30 Basketball Dribbling Drills - For Coaches & Players

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Below are 30 dribbling drills for basketball coaches to use during practice. The drills require anywhere from 1 to 5 players.

If you're a player working out on your own, you should also check out our individual player drills section.

Each drill below has unique purpose and emphasis -- but with all dribbling drills you want to emphasize:

  • Dribbling with eyes up.
  • Using finger pads to control the ball.
  • Working both left and right hand.
  • Push yourself, get out of your comfort zone (if you're not making some mistakes you're not getting out of your comfort zone).

Before getting into the drills, you might want to read the 5 Things You Need To Know To Be a Great Ball Handler and 7 Common Traits in Elite Level Dribbling.


Dribbling Drills for Beginners

For beginners you should start with very simple stationary drills. Here's a good stationary dribbling progression for beginners. This allows you to introduce the skills, concepts, and basic terminology.

Once players grasp the basic skills, you can introduce movement and fun games. Here are a few fun dribbling drills that are good for beginners:

3 Fun Drills: Pirate Dribbling, Mr Fox, and Coin Drops

Competitive Cone Touch Dribbling


Fun Dribbling Drills for All Ages

Basketball should be fun. By making the drills fun, players are motivated, improve, and look forward to practice.

Here are several fun drills that are good for any age level. To keep things fresh and break up the monotony, we use some of the same youth drills with our high school players that are effective and the older kids have a lot of fun with them.

Dribble Knockout - Fun Skill Building Variation of the Classic Game

High Five 1on1

Cat & Mouse Drill For Ball Handling & Defense

F-A-S-T


Youth & Intermediate Dribbling Drills


Stationary Dribbling Drills

Stationary dribbling drills are great for warm up, introducing new skills to beginners, and getting lots of touches (high number of reps in short amount of time).

You can use these drills at all levels (youth to the pros) but stationary drills should NOT be the only drills you use! It's very important to also use more game-like dribbling drills that incorporate movement and defenders (shown in categories below).

2-1-0 Stationary Dribbling Drills

10 Youth Ball Handling Drills – The Maravich Series


Dribbling Drills on the Move

Dribbling while moving better simulates what happens in a game... because you're standing stationary in a game. So here are a few drills that incorporate movements and various challenges while getting as many touches as possible.

1v1 Chair Moves - 11 Progressions to Improve Dribbling

Gears - Change of Speed Dribbling

Speed Ladder Dribbling Series

Tight Cone Finishes - One of the Best Warm Up Drills

2 Dribble Moves To Beat Pressure and Create Separation

Dribble Screens


Game Based Dribbling Drills With Defenders

Game based drills are the best way to simulate what happens in a game and improve dribbling skills. These are vital drills to incorporate into your practices. Many are 1v1 in nature, which forces the player to dribble (no one to pass to and bail them out).

1v1 Speed Dribble

1v1 Overlap

Beatem to the Left

1 on 1 Dribbling Drill With Random Traps

Capture The Flag Dribbling

1 on 1 Grid Drill

1v1 Control Dribble and Retreat with Reads


Advanced Dribbling Drills

Here are a few challenging drills for players with advanced ballhandling skills...

3 Ball Dribbling

One Hand Pound

Cone Grab Finishing Drill

Tight Spaces Ball Handling Drill

1v1 Attack With Narrow Cones

1 on 1 Dribbling Drill With Random Traps

1 on 2 Pressure Ball Handling Drill


FREE eBook: 72 Winning Basketball Drills

If you'd like MORE basketball drills, check out our FREE 152 page ebook with 72 great basketball drills that are neatly organized and ready for you to print out in PDF format.



Image: download free ebook with 72 of our favorite drills