Shake True Blog

Being able to move your feet and hands at a fast speed is a gift that not everyone is endowed with. For those of you who want to become great ball handlers and are not blessed with the talent of quickness, there are some simple things you can do.

The most basic is to not look at the ball while dribbling. If you’re in a position to handle the ball a lot, you want to be able to see what is happening on the court so you can make a move to the hoop, attempt a shot and fire a pass to a streaking cutter. Instead of just dribbling with your head up, work on looking around while dribbling. Look up, look down. Look left, right, behind you. Look at everything except the ball.

Another important idea is to move the ball quickly. You don’t have to have fast hands to move the ball quickly, you just need to use some strength to push the ball hard and try to keep the ball low. Work your crossovers while trying to keep the ball below your knee (difficult, I know) and you will actually end up keeping the ball below your hip. If you can do that while moving the ball fast, you might end up being a good ball handler.

With the end of the school year comes the end of the Spring League. Justin and I had a blast with both groups of kids and I hope I get a chance to see them at camp or in skills sessions come fall.

Because the format of the league for the younger (age 9-11) group was strictly playing, with Justin and I dealing with the game structure, officiating, scoring and whatnot, it wasn’t really a forum for us to do any teaching. I saw a lot of things that could have been improved upon during the games, but in order to teach most of it, I would have had to interrupt the games. A lot.

There were minor things that I talked to the kids about throughout the course of the games, or during breaks, but there was never enough time to really address a specific item for anything beyond cursory education. Things that I could mention during reffing like “Watch the reaching,” “Make sure you don’t move your pivot foot,” et cetera seemed to be helpful, but mostly I didn’t have a chance to teach.

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Shake asked me to get in touch with my creative side a while back and I lunged at the opportunity. With a bunch of video footage from the March Break Camp, I set out for unexplored territory. I had never done video editing, but I had some ambition. Below are the first two of the three I was asked to come up with. I used footage of a camper for the first and filmed my own footage for the second. The third one is still in the works as it is a much more ambitious project than I had anticipated. It’s coming along slowly, but surely whenever I have some free time.

Madison Handle

Empty Nets

My friends Leigh and Justin are also going to be working on the coaching staff, so along with myself, Shaker and whoever else Shake gets to coach, the kids are going to get the benefit of a few viewpoints and voices. One of the great things about basketball is that there are many ways to play and no one way is absolutely the correct way. The benefit of different types of coaches with different playing and teaching skill and experience levels is immeasurable.

Along with the outdoor camp, the High Intensity Camp at SJK is a ton of fun too. The main difference between the two camps is that the kids at SJK get a serious work out and they end up playing a lot more against tougher competition. The benefit for me is that I get some indoor runs at the nicest gym around, so I’m pretty pleased with that.

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Somehow, Doc Rivers started out coaching Phil Jackson. It’s okay to re-read that last sentence. Going small and instilling Boston with a sense of defensive urgency were two pretty important factors for the biggest comeback in NBA Finals history. Teams don’t come back like that on the road. They might come back and barely pull it off. But to come back from down 24 and win? Unheard of. Until now.

Sure, the players are largely responsible for what happens on the court. They are there making the reactive and proactive split-second decisions, but the coach decides who’s on the court at any given time. And the GM decides who the personnel will be.

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