Ben,

You're welcome. By the way, don't let anyone tell you that you CANT do something... to me, that was the best challenge/motivator that I could ever get. That would just make me work harder. :-)

The more experience you get a playing the game the easier it will become to make those decisions.... work on these moves in practice, see what works best for you right now and go with those in games. Then in practice work on the other moves that you want to incorporate into your game. Have confidence in yourself.... you know what you can do and of course all the bigger players love stuffing shorter players (and the big ones too ) maybe that kind of defender you take the ball right into his body and let the ref decide. Remember, at your level you wont always get the right call from refs, the higher level that you play at the better the reffing gets.

If you were to say right now what your best two moves are - what would they be? I can tell you this, you can be the post players best friend IF you can deliver him the ball for an easy shot...... even the wing that can hit the three because you forced his defender to help out. Be patient, all this stuff will come as you play more.... the game is made up of mistakes, the better players make less of them - so don't let a few mistakes get you down....
Basketball is a game of quickness and I'm not sure how quick you are but I do know that you are a good shooter and THAT will only get better. Work on your quickness as you practice - the higher level that you play at the bigger, quicker, stronger and better the players get....... you will get that way too...

Good luck and let us know how things are going.

when you say 2 moves do you mean dribble moves (crossover etc.)

Yes, what two moves do you get your best shots from? Crossover into a jump shot or take - fake crossover, step back to a jumper etc. You are still playing the point guard right?

Ok my favorite move is a pump fake one dribble pull up and my next favorite move is a texas two step by the defender and then give a bounce pass to my big man

Yes i still play pg

Your big man must love you then... they love to get the ball inside.

What is your second favorite move to get yourself a good shot? Are your teammates doing anything to get you open? (or is that not part of the offensive philosophy?) If you look at the one film of us we did a few things to get Brian open... he could shoot the three ball very well... which opened things up for him to take it to the basket.

Can you hit the 3 pretty regularly? What kind of range do you have comfortably?

Here is something from a very good coach in Italy... (retired)
Well, Europe still has some creators, like Ricky Rubio, but even he will do a Rajon Rondo every so often. So, the problem is not with Rajon Rondo, Derrick Rose, Tony Parker, Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Russell Westbrook, Jameer Nelson, or even Steve Nash. They can execute that style and do it perfectly. The problem is when you drop a notch from that level of supreme technical-athletic talent. Now you have point guards trying to play that way without that sort of equipment. Those are the ones that should be studying old Bob Cousy films to see how you can make a team hum even though you can't do the 100 meters in World Class time. That's a hard lesson to get across and a hard one to accept. Dan Peterson

I meant to ask you about your defense, we have been talking offense for a long time now. Being a great defensive player as a point guard is very important... and being able to shut someone down and help get you some easy shots.

So, how would you rate yourself defensivley?

To answer your first question i would say my second favorite move is to pull up in lane on a fast break. I would say i have pretty good range and i could. Hit the 3 better than 35 percent in a game but i don't ive shot a 3 this fall season.

As for the offense we don't run a lot of plays for the pg im going to say maybe 1 or 2. For my defensive ability i would say i was one of the better defenders on my team.

IF they let you shoot pull up jumpers in the lane off the fast break I would say that your coach has a lot of confidence in you. I didn't have many players that I were good at that or that I allowed them to do that. We usually wanted the first shot off of a ball reversal or inside out on the break. I've seen your shot and its very good... and it will only get better..... 35% from the arc is good, thats like shooting 50% from inside the arc. If they have a set play for you to get a shot, make sure you set up your defender well and come off your screens closely - and read how he defends you and react accordingly.

We always felt like we had a lot of pride in our defense and it all started with the point guard ....IF you can control the other teams point guard and take him out of his game, you are a huge assest to your team. You have a lot of UP SIDE to your game Ben, and its all going to improve as you get bigger and stronger.

You are playing AAU ball right now? How is that going for you? You must be having a good experience with that since you are still playing.

AAU is going good.
Getting ready for another tournament this weekend.

Good luck!