trained before, and I tried to make a drill easier so she could get a few more makes and feel good. She turned it down. Not rudely. She just wanted the hard version. She wanted to keep bricking it until it started going in, the way a skateboarder
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You Don’t Need to Be the Fastest. You Need to Be the Hardest to Read.
There was a moment in middle school that I still think about. Someone who knew basketball watched me play and pulled me aside after. Said I had real skills. Good handle, decent shot, could see the floor. Then he said the thing that actually stuck: “Your practice game and your game game are two totally
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You Play Like You’re Trying to Survive Something
A high school kid came in looking like he was getting stabbed every time he shot the ball. Not exaggerating. Every rep was a full-body emergency. Shoulders up, jaw clenched, eyes wide. The ball would come out and he’d wince before it even hit the rim, like he was bracing for bad news. Which, to
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