Youth Basketball Drills - 5 Great Drills You should use Every Practice
1. Defense Slide Drill - In defense, you want your players to have both of your hands out, knees bent (not slouching of the backs!), and head up. This is actually the correct posture, and you should be militant about making sure the defense always has this posture. Also, players have to slide across the floor keeping the ball and player in front of them instead of chasing the man with the ball.
In this drill, use cones to mark off a 8-12 feet wide area and a minimum of 30 feet long. One player within this drill will have the ball and the other will practice his defensive slide. The ball player with the ball will dribble left until he hits the sideline, then dribble right, until he hits another boundary. The defensive player's goal is to force the offense to go up to the sideline without fouling or losing position. This will create a sort of zig-zag pattern and will help with defensive posture and sliding.
2. Line Sprints - All players fall into line on the base line on one side from the court. Within this drill, players is going to be running continuously from the base line then to the free throw line, to the bottom line, towards the half court line, back to the base line, towards the opposite free throw line, to the base line, then all the way to opposite end from the court and back. So, players won't stop sprinting until they have finished going to each line then coming back. At the sound of the whistle players will start going from line to line. The catch is that they need to touch the ground with their hand at each line. So, when they start and run to the free throw line, they touch the ground. Once they run back to the bottom line, they touch the floor again. This process will continue until they're finished.
3. Basic Lay-up Drill - If you can teach your team how to make basic lay-ups with their right and left hands, you will do what many youth basketball coaches do not do. Therefore, this should be one of the youth basketball drills that you simply run every practice.
Within this drill, you will divide your players into two lines in the half court mark around the right and left sides from the circle. The left side will be the rebounding line, and also the right side will be the lay-up line. The first kid will have the ball and it is to dribble as fast as possible (without the ball going flying!) towards the hoop, jump off his left leg and shoot the lay-up together with his right hand. The rebounder within the left lane will rebound the ball and pass it to another kid in line (it might speed things up to use two or three balls). Following this is performed, then, you switch the process with the left lane being the lay-up line and the right would be the rebounding line.
4. Fast Break Lay-up Drill - Again, much of your points is going to be from lay-ups, so if you can optimize this drill, you will lead an effective season. Such as the previous drill, you'll begin with the best hand after which switch to the left hand. To save time, you are able to split into two groups that will be on opposite sides of the court.
Within this drill, each player starts in the opposite side of the court and dribbles the ball as quickly as possible until they create it to the opposite goal and shoot the right handed lay-up. Although this is going on, players in the other part is going to be dribbling down attempting to shoot lay-ups on the goal.
5. Full-Court Dribble - Again, if you see, many of these youth basketball drills are helping your players learn how to control the ball and make shots they should be taking in the sport (ones closest to the basket!) Maybe you have looked at NBA stats and seen who usually has the greatest area of made shots? It's often the forwards because they are next to the basket.
Within this drill, players will be dribbling on the court one way right-handed and come back dribbling only left-handed. This will help improve ball-handling, speed, and conditioning. You can also mix it up by placing cones for obstacles along with other methods.