how to improve skills for teens

[Anonymous]

DS is one of the weakest members of the JV team. He is a small point guard and is getting limited minutes of playing time so far. He is less agile than the other players. I could see him getting cut next year unless he improves dramatically. Do kids
get better over the course of a season? What would be the best ways to improve his skills. He worked with a basketball trainer in the fall but did other sports---not doing an AAU team in the fall seemed to weaken his skills. Does he need to do a spring and summer
league? I'm wondering how much time/effort is worth putting into this for a kid who is not as naturally gifted as some of the others.

[Anonymous]

It really depends on
- how competitive his school is
- how much he cared
- realistically how much upside potential he has.

For perspective, my son is now 6’4” and has a pretty big vertical - he was dunking before freshman year when he was 6’1”. He attended a very competitive school. He stopped other sports after middle school and did basketball year round - HS summer league, fall league, and spring open gyms. He also played AAU from 6th grade on. In addition, he lifted 3 times a week, did personal training year round, and worked out on his own usually 6 days a week in addition to team practices and games. In addition, he was a guest player on several teams where he did most of the scoring. All of that was just enough to move from JV to varsity and be a varsity bench player.

It was a lot, and not really worth it for the playing time he got.

[Anonymous]

Son isn't in high school yet (middle school) but we've been around others who play and start in HS.
Skills training would be essential to getting better. But it needs to be consistent. Have a friend whose son starts for a highly regarded school and her son was in the gym doing skills work every night. Also another kid who started for a top MCPS school and now plays on a division 1 team was also in the gym doing skill work every night.
So if your son really wants play varsity , I would say finding a trainer (there are a lot of good ones in this area) and working with them at least 3x/week would give your son a greater chance to improve and play variety

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DS is one of the weakest members of the JV team. He is a small point guard and is getting limited minutes of playing time so far. He is less agile than the other players. I could see him getting cut next year unless he improves dramatically. Do kids
get better over the course of a season? What would be the best ways to improve his skills. He worked with a basketball trainer in the fall but did other sports---not doing an AAU team in the fall seemed to weaken his skills. Does he need to do a spring and summer
league? I'm wondering how much time/effort is worth putting into this for a kid who is not as naturally gifted as some of the others.

There are a lot of good questions that people have followed up with, and all are decently relevant, but I'm happy to give you perspective as a long time HS coach in the DMV. Skill training is important, but finding the RIGHT trainer is incredibly important. The majority of trainers are terrible and the things they work on don't translate to basketball games. Talk to people, find the RIGHT person. If he is a smaller PG, he needs to be working on ball handling, making open threes, and being the absolute biggest pest on defense on the court. He'll never have the natural gifts that some other kids do, but he can learn more about angles and situational basketball.

AAU is a must. In a similar mold to being selective about the trainer, be selective about an AAU program. There are mostly BAD AAU coaches and programs, be involved with the program that has the best coaching, not necessarily the best results.

All that said, he may never be more than a rotation player at the Varsity level because of how competitive most HS's in the area are (think everything outside of Lewis, Justice, Falls Church, etc). Good luck.