More Notes from a Coaching Clinic

Developing youth players from U9s to U11s

Last weekend, I spoke to the coaches from a club in suburban Copenhagen about developing players from 9-11 years old. I tend to ramble and go on tangents, as evidenced by any of my appearances on various podcasts, and I practically blackout when talking, so I have no idea exactly what I spoke about, but below is an explanation of the general notes I prepared.

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One important thing to remember when discussing the development of young players is we need to develop them for a game that does not yet exist. What will the game look like in 6-10 years when they reach full maturity and adult basketball? How will the game change? Will there be a four-point line? Will the continued development of skilled players 6’6 and taller replace anyone under 6’3? Who knows? But, we can be sure the game is trending toward bigger, longer, faster players, requiring faster processing and decision-making and all-around skills from every player. How can we develop quicker decision making and all-around skills starting with eight and nine-year-olds?

The Triple Threat in The Modern Game

Next, I spoke about ball size and basket height. As I found out, the Danish Federation has made some changes, and they do not move to a 10’ hoop until U13, I believe. I reflected on my experience in Estonia, where U12s moved to a 10’ basket. I occasionally took the U10 and U12 girls’ practices when their coaches had a game, and neither team should have played on a 10’ basket based on skill level and size.

We automatically associate basket height with shooting, but shooting has knock-on effects. How do players learn proper offensive spacing when the basket is too high for anyone to shoot from distance with any amount of success? How do they learn proper closeouts when the smart decision strategically is not to close out at all and allow outside shots? Basket height and ball size affect more than shooting development.

Practices do not have to follow the competition rules, but should utilize the equipment that enhances development, regardless of its effect on the weekend’s game. Why use a 10’ basket and a size 6 or 7 basketball in practice when players have minimal success? The goal for U9 and U11 basketball should be developing players for the future, not just the weekend game.

Most importantly when selecting practice activities, coaches must understand the purpose or their why for the activity. Drills are tools. They solve problems. A screwdriver is not a bad tool because it cannot hammer a nail into a wooden plank, but it is the wrong tool for the task. Too often, we choose drills because they look like they should work for a task or they are the only tool we have, but there are better options.

We need to analyze our choices of practice activities, especially with limited practice time. Some defend the efficacy of the three-player weave because a college uses the weave for five minutes of their 20 hours per week of practice, but the youth coach has two hours of practice. Is the weave the best use of the time?

Coaches choose the weave to improve passing, but few turnovers are addressed by the weave. Obviously, defense affects most turnovers, but others occur on the first step of a drive or passes off the dribble or misreading a teammate’s fake. If a team committed 10 turnovers in a game, and two were travels, one was a charge, one was a moving screen, one was a stolen dribble, one player stepped out of bounds, one passed the ball out of bounds on a post entry, two were deflected passes off the dribble to the perimeter, and one overshot a pass to a player on a two-vs-one fast break, the three-player weave addresses one turnover, at most. Is the weave the best option to reduce turnovers or even to improve passing?

I suggested various advantage and keep away games.

These games demonstrated issues related to passing, but not specific to the pass. I asked the players to identify the weaknesses. One was weak or looping passes. The cause was a lack of pivoting. The solution, therefore, is not to regress to stationary two-line passing drills to throw harder passes, but to a pivoting drill, including instruction on some basics outlined in Hard2Guard: Skill Development for Perimeter Players.

The next point was that a coach does not have to teach everything in a single practice or season, especially with young players and only one or two practices per week. Players can develop skills in stages. We focused on dribbling, layups, and on-ball defense when I coached U9s (Blitz Basketball). When time is limited, attempting to develop all skills often leads to minimal skill development unless players practice outside their team practices and use the practice lessons to guide their individual practice. Focusing on three things does not mean abdicating everything else; we did not discourage or ignore passing, we just did not spend time on passing-specific drills. However, small-sided games and some dribbling drills included passing, especially off the dribble, and occasionally if there was a consistent mistake, we stopped to address the mistake quickly, as with the quick regression to the pivoting drill above. We simply emphasized our three big rocks and created most of our practice activities around these skills.

We created Two-vs-Two Rugby and Three-vs-Three Hockey as games to maximize competitive full-speed dribbling, full-speed layup, and on-ball defense repetitions.

I introduced the concept of fluency versus accuracy or acquisition versus learning from linguist Stephen Krashen via Ted Kroeten of Joy of the People.

Learning Theory

I used the example of the Baseline Shuffle Drill versus tag for teaching a protect dribble, as I had seen a coach attempt to teach eight year-olds a protect dribble recently through a similar drill. Again, the baseline shuffle is not a bad drill, but it focuses on specifics and accuracy before fluency or before players understand the dribble’s utility.

The players were U13s and knew the protect dribble. However, when I introduced the baseline shuffle, they made the very common mistakes of not understanding the location of the imaginary defender and not placing the drill in a game context. Why would I shuffle backward while dribbling?

The mistake was perfect and as I had hoped, as I stopped the drill and had them play tag. First, we played Adi Tag, then we played Box Tag. The more successful player in Adi Tag assumed a protect dribble stance, and both players used the protect dribble in Box Tag. Why use the baseline shuffle to teach a skill out of context when tag can be used to teach the same skill with fewer instructions and greater intensity and fun?

I ended with Canada Rules as an example of how to teach spacing.

Finally, with these young age groups, I feel dribbling is the easiest skill to master; layups are the most important skill for immediate competitive success; enthusiasm (joy, love of the game) is the most important psychological skill to develop with young players; and team camaraderie/selflessness is the most important emotional skill to develop for successful players and teams. Creating a great environment for the players is a coach’s most important accomplishment, as ultimately, developing players for the future game does not matter when they drop out at 10 or 12 years old because the game is not fun, they do not play enough, they never get too shoot, or they feel too much pressure, which are common reasons for not enjoying initial sports experiences.