Don't Miss a Word of this Short Audio Snippet Where Don Kelbick Explains the Key to Developing Basketball Players and How to Avoid a VERY Common Mistake That Actually Deteriorates Player Skills!!!

I totally agree with Don's comments. I coach at the high school level and I like to have a ratio of 5-7 hours of practice to one game. This isn't very popular with the school and the parents but the kids actually enjoy it. I was surprised this year to get comments from parents with regards to the improvement in their kids level of play. These were the same parents that complained that there weren't enough games being played.

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I cant agree with this more. I agreed to coach an AAU team this Spring with the caviat that we enter 3 tournaments only. I wanted to emphasize the practices and use the tournamnet games as a reward for practicing hard. Love the message!!!!!!

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I think he has a very good point. I coach aau girls and am going to do more fundamentals with my teams. Thanks Don you made me realize a good point. I have a very good U111 team and I am going to follow your advice and meake my team a lot better.
Bob

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His statements are very accurate. I coach middle school and varsity. When i came to the school the mentality was to have fun and don't worry about getting better we just want to have a team. As the parents found out very soon i was commited to practice, hard work and getting better. At first the parents were not very happy but soon into the season they could see that the team was actually starting to become competitive. All this came about because the mind set with the kids changed they began showing up at practice and doing those repetitive drills that made them get better. They actually found out that if they practice hard and work on the fundamentals they could win.

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Hi Antonio,

I recently read an article called “Youth Development – Stressing the Fundamentals” by Allison McNeil that makes a good analogy between school and basketball. Allison McNeil is the Women’s Canadian National Coach.

She compares GAMES to TESTS and PRACTICES to CLASSES. “If you were teaching a math class or a science class, would you teach 2 days a week and give the class a test 4 days a week? Of course you wouldn’t – because the students would not have the base academic fundamentals to pass the test. You would be setting them up for failure.”

The myth of more games and more games needs to broken. Players can’t improve when they touch the ball 20 minutes a week (5 games by 4 minutes a game). Players also can get injured and burned out when there are too many games. Players can’t improve if they’re hurt or lost the passion to play.

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Don, as a coach of youth basketball 4-5 grade I could not agree more. Our routine is a ratio of 3:1 over playing. Although in our community it is sometime difficult to find gym space we have the players do alot of home work. If you can keep this ratio up throughout the season you will notice a dramatic improvement both individually and as a team. I try to let the players and parents know that our mission is to take them to the next level. In todays lets play as many tournaments and games environment as a coach and mentor it is up to us to develope and mold these young players.

Keep up good work and spread this message!

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Dons comments follow our philosophy in Australia.I coach a representative 12 year old girls team and we practice three times a week and play only one game.
80% of our training is based solely on the fundamentals and repetition. When a young player is under pressure on the court all they should be able to remember is repetition.If the feet are right and the action is correct they will defend better and consistently shoot more baskets.

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I totally agree. Many coaches spend to much time in practice running offensive plays when they should be spending the majority of their practice time on fundamentals both offense and defense.

Bill Bailey

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I coach junior high and senior high girls and I agree fully with Don's comments - it is the responsibility of the coach to his/her players to practice the fundamentals. If all you do is play, when do you learn? I feel games certainly have their learning moments but practice is when you can really take the time to teach and repeat. Remember - practice makes perfect...

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I fully agree Don's and all the other comments. I am an assistant coach of a 13U boys team and I run practices 1 of the 2 days that we practice each week and they are always about fundamentals. But its really hard to prep for games and get the skills in when your gym time is so limited.

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I'm glad Coach Don made these comments. But, the one thing I think all should be aware of is this refers to what happens in a given practice setting. Too many coaches use practice to scrimmage, scrimmage, scrimmage against one another... never working on the fundamentals of the game. I see too many talents kids at every level who still can't dribble or make lay-ups with their off hand. I still see kids that can't execute and pick-n-roll or give-n-go... I still see kids that don't know how to properly run a fast break or box out. I think that's because everyone is only concerned with winning. Player development (especially fundamental) is the paramount thing.... offensively and defensively. Every parent doesn't get that but its true nonetheless.

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I couldn't agree more with all the comments regarding more practice!!! I've founded an AAU program and that's our emphasis... development. Through the development of fundamental skills - individual and team - the wins will come. In the beginning, a lot of my parents didn't understand either... but they understand W's versus L's.

