Failure! Coaching Youth Basketball

I was reading about a surprisingly effective NBA rookie. They asked the question about this guy: how can he be so effective when he was drafted so low?

The answer: confidence.

Okay, we've all heard this before, but where does this confidence come from? This confidence comes from missing a lot of shots, it comes from failure. This confidence comes from missing all of these shots a bunch of times, in games, in practice, everywhere. Yes, missing breeds confidence because of this: missing while being allowed to expand ones game is what causes confidence.

Confidence does NOT come from giving your guys a false sense of security by playing against equally talented players.

And this is where the youth basketball coach comes in. Teach your guys to shoot correctly - and I don't mean this foot there and that foot here, should position, blah, blah, blah - I mean shoot from a position of power and snap the wrist at the rim. Then give your guys the freedom to shoot these shots often enough where they will confidence in it. That means your guys will miss this shot a bunch of times. A whole lot of times.

Then one day, your guys will make 3 out of 10. Then 4. Then 6. Then he's confident.

St. John's Game Winning Shot - Coaching Youth Basketball

Did anyone see the game winning shot St. John's University had against Pitt? Let's take a quick look at it. The play broke down - as plays almost always do. And the Johnnies were left with a guy with the ball on the right side of the floor. Plenty of space and time to get something going. He drove and put in a twisting, running layup.

This just didn't happen by luck. This guy practiced this shot. And somewhere along the way, his youth coach gave him the freedom to shoot this shot, and many others very much like it. At some point, his youth coach saw the value - the long term, life changing value - in allowing this guy the freedom to try new things, to expand his game, to fail.

This is exactly what you should be encouraging, letting your players play in a format (note I avoid the term "system") that gives them the freedom to fail.

But what of the other guys? If you watch closely, the other four on the team adjusted their position on the floor to be available for a pass, ready to make their own play if that's the result would be. What looks like an entirely 1 on 1 play was really 5 guys working together to get a game winning shot. Unscripted, and within the flow of the game.

I wonder how many times before this player missed this shot? Probably hundreds if not thousands.

Teaching The Pattern Offense in Youth Basketball

Yesterday we talked about playing against the pattern offense. Let me take a moment and describe to you what the team running the pattern offense should have spent their practice time doing.

We were consistently able to steal the ball on the dribble. Rather than learning the pattern, they should have spent that time practicing their dribbling. We were able to steal the ball on the wing entry pass - use your time learning how to get open on the wing. We were able to steal the ball when they tried to pass the ball into the post - use that time to learn how to pass off the dribble or from a position of power.

The point I'm making is this: practice time is incredibly precious for any basketball team. If you use your time practicing a pattern instead of working on the skills to make that pattern work, you're not making your kids better players. You're only making them better at running a pattern. There is a huge, substantial difference.

The Pattern Offense in Youth Basketball

This is a lesson that applies to any level of basketball - young kids to professionals. We were playing a 6th grade girls game last week. Our team consists of a couple of 6th grade girls, a couple 5th graders, and a 4th grade girl. The team we were playing was big, probably the tallest we have faced this year.

So through much of the first half, we really struggled defensively. The other team was running a simple pattern - enter the ball to the wing then look for a big post camped out in the lane who would then shoot over us. We tried and tried to stop this simple pattern but they were just too tall. They would simply shoot over us, miss, get the rebound, and shoot layups.

However, in the second half, we played against the pattern, NOT the player. It was easy from there. If we didn't get the steal on the wing pass, we would force the wing to put the ball on the floor and steal it off the dribble. The ball went into their big post maybe 3 times.

That's the trouble with pattern offenses. If your team can learn the pattern, then the team you're playing against can as well. And the simply defend the pattern, not the players.

More tomorrow on why you should avoid patterns.

Coaching Youth Basketball: The Pick and Roll

I've been reading some other blogs and websites about coaching youth basketball and I came across one that talked about how to teach the pick and roll to a youth team. I'm not going to say one idea is wrong. Or that my way is better. But I will explain why I think the way I do.

I would not teach the screen roll until the kids are at least 9th grade. I wouldn't even let them know the play exists. For two reasons:

1) You don't have time. All of your practice time will be used to introduce, practice, and perfect the individual skills necessary to complete a play like the screen and roll. Even if you have 2 hours a day 4 or 5 days a week, you still don't have time. Your precious practice time will be way, way, waaaaayyyyy better used learning to turn the corner on a defender, pull of a snappy crossover or between the legs, things like that. Ad to that learning how to screen and what to do with the ball if the screener actually gets the ball. And ad to that learning to pass the ball correctly. Yeah, there's too much to do before teaching the screen and roll.

2) Once you teach the screen and roll you will find that your players will bail out to that play too often. When you are running a play (which I recommend that you do NOT) and it breaks down, they will run to that play more often than not. Now you're running the screen and roll much more than you had planned.

More later on everything you need to teach before you get to the screen and roll

How Do You Spend Your Practice Time?

This same guy that played for this famous professional told me something else interesting. And this confirmed what I learned about 10 years into my coaching career. He said that during all the years that he had played at the higher levels - NCAA DI and professional - his practices consisted of about 80% offense and 20% defense.

Why is this important to you the youth coach? Because offense wins championships, not defense. We will save that nugget for a later discussion, but what you need to learn from this is that your practice should be spent with your kids doing something with the ball. Dribbling and shooting mostly. If a player can put the ball on the floor - playing any position! - and can shoot it, there will be a place for him on most teams. And you can address that starting right now. Practice offense. Practice dribbling so your guys can create their own shots, and practice shooting off the dribble, and practice catching and shooting. That is what you should do for most of your practice. If not all of it.

