Simply Amazing- Did You See It?

I recently saw the most raw athletic display by LeBron James the other night- did you see it? He was on a break away and took off from the foul line and dunked the ball like it was a simple lay up. Wow! Because we see things like this more and more from these college and NBA players, we start to take it for granted. Just think about this; LeBron is 6'8", 250 pounds, and took of from the foul line (15 feet from the hoop) dunked it like nothing, landed, turned around and got back on defense. That is insane!

There is often the argument of what athletes are the best in the world. I really don't think it is a fair question, because I feel each sport has an area of athleticism that is unique to itself. Take a baseball player or softball player. They have to hit a 90 plus mile an hour fast ball with a relatively small surface. Michael Phelps showed incredible athleticism in his sport. But what I would have to say is if you consider what a basketball player has to do throughout a game it is hard to argue that they display the most variety of pure athleticism all the time. They have to have great hand eye coordination, great leaping and jumping ability, incredible multidirectional speed and quickness, a high level of strength and power, reactive ability, body control, mobility, and the ability to display all of these on the same play. Plus, they are sometimes huge individuals.

I remember taking my daughters to a WNBA Indiana Fever game and watching how agile and explosive Tamika Catching is. She handles the ball like a point guard, passes incredibly, rebounds and defends better than anyone, and is graceful while she plays.

Please don't misunderstand me, I think sports like soccer, tennis, volleyball, skiing, baseball, football, you name it- have incredible athletes and they are all fun to watch.

OK, Here is your weekly Basketball Skill Tip by TJ

Skill: Ball Handling

Drill: Spider Drill

Action: -Set feet shoulder width apart
and bend your knees

- take the ball and dribble it as low as you
can with one hand, then immediately switch
and dribble it with your opposite hand

- keeping the ball as low as possible dribble it
through your legs, then still facing forward quickly
move your hands behind your legs and dribble the ball
once with each hand

- on the second dribble, push it forward through your
legs and repeat that pattern


Workout: - dribble the ball 50 times in front of you and 50 times
behind you - remember to switch hands and put it
between your legs after every two dribbles

This is one of those drills that make the ball become a part of your hand- really important concept. The ball should feel so natural in your hands that you can do anything at any time with it.

Train Basketball Speed Every Day The Right Way.

If you approach speed and quickness as a skill, which you should be, you can make huge improvements on how fast your athletes move on the basketball court. But if you always say. "I can't find time to teach speed during practice," you might lose games because your team isn't athletic enough at the key times.

The system of implementing speed is easy. Think of speed just like foul shooting. Every day you allot a few minutes at a time throughout the practice for your players to practice the skill of foul shooting. You should do the same thing with multidirectional basketball speed.

Day one you could set 3 minutes to do 5-6 reps of lane shuffles for 7 seconds. But you are focusing on how well they move, not conditioning (that is for another time), it is speed/skill development. Another day you could do first step explosive acceleration from the baseline to the same side foul line (18 feet). On another day or time in the practice you could focus on retreating or hip turn type explosive skills. See what I mean... you don't need a lot of time, you only need small (3-5 minute) highly focused blocks of time to coach speed.

The problem is that most coaches view it as conditioning. It needs to be taught separately and with great focus on technique. You will be amazed at how your players get faster!

I hope you implement speed training into each and every practice so you set your team up for success!

Play Hard

Lee

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