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We're talking about practice......practice... not a game.

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I can say he is right, pratice is the key.

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I agree. All that players do in the summer is play games. You rarely see players in a gym working on thier game. I have seen a number of good teams who play too many games have thier level of play deteriate and appear to be burned out. Too many players go right from thier school season into playing tournaments. They should be taking a month off to recharge both mentally and physically.

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Practice its practice game its game. When you practising it`s not a game you practicing team work also fundamentals.
Im talking about euro league level. You dint have real game on the practice but you simply dont have time to practice individual moves. I have to do it after main practice.
You have passing shooting pick and rolls reabounds, penetration, and more but you doing it 120 of your abilities in practice. Because you dont have to warry about how many energy left, And this extra 20 % andvancing you to the next level. And after practice when you must have no energy at all you going to practice with assitant coach basic moves, here time for it not while team practice. And if you going to do it every time you become grate athlet eventually. But if you practicing basics all the time you never going to be tired enoght to push yourself to the next level. Im seing all of it cause I has played for several euro level squads.
And I dont understand coaches saying fun for kidds what ????? what kind of fun you talking about ?
Fun it`s to be the best not to be part of anyone. And this means your team mates your friands but you have to beat them to help them. Then you move to the next step and its never end. Coaches you can do only one thing you could encourage players to do so, and if you be successful your team will be also seccessful.
But everething about fundamentals am agree. Anly the way how you would make it work differ.

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Joe H.,

How can I get a copy of the article by Allison McNeil, “Youth Development – Stressing the Fundamentals”?

Thanks.

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Awesome commentary! I'm a head coach for a 2nd/3rd grade team and would welcome tips/advice for how to sharpen basic fundamentals while keeping practice fun and efficient.

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I agree with you all.I also think that we have an obligation and committment to their education especially if your coaching in elementary and high school level...student-athletes not athlete-students. International players will get better, just like Japan became a leader in the car industry, why...they want to be better than their opponent.We our not teaching proper grammar in the public schools but will consider literature as a substitute.We will skim the surface of fundalmentals and take the short cut just to win and then create more gaps in coaching the right way. Thank God for technology we can now communicate and revisit our philosphies and network amongst each other.

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I agree with your comment about repetitions. A famous coach once said, Repetition is the "mother of skill"
by John Wooden

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Hi Ray,

Here are some great resources for you to start looking at: http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/blog/index.php/four-great-ways-to-keep-your-teams-attention/

60 Fun Drills For Youth Coaches & How To Make Practice Fun:
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/pr/fun-youth-drills.html

Youth Coaching Section:
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/coaching/youthbasketball.html

More youth articles on our blog:
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/blog/index.php/category/coaching-youth-basketball/

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As a european coach sometimes we are jalous on the american schoolsystem because the boys and girls can start practising already at 15.00 and this almost every day but in here we only have 2 or in best case 3 practises à week for sometimes 1 hour or 1 hour 15 or 30. We can sometimes start our practises at 19.00 or even later with our young players because of our schoolsystem. Other difference is that we work in clubs and your teams are working in schools. We have to work hard on improvement of the fundamentals in a short period and we have to do all the stuff(offense -defense -shooting) in this short time. We only play 1 game on saturday. Even in here several coaches ars working more on results than on real fundamental work. So I agree with the coach that we must work every practice on fundamentals and shooting is one of these.

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I totally agree with Don. I try to explain some of the same things to my players. The only way your going to get better is with practice. Like Don said repitition. They automatically think when you tell them to practice on their game it means play a pick-up game.

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Hi coach, I am an Australian coach with 20 plus years experience from Grass Roots to semi elite juniors/seniors. In Aus most kids playing hoops, will play club based competition for around 40 weeks a year. If you make a representative side (best kids from your local comp playing the best from other local comps) you also participate in another game per week. These kids play twice (1 for club and 1 rep game) and practise 3-4 times per week. Many of these kids also participate in 2-3 tournaments a year over long weekends (7-8 games in one weekend)

Our best juniors also do individual workouts not to mention school based comps. Therefore some Australian kids will pick up a ball for 2 - 3 games/week and upwards of 5-6 structured training sessions.