Hey, This Professional Coach Agrees With Me

Okay, I don't this professional coach. I've never talked with him, never met him. But I was talking with a guy the other day who had played for this professional coach. And, no, I don't know this guy, we're not friends, I just met him once.

Anyway, we were talking about how so many of the high school coaches - and AAU and youth coaches - believe the system makes play, and not the players. He told me that when he had played for this coach (yes, all of you know the name) they used only 3 entries. And they never, ever used a pattern. No, what they worked on offensively was true motion, reading the defense and reacting, taking what the defense gives you and exploiting it.

A Thrilling Win 10-9

One of the teams in our program won a game the other day 10-9. Of course we were disappointed with the offense, but there is a silver lining in that.

The other team sat back in a 2/3 zone and bottled up the inside. Good strategy if your purpose is to win games. But these were 5th and 6th grade girls. Winning games is not our purpose, learning to play the game is.

No, what had us so pleased was that our girls consistently attacked this zone on the dribble in the gaps. They brought two players to them then they tried to make a move to score or pass. It rarely worked, as you can see by the score. But they tried. And failed. And failed. And failed. But they kept trying. Their was no set play, no pattern, just reading the defense and making a decision based on what they saw. Their decisions were wrong a lot, but the decided and went with it.

We thought their play was fantastic, and their offense was even better. And we only scored 10 points. Eventually, there will be no defense that can shut them down because they will be able to make moves, dribble in traffic, shoot jumpshots, or attack in any way they wish. We are giving up short term success - as a 2/3 zone is, or a pattern offense is - for the sake of long term success.

More Motion Offense

I heard the other day of a coach bringing in a "consultant" to address their stagnant offense problems against a wide 2/3 zone. Here is where the value of teaching your kids real motion comes in.

I saw the game where their offense was so limited against this zone. The problem they had was that they tried to attack this zone with a patterned offense. As you know from this blog, if you use a pattern offense, you're kids will learn primarily the pattern, rather than what it takes to attack this zone. Or any zone.

So the consultant came in and put them in a high - low pattern. All of that sounds great, but my question is: you needed a consultant to figure out that a high - low set would attack this zone? If these kids had known motion principles they could have attacked this zone the last game.

This is where youth coaches, again, can positively effect players years after the kids have left their program. Teach your guys to read the defense and go where the open spot is. Then teach them how to score from that spot. Dribble moves, one-on-one moves, things like that. Problem solved.

More Shooting

We've been talking about shooting lately. Last Saturday I saw a kid we've been working with on shooting a jumpshot and shooting it under pressure. He's finally starting to do it. His shot selection was excellent, except for one. More on that below. But he was guarded by bigger, faster guys yet he still could get his shot off clean. It was beautiful.

The shot that MOST coaches would discourage was a fifteen foot fade-away. Most coaches of teams of his age would discourage a fade away all the time. But we recognize that this kid is going to need a fade away to compete as he gets older. Remember, we are trying to get this kid to compete with the best in the country. He had a bigger kid on him, and he turned and leaned away and shot it. It was high and smooth and really a nice looking shot. He just missed it. I will bet that he will making that shot consistently within a year.

This kind of expansion of a kid's game is what you should be encouraging, rather than discouraging. But you got to have the guts to let him fail.

Do You Want Your Guys To Shoot The 3?

A while ago I talked about how to best position your players so that they can shoot the three when they want. My contention was then, and it is now, that you, as their youth coach, can do more to make the effective shooters than anyone else.

Here's how it came up. I was watching a freshmen boys team play, and they were down two with under a minute to go. They shot three 3 point goals in the last minute and made one of them. Not a bad percentage. But the two they missed didn't even have a chance of going in for this reason: they couldn't get the shot off cleanly because their shooting pocket was too low.

Remember how we talked about how you should demand that your players raise their shooting pocket so that they could get their shot off in traffic? This should be done somewhere around 7th grade. They should be strong enough to raise their pocket and this will give them enough time to perfect. If you have girls, you may want to wait until 8th grade, but no later.

And this is critical: you must be willing to go an entire season of your guys missing these shots. You must be willing to let them shoot it, and miss it. And keep shooting it, and missing it. That's your contribution as a coach who is working toward a larger goal.

We Didn't Even Know The Score

Recently, I was asked to sit on the bench with another coach for a game. He coaches a team that is pretty well developed, they are on the right track. The kids are learning dribble moves, post moves, moves to create shots, that kind of thing.

So we're sitting their and calling out this and that, a lot of "don't body up" and "rotate" and "move your feet". Basic stuff. And we're really into the game, just watching the kids and enjoying their effort. Now the gym was set up so that the coaches and players on the benches couldn't see the game clock. So we're well into the second half before either of us checked the score. And when we did, we both thought we were behind. That was okay, we were playing a much bigger and better team and our guys were giving a very good effort.

It wasn't until the last miinute when the other team started fouling us that we realized we were really ahead. I think that's a place all youth coaches need to be. Where the score is really irrelevant MOST of the time. Not all the time, but most of it. Because your real intention is to teach the game, not necessarily win the game.

I am one of those guys where most people would look at me and think I am a winning is everything kinda guy. Nope, not me at all. I am a "the will to win is everything" kinda guy. I think you should be to.