This is a piece done by HBO Real Sports about the problems with the American basketball system and why the rest of the world has caught up with the United States.



Did you notice the skipping and agility drills they do in the video? It's similar to what we recommend in the sample practices for youth teams.

Sample Practice for 7 to 10 year olds

Sample Practice for 11 to 14 year olds

We recently interviewed Don Kelbick about developing offseason workouts (which we hope to release soon). In the interview, we discuss the same problem as they did in the video about Americans playing way too many games and not spending enough time working on skills.

Think about it. A player may touch the ball 20 to 40 times and shoot the ball 10 to 15 times during a game. How are they supposed to get better? When do they do the skill work?

In a typical workout session, the player has the ball in his hands the entire session and may shoot 300 to 500 shots. Summer is the time to work on skills.

If the United States wants to continue to be the leaders in basketball, there can not be a dependency on the superstars every year. The U.S. needs to build players from the bottom up through Developmental Leagues.

Related Articles

What's Wrong With Youth Basketball Leagues

What To Teach Youth Players (Ages 7 to 14)

Could 3 on 3 Be the Best For Youth Players


Do you have any questions or suggestions for this article? Let us know by leaving your comments...

Comments Most Likes First   Oldest First   Newest First Diallo Robinson-Bey says: 6/18/2018 at 8:45:34 PM What is the science of basketball if there is one available? Like     login   register Jacob Jernigan says: 9/30/2016 at 9:27:54 AM Im in GT and am trying to fix basketball problems and this article does not help. Like     login   register Jonas Lende says: 4/9/2009 at 11:35:00 AM Hi, I'm a coach from Denmark. Very good article, but from an eurpean perspective I can tell you, that we do have the same problem at lower levels in Europe. A lot of our youngsters watch NBA because it is more entertaining than the european leagues (and people tell them, that NBA is the "best" league) - and when they show up for practise, they want to be superstars more than they want to become good players. What is even worse is that many of the youngsters is not able to watch NBA games (don't have the right channels), and then they'll find the highlights on the internet instead - and now all they want to do is to dunk, make alley-oops and other entertaining finishes. Like     login   register

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