YBCA

AT:

Love the idea of manipulating the size and asking the players which size they prefer or which size gives them the biggest advantage. Great idea. 

Brendan:

To work on finishing under pressure, I'll do drills where the defense starts under the basket and then contests the offensive player after he receives a pass from a cut. Getting to a situation of “real” defense and making a move off the cut is difficult because of spacing, at least in terms of a real game. Truthfully, you're only going to make the pass if the player is open. Their defender should be behind them and the next help defender is likely only going to be in position to contest the shot.

I have done a drill where the player penetrates from the wing and the help defender starts in the middle of the key, has to shuffle or crossover step out of the key and then return to contest the shot. To practice the trailing defender, you could have the defender defend the pass and then have to touch a cone that takes the defender slightly out of position and puts the defender in a trailing position.

If you want a more 1v1 drill, a drill that Renato Pasquali (Canada's Technical Director) uses is to start with a line on one side and an offense and a defense on the other side. The first line has the ball and dribbles into the scoring zone (three-point line) and keeps the drible alive. The other offensive player cuts and receives the pass. As soon as he receives the pass, it's 1v1. Defense tries to prevent the catch and then plays defense. You could do the same thing starting from a pass from the offensive player, though it'll be more 1v1 and less of a pass and cut drill. Depends what you're emphasizing most. 

Had 4th practice today. Only 6 players.

We started out with our dynamic warmup routine. And then moved on to the following:

1. Dribble tag
2. Dribble chase/cone layups
3. We played 3v3 football (full court) with a dodgeball. No dribbling. The emphasis was on cutting, moving, passing and spacing.
4. 1v1 Foster Drill

I'm stuck in that quandry too. 

I don't want to discourage players from cutting, as I don't want players standing around, but we tend to cut in each other's way or cut into passing lanes at the wrong time, etc. 

It's a process not to take away their instincts, but also to get them to see the value in certain cuts or the value in spreading the court.

The one thing that I try to eliminate is running to the ball. It's why running PnR is a dangerous first skill. I made a rule that the passer cannot set the on-ball screen. With a dribble hand-off, the dribbler initiates and dribbles at the receiver, and not vice versa. 

I think motion offenses are difficult. My team struggles competitively because we're running a motion and not running plays. 

It's too bad that children do not play on their own anymore. My junior high teams used to fast break so much because we didn't want to run the stupid plays. Now, that's all young players know. 

Even at the high school level, it's a struggle to get all three. I still get plenty of turnovers when we play cut throat with three rules: (1) pass and basket cut; (2) catch and square; and (3) no putting the ball over your head unless you're shooting, passing or making a quick fake. 

I tell players that offense, at its most simplistic, is about creating space. (1) You need to create space individually away from your defender, whether you have the ball or not, to create a passing lane, driving lane or shot; and (2) you have to create space away from teammates so that a teammate has a lane or to prevent help. All the other things (screens, hand-offs, cuts, etc) are used to create space or to make it easier to create space. Initially, I want players to get the idea without screens, which is why I start with cuts and filling behind the cut. 

But, that's the idea. To create space from teammates, you could use the 9 spots and show where 5 people fit into those 9: so, you don't want all five in the five closest spots. 

We used to play a game where on a pass, every player had to find a new spot. Something like that.

Had our first game Saturday and a few things became apparent:

1. Spacing continues to be an issue (not surprisingly)
2. Defense is a problem in the sense that many players are locked into guarding only “their man.”
3. Creating a passing lane/getting open

Brian, a side question here. I've read over the years about the differences you have noticed in how American teams and European teams (generally) warmup before practice or games.

How are you having the freshman team warm up on game days?

Thanks,

Before I was exposed to the LTAD development model, I would have approached the first 10 practices and 2 games differently. However, after incorpoating ideas I've read in “Crossover” I feel better about the fact that the team looks out of control, w/o much of a clue of what they're doing.

Every now and then, there will be individuals who do something simple we have been working on, and that's where I really see the LTAD ideas I try and use.

Obviously, with a 3rd-4th grade rec team, I won't have the same players next year. So, it'll be starting over, but that's fine. Since I'm shooting for the players longer-term athletic development and just having fun, the slower development is better. It's like properly cooking certain things on the stove: at times, cooking at the highest temperature (cooking as fast as possible) will ruin the dish.

We're practicing twice a week now (1 hour each time). I try and plan for about 25 minutes of scrimmage each time. 

I'd like to get better at teaching movement/motion concepts (pass and cut; don't bunch up/spacing). I think I need to use more games involving passing and everybody moving to a different “motion spot.”

We've worked on screens a bit in practice and kids are trying that in games, though only ball screens, which can muddy things up. At the level I'm coaching, passing is pretty ragged, so running off-ball screens to get someone open is something I'm not sure I'll be spending too much time doing in practice.

I'm continuing to do a variety of dynamic warmups for about 10 minutes to start practice, and then about 10-15 minutes of skill development (dribbling, layups).

It's going ok so far. 

That is the problem with typical leagues. If you chose to use an LTAD philosophy, you'll probably lose AND you don't get the benefits of the players' development next year. Some other coach wins this year with his great plays or great player, and next year, everyone gets new players so his lack of development is not exposed. He's the “great, winning” coach, and you're not. Nobody wants to be the one who loses doing the right thing, so most people take the short-term approach because the youth league is designed as a short-term league. 

This is one reason why I think the criticism of youth AAU is unwarranted, in some respects. Done correctly, your situation in a club environment would give you or your club the opportunity to retain the players and potentially see the benefits next year from the development. 

At the high school level, that's my goal. I hope the players develop this season so when they reach the varsity level, they are better than the players on the teams that we play now. If the varsity goes on to win league, nobody will remember their freshmen record. You only remember your freshmen record if your JV year or varsity years weren't very good. I have no idea what our record was as a freshman; I imagine we were slightly over .500, but I have no idea. I do know that as JVs, we won our last 21 or 22 games in a row and ended something like 24-4. The development as freshmen led to a league championship as sophomores even though we were less successful as freshmen. I think that's the goal. 

However, in youth leagues, without the continuity, it's harder to have the goals. 

Some coaches, like you, are willing to focus on development. Few others are. For all the criticism of AAU, some of the worst abuses are in parks and recreation leagues. My friend coached in a league where the top 5 kids from the previous season signed up after the teams had been picked so they could be put on their own team and dominate the league. My friend's third best player was his son who had Down's syndrome. Those parents and coaches had two very different goals in mind for their chindren's participation. 

Leagues need to take more control. I'm frustrated because I pitch ideas to leagues who have over a thousand players, and they say they have no money or desire to run coach education or coach mentoring programs. As long as they're not abusive, the leagues don't really care what the coaches do. I think leagues need to have a better philosophy and oversee the coaching. I pitched the idea of a Director of Coaching to the local Jr. NBA which has 40,000 players. My idea was for th league to offer the opportunity for parents to pay $1 extra that would go toward the DoC position and coach-education programs. Zero interest from the league.

It's my argument that Parks & Rec and other organizations should have an adminsitrative person in charge of sign-ups, logistics, scheduling, etc., and a basketball person who is in charge of overseeing the coaches, assisting the coaches, running clinics for players and coaches, overseeing officials, etc. 

Hiring a basketball person to do the management aspct, while ignoring the basketball aspects leads to multiple inefficiencies, which at the end of the day make the programs less successful.

In youth basketball, you should have an idea of what you are getting when you sign up for a program. Instead, everything depends on the luck of the draw with the coach because there is no philosophy, no goals, no methodology, etc.