5 Basketball Decision Training Drills with Chris Oliver: Shooting, Ball Handling, Passing, Counter Moves, and Lay Ups

Joe Haefner: Hey, this is coach Joe Haefner. In this next video, coach Chris Oliver is going to take you through his unique basketball decision training system also known as BDT that helps with developing your skills and your decision making. You will also learn six BDT training drill progressions that coach Oliver uses at the beginning of teaching BDT. You have coaches, parents, trainers and players all using coach Oliver's BDT system all the way from the youth, high school, college, and even the NBA level.

Chris Oliver: Basketball decision training is mind training. It is an opportunity for us to be able to train the mind of our player and simulate the decisions that they would make in a game while at the same time training their skills. Basketball decision training operates on the principle of random practice. Random practice means on each repetition, our players have to think because each repetition is unique and different than the one before. They don't know what's going to happen, so on each repetition, they must think and decide what they're going to do.

Chris Oliver: The opposite of random practice is block practice. Block practice means they do the same repetition over and over again in the same way. If we give you an example of shooting, it means that a player goes to a spot in block practice and shoots the same shot from the same spot over and over again. In random practice, the player will shoot from a different spot each time, and they wouldn't know necessarily in advance what type of shot they were going to shoot, whether it be us changing the distance, changing the angle or changing the release point of that shot.

Chris Oliver: Basketball decision training applies our zero second skills in a way that helps our players understand the decision that is going to be made in a game situation. The value of basketball decision training is that it improves retention and transfer to performance because we are practicing in a game-like way. It's more likely that our skills and our decisions are going to transfer to the game.

Chris Oliver: The main component of basketball decision training is that we give each player a decision cue to be able to make a decision. The decision cue can come from a coach, a player, or a parent, whoever you have available to be able to help you as a learner. The value is not just to the shooter who becomes an active decision maker. It's also to the passer who becomes an active participant in the shooter's learning. To give you an example of what those decisions are, I'll show you our hand signals and body signals that cue a decision by the learner.

Chris Oliver: The first decision is to pass the ball. The signal to pass the ball is hands out. The decision to shoot the ball is hands down. The decision to drive the ball is a step towards. The decision to be able to drive the ball and counter is a step to the side. All those examples are meant to cue a decision by the learner. Each of those decisions relates to a game-like decision, so it gives our players a building block that leads to a game decision with live competitive defense.

Chris Oliver: For example, a defender who is arm length away versus a defender who is more than arm length away or has their hands down. If my hands are down or that I'm more than arm length away, the decision is to shoot. That's why the decision is hands down. The decision to pass the ball is based on the defender being arm length away. If a defender's arm length away, then you're going to make a decision to pass the ball. If a defender is running at you, then your decision on a long close out is to attack. If an offensive player attacks with a live dribble and the defender reaches in gaps and gets chest to chest, then the decision is to counter.

Chris Oliver: Those four decision cues are the building blocks of everything else we do with basketball decision training.

Chris Oliver: The first drill we use to teach basketball decision training is 21O passing. The partner gives the shooter decision cues to be able to make. We started as simple as possible using hands out and hands down, so the shooter is either going to shoot or pass. When we talk about passing, we encourage the shooter to never throw a chest pass.

Chris Oliver: We don't feel that the chest pass exists as much in the game anymore, so we encourage our player to be able to pass outside their body using a hook pass, a behind the back pass or some variation of those two passes. We also want both of them to be able to have fun, so the goal of the passer is to make sure that they challenge the shooter to make a unique decision on each shot, so it's random, and they don't know what's coming.

Chris Oliver: The next progression in our basketball decision training shooting is to change the decision queues. Now, we'll go hands up and step towards. That means that the shooter is either going to pass the ball or they're going to drive the ball using our stab dribble concept. It should be noted that we change the shooter after two to three repetitions.

Chris Oliver: The next progression in basketball decision training is to mix all three decision cues together. So now, we can go hands up, hands down, and step towards, and we mix all three together.

Chris Oliver: After a learner's progressed, we add the fourth decision cue, which is step to the side. This signals the offensive player to counter off the dribble simulating that the defender got chest to chest. Chest to chest is the defense's advantage. Ever since players started playing basketball, coaches have always said stay between the ball and the basket.

Chris Oliver: This for us represents what we call chest to chest position. We want the offensive player to always get into a shoulder to chest position, so the counter allows the offensive player to get back to a shoulder to chest advantage. You can use any type of dribble on the counter, but we prefer the behind the back dibble. The reason we prefer the behind the back dribble is because the offensive player is able to keep their head up, have vision to the basket and to obviously be able to read the help and their teammates, but also they're able to quickly run through their dribble so that there's no pause on the dribble.

Chris Oliver: And now, we're going to mix all four of those decisions together to make it even more game-like. We encourage coaches and players to progress as quickly as possible to the four decisions mixed together. We believe very much in the concept of hard first instruction because a player will have a better representation of where they're going. What this means is that by making it harder first, a player will have a better understanding of the game-like skills and the game-like decisions that they have to make. Even though they may struggle, in the long run, this helps retention and transfer to performances.

Chris Oliver: We increased the game-like nature of basketball decision training to add different decisions that you would make as an offensive player in a game. This example, we add relocation. Every time the player passes the ball back to their partner, they relocate. This simulates moving off the ball in the game of basketball, whether it be off a post entry, a penetration reaction, or a passing cut opportunity.

Joe Haefner: Hey, we hope you enjoyed the video. If you want to gain free access to more tips, drills, and teachings of coach Oliver's basketball decision training system, just click on the link below or in the description.