One of the challenges for us as coaches is to balance what is being "TAUGHT" not consider ourselves simply as "coaches".... especially with players at a lower standard. My observation has been that many kids will drop out as they tend to get burned out as training becomes boring and not enough continuity is taught, variety of drills is limited and not enougth "FUN" is built in.

Many kids I come across train to play, not play to train! However I agree there certainly is a balance to be achieved, We have some kids never doing enough to improve and others dropping out due to high expectations from a sport that goes all year round without a break.

Thanks for the great website and forum....

NL www.dcbasketball.com.au

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We teach'em how to compete but not how to play the game...winning comes after having fun and learning. Right on Coach.

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I too agree. I'm in a great situation with elementary and middle schoolers. We meet twice a week. We jump rope, form shoot, do some review fundamental drills, and then work on their new skills for the day. After the introduction and practice of the skill, we play a game or have a competition involving the new skill and obviously other skills previously taught. They leave and go out and play with their own teams on weekends, etc. I am able to go watch and see how they employ the skills I have taught and tweak and emphasize, etc. When we meet again. They get 4 times the amount of actual "playing" with me as they do in the games because we only have 6 players at a time and they all get "tons" of reps and a lot in competitive situations. I love the practice arena.

Oz

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To quote Bobby Knight: "Basketball is the most over coached, under taught game on the planet."

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i quite agree with what the coach has just said many coaches hadly coach the basic foundermental. i coach both the high school and elementary school students. the first thing i watch out for is if they have the basic knowledge of the game, then the introduction, and follow up then starting coaching from the basic. also there are some player or students who dont want to learn the basic all they want to getthe ball throw it into the hoop and start player.i beleive that the basic is the most essential in coaching.

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In Australia we have long thought the American school based system allowed for a much better ratio of skill sessions to games then we can manage here.........but from the responses to Don's comments, it's not really the case & we all share a common hurdle in player development.
# Joe is on the right track with digging up resources on making practice fun & how to get the most out of the time you spend with young players.

There is a growing trend here to carbon copy representative/higher profile coaching sessions & this has lead to a large portion of junior training sessions being devoted to running half court offense (at great expennse to skill development)
# The fix needed here is obviously 'coach education' & more than anything we need to have our more experienced coaches working with the 10 - 15 year old kids.

Thanks for the forum..............this sort of communication is an extremely underated asset.

Regards/Down Under

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Coach Don is 100% CORRECT!
I too have trained and worked NBA guys, and know that some of them (THE ONES WHO EXCEL) dedicate time and focus on the fundamentals and are sold on the fact that repetition is key! As a FIBA clinician, I tell all of the attendees that "REPETITION IS THE ONLY WAY TO TEACH AND INSTILL A SKILL SET!" Whether the players be young or old, the basics are the same....

Don''t forget the 5 P''s-
Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance

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I agree with Don too, what u practice repeatedly is what you are bound to exhibit during the game, if its the bad habits that arent corrected during the play, play, play... its the same that will show up when u have a match. But if its a fundamentally based practice, players will exhibit a fundamentally sound game; I can attest to this too because i coach in Uganda where most players like to only play during practice, but i stress fundamentals in my sessions and the results have been good for my team, even when we lose. Thanks Joe and Don, best regards from Uganda

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I agree with Don, players need time for practise and alot of it. I can't believe a coach would think otherwise.
Players at all levels are able to improve their game in some form if they take the time to do sound fundamental repetition. This takes time and commitment and it can't be done during games. Playing a game improves the strategic thinking of players but that improves markedly quicker if the player has good fundamental skills to base the game on. So it is not simply practise that improves players it is practising the with correct technique and doing that repetitively so that when they players are in a game things will happen instinctively.

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yup, more time in fundamentals is a good thing to do to develop players...

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I certainly agree. This is right. Sometimes we focus on the game but without any repetitif training for fundamental, we only get a little bit improvement. Great advice, coach!

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I would say it goes even deeper. The reason the European's and Americas are willing to practice harder is it's a work ethic with them. Nothing is easy and it takes time learning the game versus playing the game. I know of a High School player who was on a team that lost by 3 points in the substates who can't even roll to the basket correctly. I have been asked to teach these kids "some fundamentals" like triple threat and pivoting over the summer because they travel so much.

