In addition to the Skills and Drills Clinics, Elite Basketball Training will be expanding on its successful Half Day Hoops Series from last fall.  In its preliminary year, the Half Day Hoops Fest was run over the course of two days with great success as many parents liked the opportunity for their son or daughter to work on their basketball skills on their days off from school.  This year, we are giving them even more opportunities to do so as the Half Day Hoops Series has been expanded from two sessions last fall to include five sessions this fall.  Each session runs for three hours and if you sign up for all five sessions you can get in at the low cost of $150.  That’s only $10 per hour!  To register please click here ==> HALF DAY HOOPS SERIES.

Last but certainly not least, Elite Basketball Training is running its first ever fall session of the widely popular Elite Basketball Bootcamp.  Basketball training is not always about skill development and the Elite Basketball Bootcamp is a great way to increase your strength, speed, agility, vertical jump, and conditioning on the basketball court.  As parents and players have become more aware of this, this summer’s Elite Basketball Bootcamp saw its enrollment increase to four times the amount it was last year.  These workouts are intense, use alternative training methods, and are geared toward basketball players that are serious about taking their game to a whole new level.  Equally as exciting, this fall the Elite Basketball Bootcamp will run for an extra week and will be held indoors at The Sports Zone Fitness Center in Edison.  For more information and a registration form click here ==> Elite Basketball Bootcamp. 

As always, I keep the number of players attending my clinics low to ensure that those attending receive as much individualized attention as possible.  So don’t miss the opportunity to work on your basketball skills, strength, and speed this fall.  SIGN UP NOW so that you can become an ELITE BASKETBALL PLAYER. 

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The 12 Cone Ballhandling Drill is usually done for a specific period of time (ex. 30 seconds) with each move.  The players can and should incorporate all their change of directions moves into the drill.  As the player gets more advanced, they should also use double change of directions moves in order to make the drill more challenging.  While doing this drill, it is important to make sure that the player is moving quickly fom cone to cone, staying low with their body and the dribble throughout the entire segment of the drill, and moving past each cone explosively as if to simulate beating a defender.  Ultimately, this is a great drill for guards to build up their guard skills, but it can and should be used by all players looking to develop better ballhandling skills.

Purpose of the Drill:

The purpose of this drill is to pressure the basketball by zig zagging or turning the ball handler and then close out on a live dribble.

Instructions

• The defensive player should zig zag or turn the ball handler as many times as possible going from sideline to sideline.
• Try to stay between the top of the key and half court.

• Once the two players have reached the opposite sideline, the defensive player sprints and touches the baseline and closes out on the ball handler who is sprint dribbling around a cone at half court and then attacking the basket.

Points of Emphasis:

Offense:

• Make the defender have to work while guarding you by changing speeds and changing directions.
• Attack the rim aggressively with one move and as few dribbles as possible.
• Explode past the defender after making your move. 

Defense:

• Be aggressive on the ball and turn the ball handler as many times as possible.
• Sprint to the closeout.
• Close out low, aggressive, balanced, and under control.
• Keep the ball in front of you and force the ball handler to take a shot outside of the lane.
• Box out to finish the drill.

The great part about the NCAA tournament is that you get to watch guys who are not household names step up and play basketball on such a big stage.  Ali Farokmanesh is no acception and man can this guy shoot the basketball.  In the first round he hit a deep three in the closing seconds to help his team beat UNLV.  Then for an encore, in the second round on a 2 on 1 break with 21 seconds left in the game and his team only up one point, he pulls up and nails the three pointer that stopped the Kansas Jayhawks.  It should also be mentioned that these were not the only two three-pointers that Farokmanesh hit in these two games.  He actually had five in the first game and four in the second.  Simply stated, the guy can shoot.  So how did it happen, what does it take to shoot the ball like Ali Farokmanesh?

I recently read an email that was written and sent to me by Randy Brown of the Iowa Player Development Academy that detailed exactly what Ali Farokmanesh does to become a great shooter, and below is that email. 

As I watched I noticed three things:

At my Elite Basketball Training workouts the players are challenged to become complete basketball players, players that can pass dribble, and shoot at the highest athletic ability that they are capable of.  The key to their success is to put in a quality workout each and every time that they train with me. 

Don’t miss out on an opportunity to become a complete player.  Contact me about the Elite Basketball Training programs to see which ones are the best fit for you. 

