A video circulating through social media shows Tracy McGrady criticizing the current generation because they dribble too much; too many wasted dribbles. Kevin Garnett tried to get McGrady to praise the current players for the difficulty of their moves, but McGrady focused on the inefficiencies, the extra dribbles.
The extra moves and over-dribbling often arise from pre-determined moves, not moves to beat a defender. Why use a crossover, as a simple example? I cross over because the defender takes away the straight-line drive. I attack straight ahead when the defender never gets in front of the ball to force a change of direction. This is a criticism of the zigzag drill (Fake Fundamentals): Players change directions after a certain number of dribbles, not because they read the defender, and the defender trusts the attacker will change directions after three dribbles and does does not beat or control the attacker.
Years ago, one of my very first private training clients got cocky and challenged me to one-vs-one. He was a high-school sophomore, I think, and a starter on his junior-varsity team. We played from the top of the key. He jabbed and I went for it. He was not ready; he did not know what to do next. He wanted to jab and go, but I was where he wanted to drive. He held the ball and allowed me to recover. He had a wide open lane with a jab and crossover step move or a wide open shot with a jab and shot, but he had decided ahead of time the move he wanted to make; he could not read and exploit the defense’s movement and mistakes. He allowed me to recover to start over because his desired move was unavailable. I won easily and changed my training emphasis: Practicing moves (off the dribble or triple threat) was pointless without a defender because ultimately, a move is about the interaction between the defender and the attacker.
Today, players and trainers emphasize the technical component — the specific position to place their foot — and not the perceptual component — how to read and deceive defenders. Players rely on multiple moves because they have practiced these pre-planned moves, and the multiple moves provide more time to see and identify cues. Players need multiple moves to read their defenders just as the player above was unable to identify the opening after his first move. We see these extra moves as an example of amazing skills, as KG alluded, but they are as much a product of slower processing as they are great skill.
Basketball is a team game. What happens when players make three, four, five moves in a row? The game slows. Teammates stop moving. Attackers focus on their individual opponent, which is one reason isolations end up with step-back three-pointers: The help defense is irrelevant. Players process one defender and identify one cue: Players such as Jayson Tatum or James Harden step back into an almost indefensible shot as soon as defenders relax or their weight shifts back or they extend a little too far on a fake.
Arsenal’s legendary manager Arsene Wenger said, “The problem in football is you learn how to play the wrong way round — first execution, then decision making & perception last. I've lost many top players because their head was on the ball. They were not seeing what was around them.” Basketball has the same problem.
Players and trainers focus on the execution when learning moves instead of the interaction. Instructions center on foot placement, ball height, and more, rather than questions about what players saw or why they attacked a certain direction. Players practice moves without understanding why they would use a certain move in a certain situation against a certain defender. The objective changes to making a specific move instead of scoring, like the And1 Mixtapes where the move was the end. Trainers add more and more moves to overload player in training and increase the difficulty to show improvement and add novelty and creativity, but rarely overload the complexity or the decision-making.
We restricted the space when we practiced one-vs-one moves and often used drills where attackers could not retreat or turn their backs. Attackers beat defenders by continuing forward or pulling up for a (likely) contested mid-range shot. The purpose was quickness and deception, reading the defender and taking the first opening. Does a defended move at speed or multiple slow moves require more ball control? Next, we move to drills such as Berkeley Pass and Finish where the attacker beats the initial defender to get two feet in the three-second area and completes a pass to a cutter.
The problems McGrady identified largely stem from the influence of private or individual training. How does a trainer improve players’ skill levels when working one-vs-zero? They add. They talk more. They focus on tiny physical details. Now, for elite players who possess all the skills and who have played for dozens of years, these tiny details matter. These details are focus on the 1% before most players have mastered the first 99%. The details should be the last part to refine or master; the perception and decision-making should receive more emphasis first. The dribble is not the end; the goal is to create the right pass or shot, and no extra points are awarded for degree of difficulty.