Basketball Drills
October 9th, 2009
Planning Your Practices The Smart Way
The key to running successful basketball practices is to make sure they are well organized and versatile. You must be specific with your practice plans and have them broken down into minutes, days, weeks and months. This encourages you to keep focused and allows your team to know how every component of the game will be broken down in your practices.
Versatility is extremely important if you wish to have consistently great practice sessions. This would be difficult to achieve is you’re running the same basketball drills day after day for 3 to 6 months.
Practice Principles
The foundation of solid practice planning relies on several principles.
1. Have A Plan. In order to get the most efficiency out of your practices you need to know what you want to accomplish during them. What do you want to include in that practice and when are you going to work on it?
2. Develop A System. Decide what offense and defense you want your team to run and learn the philosophies needed to make them work. Use drills that allow you to teach your system most efficiently to your players.
3. Highlight The Importance Of Practice To Your Team. They must understand that practice is a time to improve their skills and develop the necessary fundamentals to succeed in game situations. In order for everyone to stay motivated you need practices to be challenging and encourage your players to develop their competitiveness.
4. Practice Game Specific Skills At Game Speed. Players should be working on skills and running plays at a high intensity. Have your team practice game shots, defensive skills and offensive simulations that align with your philosophy.
5. Enforce Discipline. To have successful practices your whole team needs to understand the importance of discipline. You should have a zero tolerance for tardiness. If your players are not 5 minutes early, they are late. Your players must follow your rules.
6. Use All Resources. To maximize the use of your practice time try to include as many players as possible into your basketball drills. Use as many baskets and/or balls as you have available. You want each player to have as many repetitions as possible. Repetition is the mother of all skill.
7. Educate Your Players. Name your drills and explain why it’s an important part of your teams strategy. Players want to know why they’re doing a particular drill. They will feel satisfied knowing there is a method to your madness!
