100+ Youth Basketball Drills | Best Drills for Kids - Ages 7 to 14
If you are looking for some fun basketball drills for kids to use with your youth or middle school teams, you've come to the right place! It doesn't matter if your players are beginners or seasoned vets...
These include fundamental drills to master the basics and drills that are more advanced.
These fun basketball drills are perfect for youth coaches who work with 7, 8, 9, and 10 year olds and middle school coaches who typically work with 11, 12, 13, and 14 year olds.
Youth Basketball Drills Organized By Category
If you want to quickly skip to a certain section, you can click on any of the category links below.
Drills By Category
Other Basketball Drill Considerations
Youth Basketball Coaching Resources
15 Best Youth Basketball Drill
10 Best Drills Players Ages 5-9
And just a heads up, many of these drills are multi-skilled. This means one of the shooting drills might also work on footwork, ball handling, and triple threat moves. A ball handling drill might include shooting, defense, and rebounding.
Youth Shooting Drills
Form Shooting Drills
FREE BONUS PDF
Youth Practice Plans & Bonus Drills
Shooting Drills
If you’re interested in a complete coaching system (philosophy, practice plans, skill development, as well as offensive & defensive systems) for players ages 9-14, check out The Youth Coaching System With Jim Huber.
Youth Layup Drills
Youth Dribbling & Ball Handling Drills
Individual Dribbling Drills
Competitive Dribbling Drills
Youth Passing Drills
If you’re interested in a complete coaching system (philosophy, 48 practice plans, skill development, as well as offensive & defensive systems) for players ages 5-9, check out Jim Huber Beginner Basketball Ages 5-9.
Youth Footwork Drills
Youth Defense Drills
Youth Offense Drills
Games & Fun Drills for Kids
Basic Drills to Advanced Drills
We wanted to make this as easy as possible for a youth coach working with 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders and the middle school coach who works with 6th, 7th, and 8th graders.
So we tried to organize the basic drills towards the top of each category. And have it get more advanced as you go down the list.
This will help coaches of all ages progress through the season!
Even advanced youth teams can start each season with the basic drills as you review and solidify certain skills. The only difference is that you might progress more quickly.
On the other end of the spectrum, beginners can utilize almost all of these drills. Of course, you might have to make some modifications and progress a little slower. We'll show you how to do that in the next section...
And sometimes, you have 7th and 8th grade teams that need to spend more time on the beginner drills. And that's okay! Basketball is one of the latest developing sports from an age standpoint.
If you coach long enough, you will see some kids that weren't very good as middle school athletes develop into very good players at the high school level.
Even Beginners Need to Compete Against Defenders in Drills!
With younger teams or beginners, you might spend a little more time on drills without defenders. This helps you coach the technical skills of shooting, ball handling, passing, and footwork.
As alluded to earlier, advanced teams might spend a little more time on technical skills as you refresh and develop your foundation at the beginning of the season.
However, it's very important to complement those drills with drills that include defenders.
Even with beginners, a general rule of thumb is to alternate between drills without defenders and drills with defenders.. For example...
6 Minutes - Practicing dribble moves with no defense
6 Minutes - Attacking a live defender with 1v1 full court
6 Minutes - Practicing lay ups with no defense
6 Minutes - Shooting lay ups with a trailing defender
8 Minutes - Running your offense with no defense
8 Minutes - Running your offense against live defenders
If you have a more advanced team that is in the 7th or 8th grade, you could spend up to 70% to 90% of your practice drills against live defenders.
Modifications to Adjust Difficulty of Drills
As you go through these drills, you want to adapt the drills to make them the right fit for your players.
You can aim for roughly a 60% to 70% success rate. You want them to have some success and you also want them to be pushed. If it's too easy or too difficult, they can lose interest or motivation.
Here are some common ways...
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Change position of defender
To give the offense an advantage, you can delay the start of the defender and give the offense a head start. You can also position the defender further away to cover more distance.
To add difficulty, you might give the defender a head start or allow them to cover a shorter distance. That way, the defender arrives earlier. -
Remove or add defenders
By reducing the defenders and making a drill 2v1, 3v2, 4v2, or other variations, it gives the advantage to the offense.
By adding additional defenders such as 1v2 or 2v3, this provides a greater challenge to the offense. -
Increase or decrease space
You can change the boundaries of any drill. By decreasing space, this makes harder on the offense as the defense has less ground to cover. By increasing space, this makes it easier for the offense as the defense has more ground to cover.
It would be the opposite for the defense. If you increase space, the defense has to cover more ground. If you decrease space, it's easier for the defense. -
Time limits
Setting a time limit will force the offense to be more efficient with their moves. They have to attack in straight lines and they have to play with urgency.
You can increase the time limit for beginners. You can decrease the time limit to provide a greater challenge.
There are other ways to modify drills to change the difficulty level as you will see throughout the drills below. However, this is a great start.
Group Kids By Skill Level for Different Variations of Drills
You can also organize your drills where certain groups of players practice together for different skills.
For example, you might have one group of players participate in ball handling drills.
For one group of players, they might just play 1v1 full court.
Another group of your players that need a greater challenge, you might have them play 1v2 full court.
While this takes more time and organization, it can be a great way to maximize the development of your team!
We hope you enjoy the drills and they help you have more success!
Youth Basketball Coaching Resources
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Ages 5-9 - Beginner Basketball With Jim Huber - A comprehensive coaching system to properly develop those new to the game. This product features age appropriate teaching of the most important basketball skills. Players learn these skills in a fun and engaging way. In addition to individual skills, players begin to learn team offense and defense concepts.
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Ages 9-14 - The Youth Coaching System With Jim Huber - A nice compliment or sequel to the Beginner Basketball product. This system continues with the focus on youth development, but with advancements for older players. It uses a combination of drills and games to teach players the skills needed to thrive as they continue on in their careers.
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