Basketball Training: Skills, Speed, and Strength » dribbling drills

What Ever Happened to the Back-Dribble?

Rich — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 10:34:54 +0000

About two weeks ago, I was at an AAU event promoting my new recruiting service for high school student athletes called The Highlight Reel and I was able to catch a few of the basketball games. Although the skill level was high and the games were exciting, I could not help but notice that something was glaringly absent from every player’s game…the back-dribble. On countless occasions I saw the guards sprint the basketball up the court (usually the sideline) with a defender chasing on their inside hip. Instead of changing pace and directions, the players would continue toward the rim and shoot a contested shot. This begs the question, what ever happened to the back-dribble? In many of these situations, the guard would have done well to use their back-dribble to change pace thereby creating space between themselves and the defender. This would have caused the defender to then be off balance and allowed the ball-handler to change directions, attack the rim, and most likely get a better shot at the basket or perhaps an assist. It is hard to say why the back-dribble has seemed to disappear (this event was not the only time I had witnessed this) but I left that tournament thinking that it was something that needed to be incoroporated into many of my Elite Basketball Training workouts. One thought is that the player is uncomfortable changing speeds and directions and it is simply easier to push the ball ahead and try to outrun their defender. Another possibility is that the player has a weak opposite hand and does not want to back-dribble and change directions for fear of having to use that hand. Either way, the back-dribble is all but lost and needs to make a reappearance. Below is a simple drill that will allow you to practice using your back-dribble to change speeds and directions.

Categories: Ballhandling / Dribbling Offensive Moves
Ages: All Ages Youth Middle School High School+

Purpose of the Drill:

The purpose of this drill is to allow players to work on creating space while using their back-dribble and then change directions.

Instructions

The player will attack each chair off the dribble, one after the other, at full speed.
As they approach the chair, they should use their back-dribble to create space for themselves as the chair represents a defender.
They will then change directions with a change of direction move (crossover, between the legs, behind the back, etc.) and attack the rim for a finish.
They then repeat the process at each chair.

Points of Emphasis:

Attack at full speed. Not doing this, will defeat the purpose of using the back dribble.
Push off the front leg in order to create more space for themselves.
Work on attacking with both hands.
Stay low in the backdribble and attack off the change of direction quickly.
Work on finishing at the rim and shooting the jumper off the dribble.
You can even incorporate a post player into this drill to allow the guard to drop off a pass to them.

Motivation/Teaching Tips:

Use a prescribed number of made shots before moving on to the next chair.

Build Grip Strength for Better Ball Handling

Rich — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:20:02 +0000

I have made the point in the past about how important grip strength is for basketball players. Having witnessed on countless occassions a player coming down with a rebound only to have it ripped right from his hands is frustrating to watch. This is one of the major reasons why I am a big advocate of using sandbags to strength train for basketball. It is very difficult to find an easy spot to grip the bag so that forces your hands to get stronger or you will drop the bag. Having strong hands is not only important for holding on to the basketball, but also for becoming a better ball handler. Simply stated, the stronger your hands are the better you are going to be at handling the basketball because stronger hands will give you a better grip on the ball.

Aside from training with sandbags, another great way to build stronger hands is to incorporate smaller medicine balls (4 or 6 pounds) into your basketball training workouts. Playing catch with these size medicine balls will build grip strength because they are small enough to catch in your hand but large enough and heavy enough to make catching them difficult.

Start by just tossing the medicine ball up and catching it with your elbow and forearm horizontal to the floor (like you would have your guard arm up while handling a basketball) and palm facing down and out. This will challenge your hands to really grip the medicine ball as you catch it and force you to keep your guard arm up (anther common mistake that novice ball handlers make). Do not catch the medicine ball under hand! This is too easy and defeats the two main purposes of the drill: building grip stregnth and getting your guard arm up. As you progress through this drill, the next step in this series would be to pound the basketball while executing the toss and catch with your opposite hand. Once again, make sure that you are catching the ball with your arm up and palm facing out. You could also have a partner toss you the medicine ball while you are dribbling the basketball. This is a little more challenging since the medicine ball is now travelling a greater distance towards you for you to catch. Finally, execute a change of direction move such as a crossover, a between the legs move, or a behind the back move while the medicine ball is in flight. This will make the drill even more of a challenge because you now have to focus on the change of direction move as well as the medicine ball catch. (These last two progressions that I mentioned are viewable in the video below).

If you have any other ideas on how to incorporate the smaller medicine balls into you basketball training workouts please let us now in the comments section.

Ball Handling Drills With a Tennis Ball?

Rich — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:52:20 +0000

One of the biggest problems that basketball players have with ball handling is that they are constantly looking down at the ball. In doing so, they are missing all that is going on around them on the court. A missed pass for an open layup or jumper can mean the difference in the game. That is why guys that are good at handling the ball are always looking up. Consequently, they are able to make the correct decisions with the basketball during the course of the game.

A ball handling drill that can be used during your basketball training to help keep your head up is dribbling a basketball while tossing a tennis ball to yourself and catching it. This drill requires extreme concentration and focus on the tennis ball in order to catch it, so there is no way that you can look down at the basketball while you are dribbling it. Start this ball handling drill off by simply standing in place, pounding the basketball with one hand, and tossing the tennis ball up and catching it with the other. The next step would be to add a change of direction dribble (ie. a crossover, between the legs, behind the back, etc.). So stay in one spot, toss the tennis ball up, do a crossover dribble, and catch the tennis ball with the other hand. The third step after you have mastered the first two would be to add movement. Going full court using a zig zag pattern dribble the basketball and when you change direction with the basketball, toss the tennis ball up and catch it with the other hand. You can and should use all your change of direction moves with these drills. The final two steps would be to add double moves (double crossover, behind the back crossover, behind the back between the legs, double between the legs, etc.), and then double moves with movement.

These final three steps can be seen in the video below where the player is first going full court zig zag with a single move while tossing the tennis ball to himself. Then he does a stationary double between the legs while tossing and catching the tennis ball. Finally, he does the double between the legs move while dribbling full court.