Ball handling/dribbling coach?

[Anonymous]

I need someone to work with my 10th grader. He’s 6’3” and a decent player, but needs to learn how to not get the ball taken away and just has too many bad habits when it comes to handling the ball.

We’ve used trainers in the past and they usually have good workouts, but we don’t need that. I want to focus on this particular area in the off season.

Recommendations are appreciated, but please only if it’s someone you know is good concentrating with dribbling, protecting and controlling the ball.

[Anonymous]

Plz don’t take this the wrong way, but this is just practice and speed/coordination/flexibility.

How is he losing the ball? Is it that he’s playing down low and he brings the ball down so the smaller defenders collapse on him and take the ball or is he losing the ball trying to dribble around defenders? If the former, much easier to fix.

Someone will take your money, but the training probably isn’t going to help.

Is he done growing? If you think he’s going to keep growing, your money is probably better spent on shooting/post skills.

Be honest with yourself: does he have outstanding coordination/balance? The best ball handlers keep the ball extremely low and have superior balance. One of the best ball handlers I’ve ever seen keeps the ball about shin high and drives his head low into a defender’s belly when crossing over. He looks like he’s going to tip over but he has the flexibility/core strength to rebalance and consequently he has an unstoppable crossover. The other solution is to be extremely quick/fast and just blow past your defender.

If he’s done growing, I’d try to find a club and ask to have him play down a level but play the point guard position. It’ll look really bad at first but if he can improve it will help in the long run.

[Anonymous]

This was my son’s biggest challenge. What finally made a difference for him was doing hard ball handling work every day. He’d do

stationary with 2 balls:
- pounding for 50 dribbles alternating at the same time then alternating.
- forward/back on the side for 50 dribbles
- in and out for 50 dribbles

Stationary 1 ball:
- crossovers x 50
- through the legs x 50
- behind the back x 50
-

Moving full speed/full court:
- sequences like in and out/crossover/wrap.
These have to be at a full run and looking up, and should be 60% with weaker hand.

Then doing the same thing with cone drills changing direction and winding up with a shot.

If you can get a karate kick thing (looks like a big square sword made of foam), you can work on poking the ball away while he’s doing the 1 ball or full court drills.

[Anonymous]

Note those x 50 drills above are 50 reps then switch for as many sets as he can do in 5, or 15 minutes, and he wants to pound the ball as hard as he can. His arms should be really burning by the end.

[Anonymous]

Does your son have Instagram? There are so many trainers with drills to start with as you seek a trainer. As PP said, it is a skill obtained with a lot of individual (and often monotonous) practice. My son also needs to practice more ball handling.

[Anonymous]

Find two teammates. Play full court 1on2 everyday this offseason. Done.

[Anonymous]

The advanced training sessions at Evolution work on a lot of ball handling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This was my son’s biggest challenge. What finally made a difference for him was doing hard ball handling work every day. He’d do

stationary with 2 balls:
- pounding for 50 dribbles alternating at the same time then alternating.
- forward/back on the side for 50 dribbles
- in and out for 50 dribbles

Stationary 1 ball:
- crossovers x 50
- through the legs x 50
- behind the back x 50
-

Moving full speed/full court:
- sequences like in and out/crossover/wrap.
These have to be at a full run and looking up, and should be 60% with weaker hand.

Then doing the same thing with cone drills changing direction and winding up with a shot.

If you can get a karate kick thing (looks like a big square sword made of foam), you can work on poking the ball away while he’s doing the 1 ball or full court drills.

Good suggestion. This is all about the consistency and frequency with which your kid does it, and it doesn’t need a special coach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This was my son’s biggest challenge. What finally made a difference for him was doing hard ball handling work every day. He’d do

stationary with 2 balls:
- pounding for 50 dribbles alternating at the same time then alternating.
- forward/back on the side for 50 dribbles
- in and out for 50 dribbles

Stationary 1 ball:
- crossovers x 50
- through the legs x 50
- behind the back x 50
-

Moving full speed/full court:
- sequences like in and out/crossover/wrap.
These have to be at a full run and looking up, and should be 60% with weaker hand.

Then doing the same thing with cone drills changing direction and winding up with a shot.

If you can get a karate kick thing (looks like a big square sword made of foam), you can work on poking the ball away while he’s doing the 1 ball or full court drills.

Good suggestion. This is all about the consistency and frequency with which your kid does it, and it doesn’t need a special coach.

This is PP. I’ll add that once my kid had muscle memory of the tools, they just started coming out naturally when he was playing. I (dad) also had this experience when I started doing the same drills along with him - the moves would just come out when I played pickup ball, which was kind of a nice surprise after 40 years of having no guard skills at all.

[Anonymous]

Interesting thread, from what I've seen is that many kids in basketball just don't have the upper body strength or lateral quickness. Younger age group, but we have kids that have skills and speed, they just get knocked down when they try to execute or move laterally.

EG pushups, pullups, squats and lunges, those lane slides and zigzags are great also.

I think hand, wrist and ankle, foot strength are underestimated in basketball. Get some hand grips and a wobble board. Gotta have some claws.

[Anonymous]

Where are you located? There are clinics for this. In Maryland there's Pat the Roc in Gaithersburg and Laurel there's Rhythm Dribble. Look for clinics.

[Anonymous]

In Lorton,

Justin Moore! Great skills trainer. Both my kids have trained with his as did our AAU team.

He has kids there as young as 6 and he has many middle and high school kids as well. Some are beginners and some are varsity players with D1 offers. I sometimes see some of his old players there home from college training!

Great ball handling coach. He does private classes as well as group classes based on age.
I think they even run a few AAU teams from there.

You can find him on instagram and website is here.

https://elevatesportstraining.com/

He has been training for 10 years, so he knows many of the HS coaches.

Made my older kid into a good varsity player and my younger one is dominating her age group.