Like anything else, to develop a good passer, the player and/or team must practice that particular skill.  With limited time during the season to work on your team’s defensive and offensive schemes, passing drills tend to take a back seat if they even get a seat at all.  So that pushes the development of that skill to the offseason, and players usually do not incorporate passing drills into their workouts.  Consequently, players do not end up learning the fundamental skill of passing.   For players to be effective passers, they must work on passing as an individual skill but also within the team concept.  In doing so, the following teaching points should be focused on:

• Crisp passes.  There are too many players that float their passes and that leads to steals for their opponent.  Using a medicine ball or a weighted basketball will help develop this skill.
• Follow through.  Following through will help with making the pass crisper and also more direct.  Players should point their index finger of the hand they are throwing with at the target that they are throwing to.
• Ball fake.  Often times players throw the ball directly off the hands of their opponent because it is telegraphed. A good ball fake will help alleviate this issue.
• Vary your passes.  Players need to be able to throw all kinds of passes with both hands…YES, YOU MUST BE ABLE TO PASS WITH YOUR OFF HAND TOO. 

It is a necessity that passing gets incorporated back into a player’s skill development as well as team practices.  This will go a long way toward eliminating this major defficiency in the game of basketball.  When doing so, emphasize the key points that are mentioned above and do not let your basketball players develop bad passing habits.   The following video is of a drill that is called Footfire Passing.  It is a simple drill that can be used to develop crisp passing while also incorporating footwork and conditioning.

Dynamic Warmup

Basketball Specific Warmup: I usually start each workout with ball handling so my players usually go through a series of pound drills with either one ball or two.  Each specific dribble (crossovers, between the legs, inside outs) takes about 25 seconds.

Full court ball handling (w/ one ball or two balls): This usually consists of various full court ball handling drills that incorporate the different change of direction moves (crossover, between the legs, behind the back, spin dribble, etc.)  as well as changes of speed.  This is also meant to work on the player’s game specific conditioning, so rest between reps is often limited to 30 seconds or less.  Beginners usually perform one up and back per move at 75% of their max speed and two up and backs per move at full speed and I encourage you to add to that as the player advances and their conditioning increases. 

The next series of drills usually consists of weak hand development drills.  These drills incorporate passing the ball with your weak hand either on the catch, off a pound, out of a change of direction, or in a half court situation off the dribble.  For these drills, the player usually performs two drills that are stationary and two that are done while moving with the dribble.  During each drill, the player completes 8-10 reps per set with about 30 seconds rest in between sets.

My players will then get into their jump shooting or finishing drills or both depending upon the length of the workout.  If the player is focusing on finishing around the rim, they will start off with one or two warmup finishing drills like circle layups (which consists of continuous finishes off the catch).  Upon completion of the warmup, we will get into a series of finishing drills that incorporate creating space off the catch (like a side angle step across or rip through series) or finishing off the dribble (like a six cone attack drill).  Throughout both drills, it is important to incorporate various ways to create space and/or change direction.

If the player is working more on their jump shot that day, they will start off with a series of form shooting drills. We will then get into different shooting drills that allow that player to get shots off the catch and off the dribble.  All the while these drills must be done at game speed, from game spots.

With the finishing and shooting drills, the reps are usually determined by a number of makes.  In other words, the player must make 10 shots during a set or 50 shots during the workout.  It should be noted that if the focus of that workout is on jump shooting then the player will take considerably more jump shots in the hour or hour and half session. 

At the end of each set of drills the players are challenged to make a one and one free throw situation.  If they miss the front end, it is 10 pushups.  If they make the first and miss the second, it is five pushups.  If they make both, they do none.   

Often times, the players will finish with some sort of competition shooting game that puts pressure on the player to make shots consecutively.  For example, the Bird Drill is a five spot shooting drill that gives the player two minutes to see how far they can get around and back.  The key is that they cannot move from one spot until they have hit two jumpers in a row.  This is a challenging but fun drill that the players really enjoy.

This workout, is a template for some of the workouts that my players go through.  It can and should be modified to fit the player’s needs.  There is no one generic workout, that can be given to players because all players have their strengths and weaknesses that they need to work on.  However, there are certain apsects of the game that should be worked on in each training session, and I have tried to lay them out for you here and in my previous posts , The Six Keys to Basketball Skill Development and 10 Keys to a Shooting Workout.