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Absolutely correct, I have coached high school basketball since 1990 at 4 different schools and people outside the game (parents, players, AAU teams) all looking for instant gratification in competition. Our philosphy is to practice 10-12 hrs. on fundamentals, dribbling, passing, rebounding, shooting, defense, offense and individual workouts before scrimmage or playing an opponent. More in off season and less during season, also working in weight program and conditioning makes time management skills of our staff of viable importance. Hopefully we can get this back to the top to make basketball a better game for all involved!

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In junior high, our new coach practiced us 5 times a week with an optional on Sunday. It turned our basketball program around. We were better fundamentally and understood the game better. Consequently, we starting winning more games.

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I am a AAU girls basketball Coach & I agree with u 100%, I am trying to get my players & parents to understand how important it is to come to practice I feel that's the only way u can become a better player no matter what sport u are playing.

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Totally agree, found this out myself recently to my cost! I coach an under 10's team and from the start placed my focus on fundamental skills. I figured when they could do the basics without thinking i would move to more complex drills. We recently had to share our practice space with another team, their focus is on playing for long periods. My guys got drawn into this game focus mentality and the other coach encouraged both teams to just play. Boy has our game suffered as a result! Last week i went right back to basics, curtained off our space and worked on passing and movement. Game day they were like different kids!! Keep the great advice coming, two more of our league coaches are using this site now on my recommendation!

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Great advice! keep it coming

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Practice is more important then the game is to true. Make winning less important and learning how to play is way more important..

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Practice is more important then the game is so true. Make winning less important and learning how to play is way more important..

Teach the fundementals early, let them have fun while the do it and they will learn better. In games there are to many pressures- from parents and peers as well as coach on winning and not playing correctly...

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Thank u very much, it helps me a lot

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It all depends on the age group... and the main objectives of the season.

YES fundamentals are important, YES repetition is key to development...YES development should never stop. BUT....what if you do not have the resources for this to happen.

I run a basketball Progamme in the UK where resources are very limited...

I coach teams from U11 through to U19. My objectives on development are of course different on each age group.

Its all about finding that right balance to match up with your objectives. e.g my U11 team: we spend 80% on Basic Skills drills, focusing on 2 skills max in a 1.5hr session, the 20% is for them to practise that in a game during training. Our league is pretty small so we dont play fixtures much often, but for them to learn those skills is more important than winning games at that level.
While for my U16 and older kids: The objective is using those skills to win games. I believe its all about game awareness, knowing how to use those skills to win games. So out of our 1.5 hour training we have in a week we run skills drills for 30% of the time and play for 70% of the time. Kids over 16 need to understand the game more and how they can apply the skills to become winners by READING AND REACTING. Practise is all good BUT at that age with the limited time we have its the game experience that matters. We do get some new kids who join that age group, in an ideal world we will run fundamental sessions with them so that can catch up with the rest of the team but resources will not allow that here,but of cousre will take time out during the session to help them along with the basics e.g layup footwork etc.
Again its all about adapting our training session around your season objectives... and the bottom line is finding that balance to achieve those objectives. Fundamentals dont win games on there own, its how and when you use them that matters and that becomes easier with the more games a player plays.

Any idea on how other coaches manage this?

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Great points, Coach E-Man. Everybody has different definition of fundamentals. Some would say that the tactical skills you mention as reading and reacting are fundamentals as well. Either way, you're right. Younger ages will focus more on skill drills and as they age, you need to implement some game-like drills to improve game performance.

I know some coaches use drills that put players in game-like situations where players are forced to make decisions. For example, play 3 on 3 where every play has to start with a pass to the wing and screen away from the ball. This forces the defense and the offense to practice this situation.

You might play 3 on 3 with no dribble to improve passing, movement away from the ball, and proper jabs & fakes to use when you have the ball.

You might play 3 on 3 with 1 defender trailing the 3 on 2 break to improve quick-decision making on the break.

These are drills that all work on game-situations and if some proper teaching is applied, it should increase the basketball player's intelligence.

There are many effective ways to do this, but an approach I like to use with youth teams is to:
1. Work on 1 or 2 skill drills.
2. Work on a game-like drill that's competitive and fun that uses those skills just practiced.

For example, after dribbling or on-ball defense skill drills, play some 1 on 1 full court.

You get repetitions to work on the skill and you also apply put it in a game-like situation.

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