Hi Coach,
I have a group of 8yr old boys with vey lopsided talent levels. 3 kids who are pretty good, but there is a huge drop off in talent (other 5 kids can barely dribble, especially under pressure). I do have a very good point guard though who can dribble and pass, so I need to somehow develop the offense around him - he is a very unselfish kid who likes to get everyone involved.

I love the idea of developing them to understand spacing, passing, and cutting. But I need to keep the ball in my point guard's hands as much as possible and have the other kids move around to get open. A motion offense is great, but as soon as my PG passes it off and cuts through, then there's a high likelihood that there will be a turnover.

Is there a way to modify a motion offense so that my point guard is the main kid facilitating the offense? I should also mention that the other 2 good players are bigger, kids with ok ball handling skills. So I envision having one of them play a high post to help facilitate the offense as well.

Any thoughts? thanks. Joe

Hmmm. You could train them with a drill I often hear other coaches use in order to educate them in the importance of knowing when and where to cut. The drill goes that you need to pass four times before shooting and the player can only dribble the ball two times. Teaches players to cut and distribute the ball.

Hey Coach,

This is an interesting subject. I have seen a lot of youth coaches that run their offense through their best ballhandler.

I'll be honest. I cringe when I see coaches doing this. To me a youth coaches job is to develop players. How will those other players develop if you keep the ball in your best players hands most of the time?

So I would suggest using some discretion in regards to keeping the balll in your point guards hands too much. Now I can understand easing players into situations they can handle (there are ways to do that) but I would highly recommend moving to an equal opportunity offense. If you were coaching high school varsity I would have a much different opinion, but with 8 year olds I believe they all need to have chances to dribble, pass, pivot, and make decisions in a game.

Otherwise your best player will get better and better. And the not so good players will get farther and farther behind. The not so good players need the ball in their hands.

So my recommendation would that instead of changing your offense, come up with ways to develop your players ballhandling skills so they are at least competent enough to avoid turning it over every time. That is a MUCH better solution to the problem in my opinion. You might lose a few games at first, but in the long run your players and the team will be much better off for it.

With young kids I work on the following constantly:
- catching
- passing
- pivoting and jump stops
- ball security (pivot and rip the ball high or low)
- 1v0 drills where the defense tries to steal and you have to protect
- dribbling (retreat, protect, change direction, change speed)
- 1v1 advancement drills
- 1v2 drills (when ready)
- no dribble passing and spacing drills
- dribbling off the pass drills.

I have coached a lot of 8 year olds... some are able to sprint with their left hand dribble and throw a thread the needle pass off the bounce for a lay up. Others can barely dribble with nobody guarding them. But I tell you, if you focus on those things above, you can run an equal opportunity offense. Do we win every game? No. But I don't care. We win our fair share and I know ALL our players are developing a lot more than the other teams we are playing. I feel that is the right way to handle things.

One thing we do is run A LOT of 1v1 type of drills... every day. In games or even small sided games like 3on3, the less skilled players will pass to a better player to bail them out. In 1v1 full court advancement, there is no bail out. It's all on you and lots of development occurs. If that is too much for them, you start with shadow defense. So they just get used to dribbling with someone close. Then you match players up appropriately. Then you keep increasing the challenge until eventually you have a full team of point guards.

With all that said, let us know what specifically you need help with. I'd be happy to share drills, etc that we use with our youth teams.

Hi jdekker,

Agree with Jeff's statement about developing everyone. Most critical from your description would be to get everyone's ball handling skills up to par first. They can learn this very quickly if given the right instruction and repetitions! As far as game day goes, I accept that at 10 years and younger trying to give multiple cuts, back screens, etc. on offense is not going to work. After one movement, they are now thinking about the next movement instead of just playing. However, I do believe that until they are a little bit older, kids are interested in very direct instructions on what they should do. Read and react will not work for everybody but it's probably the best way to teach the game. If you just can't do that, here's what I call our "1-cut" offense (we call it Eagle because that's our nickname - call it anything you want) that is purposefully designed to get the ball out of the PG hands and into the hands of a player near the basket. At this age, once a shot goes up it's going to be a game of rebound-shoot-rebound-shoot-rebound-shoot until the defense gets a rebound or the offense scores.

Here's our play:
3 out, 2 in formation with two wings, PG on top and two low-post.

PG dribbles towards wing of his choice. As soon as it's clear which way he is going all of the other players have a responsibility:
Ball-side wing sprints towards PG and sets ball-screen so PG can dribble out to wing then rotates to top as fast break protection
Ball-side post sprints to other post to screen and weak post cuts to ball-side elbow. Original ball-side block then turns a little bit to set an additional screen.
Weak side wing cuts down towards weak-side post who sets a screen and weak side wing continues through to ball side short corner (halfway between lane and corner along base line)

At this point, your PG is on the wing with one teammate having cut to the elbow and another having cut to the short corner, the low post moved from one side to the other and the ball side wing has rotated to the top. Once the PG has made it to the wing, ALL FIVE PLAYERS HAVE MOVED! The defenders are likely to drift to one or the other of the elbow or the short corner, but not both. PG just has to pass it to the open man and then cut to the basket for offensive rebounds.

For a simple variant, line up in a 1-4 high offense. The wings spread out further and the posts start at the elbows. Everything is exactly the same but instead of cutting across from weak side block to strong side elbow, the post would cut from weak side elbow to strong side block.

This will work against both zone and man defenses. Even in a zone, the screeners just need to set picks against the defender nearest to the teammate they are screening for.

Jeff, is there a resource on your website for 1v1 drills/games?

Here are a few links for you...

https://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/drills/high-five-one-on-one.html
https://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/play.asp?id=66
https://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/drills/1on1-grid-drill.html
https://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/drills/competitiveoneonone.html

https://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/pr/30-competitive-drills.html