Advice for short male player

[Anonymous]

DS lives and breathes basketball. He was able to make the summer JV league as a rising 9th grade student at his large public HS. He is the shortest player on the team by a lot and is predicted to grow to about 5'8. I feel like the odds are stacked against him with his height but we will continue to encourage him to reach for his goals of playing JV in the winter. As a short player, how can he work around his height disadvantage to still have a shot? I really have very limited overall sports knowledge to provide any guidance.

[Anonymous]

As the mom of a short middle school player who has played on several well-known teams, here is my advice:
1. He needs to become a lights-out shooter especially for 3-point shots.
2. He needs to play aggressive in-your-face defense without fouling.
3. He needs to work on ball-handling even if he thinks he's better than others.
4. He needs to learn to be an exceptional point guard even if he's only back up.
5. He needs to bulk up and build muscle.
6. He needs to follow other "short" (apx 6 feet) players on Instagram and NBA highlights. Our fave is Celtics Payton Pritchard awarded "6th Man of the Year"!
7. He needs to practice all his skills every day. Probably helpful to work out with a trainer once a week, but not just any trainer--find one who is also shorter and trains guards.

Good luck to our short players... it is tough for sure!

[Anonymous]

Above is good advice. If you don’t know basketball, read and have your son read about learning to shoot. Most kids don’t improve because they don’t do one handed from shooting from close in and they don’t shoot from close in enough generally. A player who can’t regularly make 10/10 free throws in practice, for example, should not be practicing 3s.

My kid’s trainer had a warmup routine for kids he trained of making at least 18/20 from 3’, 18/20 from 5’, 13/15 from 8’, 8/10 from free throw, 7/10 from 12’, and 6/9 from three. If kid failed any distance twice, the previous success was his range limit for that entire workout. This was EVERY workout, not just with trainer.

Once kid is great at catch and shoot, work on arc and quick release. Form shooting helps with that — cures kids of “push” shooting form that’s so easy to block. Then work on elevating on shots. Then shooting off the dribble. Then one dribble move to a pull up jumper, then two, etc. Most people don’t realize that every step is a new learning process. An excellent catch and shoot kid who masters shooting off the dribble with one move (i.e. crossover then shot) will miss many more when adding another move (I.e. through the legs, crossover, shot). It’s surprising (and frustrating to kids) but totally common.

One challenge for short guards coming into high school is that they sometimes get stuck just driving into traffic over and over and getting blocked. My kid’s freshman team had a kid like that. He was successful in MS, but just got stuffed in HS. Your kid pass of course, but should also develop multiple sequences of well-drilled, effective moves with variants leading to shots from 3, midrange, and at the rim. That way, they do something different every possession. For example, shot fake dribble left, then 3. Next time, when defender expects that, they do shot fake, in and out, dribble to midrange. Next time, same start but leading to a spin move at the rim. Next time, same thing but fake spin and up and under. I once watched my kid go through the whole sequence like this his trainer drilled with him over the course of a a game in the exact order they drilled it, and it worked each time because his defender kept expecting what he had done the last time. When you add kick outs to teammates, the varieties are endless.

Also, don’t let your kid work on fading or falling shots they see NBA guys do until they are hitting tons of threes in games and drawing defense.

[Anonymous]

I see you've gotten actual specific advice from sports parents so I'll chime in now.

I wanted to use a sports analogy at work (because my management is mostly sports bros). I feel like a "short man" on a team that doesn't build its plays around my unique qualities and so I want to be traded to a team that does.

So, I read up on some of the famous "short men" in NBA history. Like Muggsy Bogues. Bottom lines seem to be:

1) Exceptional ball-handling skills
2) Exceptional spatial processing (court visualization and moving body through space, in short-man-sized spaces)

An AI could probably summarize across the exceptional attributes of NBA players close to your kid's height. Try that for insight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I see you've gotten actual specific advice from sports parents so I'll chime in now.

I wanted to use a sports analogy at work (because my management is mostly sports bros). I feel like a "short man" on a team that doesn't build its plays around my unique qualities and so I want to be traded to a team that does.

So, I read up on some of the famous "short men" in NBA history. Like Muggsy Bogues. Bottom lines seem to be:

1) Exceptional ball-handling skills
2) Exceptional spatial processing (court visualization and moving body through space, in short-man-sized spaces)

An AI could probably summarize across the exceptional attributes of NBA players close to your kid's height. Try that for insight.

This is true of most sports

Great advice

[Anonymous]

Op here- thanks alll- very good advice

[Anonymous]

Good advice above. I am a coach. I have a similar son slightly younger, but like your son he eats and breathes basketball (all other sports are social for him). I do NOT coach him or his teams. High school coaches are aware of him and developing him. He plays the most minutes for his tournament team.

I’ll add:

1. Have the highest basketball IQ by far on the team. He needs to know his job and everyone else’s job on both ends of the court. He has to master basketball theory and the smallest details. He must be an extension of the coach on the court. Mine is to the point where he contributes at my practices as a coach.

2. Max out on speed training.

3. I have mine stay away from NBA and have him really study college ball where traditional point guards still play.

4. Learn how to play defense undersized. He can bait bigger players into mistakes.

5. Don’t ever try to be the primary scorer. Allow his scoring to come in the flow of the game, but his primary role must be the facilitation of the offense.

6. Impeccable footwork. A good skills trainer will teach it to him. Proper footwork is super important to making up for the size disparity.

7. He has to get to the point where he can make free throws with his eyes closed. Those late game FTs will come to him if he has the ball in his hands.

8. He must be the best teammate on the team.

Your son is off to a great start (and kudos to his coaches for team placement).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
One challenge for short guards coming into high school is that they sometimes get stuck just driving into traffic over and over and getting blocked.

Yeah, I'm not a shorter player myself, but I think this is where shorter players start to get a bad rap. The problem is that basketball is fundamentally a ball throwing sport. The same mechanics that allow tall players to score around the rim are at play on the perimeter also. Taller players may have some issues taking longer to develop and get coordination but when that happens ball passing on the perimeter is much better.

I think we've all had games where oh no don't give it to the short player he's just going to bounce it.

So yeah, IMO if he really wants a spot on the team he has to get good at passing and being impactful away from the ball. It's a subtle trap short players fall into. They're closer to the ground so they are better at bouncing the ball and they want to get really good at that. They're also more difficult to pass too, they are just a smaller target, so once they give it up it's hard for them to get it back.

The other thing is he'll probably have to contend with is, he may not be the fastest on the floor either, those kids around 6'2" are fastest. This is actually where there are opportunities for taller 6'6"+ players and shorter players to work together to control the flow of the game.

Does he like to hang out with the big kids 6'8"+?

[Anonymous]

OP here- thanks for everyone's advice. I did find a former varsity short point guard to do training this summer with DS so I'm hoping it works out!