THOUGHTS ON IMPROVING IN THE OFF-SEASON
Basketball has an extremely long competitive season. The relatively short off-season period is a critical time and needs to be maximized. The point of this article is to help players make the most of this time period. Players who know how to practice intelligently will gain an advantage over their peers. These players will capture the attention of their coaches in the fall with expanded games and increased value to their teams.
Basketball has an extremely long competitive season. The relatively short off-season period is a critical time and needs to be maximized. The point of this article is to help players make the most of this time period. Players who know how to practice intelligently will gain an advantage over their peers. These players will capture the attention of their coaches in the fall with expanded games and increased value to their teams.
Take an honest self-inventory of your skills. Ask yourself: What will my role be on the team next season? Remember, your coach determines your role, not you. You need to know exactly how he sees you fitting into the team. If you are not sure, ask your coach.
Now, ask yourself: How can I expand my role? Where can I improve specifically so that I become more valuable for my team? Example: I am a good rebounder and defender. My ball handling skills are relatively weak. My shooting mechanics are poor.
Now, ask yourself: How can I expand my role? Where can I improve specifically so that I become more valuable for my team? Example: I am a good rebounder and defender. My ball handling skills are relatively weak. My shooting mechanics are poor.
Look at the amount of time that you have to work prior to next season. How will you use this time? Will you be playing in any AAU or summer league programs? How much time will be invested in these programs? Caution! Be careful that you don’t spend too much time playing and not enough time working to improve your game! Ball skills take correct repetitions to develop and this takes time. Here is some math to consider: If you play in 5 AAU games and each game is 32 minutes long, that is a total of 160 minutes. There are 10 players on the court, and 1 ball, 160 divided by 10 = 16 minutes. If all things are equal (which they never are) and you play every minute of every game (which you probably won’t) you will have had the ball a whopping total of 16 minutes in those 5 games. That doesn’t allow you much time to develop your ball handling and shooting skills. In contrast, a well planned 1-hour workout will allow you basically 60 minutes of focused work on your ball skills. It would take more than 18 games to get that much “ball in your hands time.”
In summary, to start improving and preparing for next season: Evaluate your game. Know your role. Look at your time and resources. Set some goals based upon an intelligent expansion of your role. Make some plans for focused practice. Don’t spend too much of your precious time playing in games during your off-season. Spend your time preparing to play in next season’s games.
I love the mathematical breakdown of game time vs. solo practice time ... great point. I think summer games are cool, because they give players a chance to bust out moves they might be afraid to try in a regular season game with a coach watching and a district record on the line. But summer games are no substitute for summer workouts. ... Great to have some high-level b-ball talk in the blogosphere. Keep it coming, Doug!
ReplyDelete