Basketball Drills

Click the play button to see the drill.

We have several basketball drills that are designed to improve indivdiual shooting and dribbling skills. You can see them in our basketball videos section.

All drills are done in a stationary spot. While you are going through your Ballhandling Drills, we always emphasize two things to keep in mind when doing any type of drill to improve driblling or ballhandling.

1. Always keep your eyes on one of the nets in the gym when doing all of your basketball drills to improve your dribbling because that is where your vision should be in a game. There are inexpensive goggles that you can buy for less than $10.00 such as Heads Up Dribble Goggles that force you to keep your eyes up as you practice stationary or moving ballhandling or dribbling drills.

2. Start out slow on all drills and then keep picking up speed until you lose the ball. Speed up til you mess up is the only way to know if you are improving your limits.

• Slams hand to hand (warm up hands)
  
  
• Slams hand to floor (strengthen hands)
  
  
• Dribble eight both directions (improve hand quickness and feel for the ball)
  
  
• Spider (improve hand quickness and feel for the ball)
  
  

More stationary ballhandling drills not shown in the video

Power Dribbles

Have the players in an athletic stance with knees flexes and upper body forward. The player will dribble the basketball to his/her side. The dribble should be made as hard as the player can possibly dribble the ball, with the hand riding up and down with the ball. Care should be taken to keep the height of the ball below the player’s waist. Do not allow the players to “smack” the ball. After 30 seconds have the players switch hands and execute the ball handling drill with the other hand.

When coaching basketball at any level it is important to emphasize the importance of looking up while dribbling. Here is a tip to help young players look up. While they are doing their ball handling drills stand in front of them and hold up a number of fingers. Have the players yell out how many fingers they see. Change the number of fingers that you hold up in order to check and see which players are not looking down at the basketball.

Power Cross-over

Have the players assume an athletic stance. The player will execute three power dribbles with their right hand to the side of his/her body and then quickly “push” the ball hard across to the left hand. Have the players put their receiving hand in the middle of their stance. This allows them to quickly gain control of the ball. When the ball leaves the dribbling hand, the receiving hand needs to gain control of the ball in the middle of the stance and not allow the ball to rise above their waist on the other side. Now the player will execute three power dribbles with the left and the cross over to the right hand, gaining control of the ball quickly and keeping it low. Continue dribbling three times with one hand and crossing over with power for 1 minute. Remind the players to dribble the ball has hard as they can.

Push Pull

Have the players assume an athletic stance. The player will execute three power dribbles with their right hand, keeping the ball below their waist. After the third dribble the player should push the ball to the middle of their stance, as if doing a cross-over, and then quickly pull the ball back with their right hand. The push dribble to the middle needs to be low and hard. Once the ball is pulled back to its original position, the player executes three more power dribbles followed by another push pull move. Continue for 30 seconds and repeat with the other hand. The players should be dribbling hard enough that they lose control of the ball from time to time.