To coaches, practice is sacred. The mental to the physical in basketball is four to one, yet practice prioritizes the physical.
With youth basketball on hold locally (Massachusetts), invest time to design better practices.
Previously, I'd look through options and assemble the pieces by what I felt the team needed on a given day and week.
I have no stone tablets, only questions about options to consider. And I don't question Brian McCormick's contention that random practice beats "block practice."
1. Up the tempo. Build in breaks but accelerate the pace of all activities. No matter how efficient we think we are, we can push harder.
2. Vary practice enough to avoid repetitiveness.
3. Create competition in as many segments as possible.
4. Always condition within drills (some examples).
5. Rethink ways to combine activities to include offense and defense (including small-sided games, shell drill, pressure drills to involve conversion...
6. Expand drills that players favor (e.g. O-D-O offense-defense-offense) beginning with special situations (e.g. BOBs, SLOBs, FTs). Allows special situations practice with scrimmage conditions.
7. Develop mismatches. We tend to match up similar players and wonder why players cannot take advantage of size/speed mismatches.
8. Simulate roles. If your job is to come in and shoot or to foul, practice that. Steve Kerr practiced coming in off the bench cold and shooting. Have a fake "injury" where a reserve has to sub in during crunch time.
9. Use Wildcards. Have an end-of-game segment, time and score dictated by a pile of situation "wildcards." E.g. three seconds left, shooting one free throw, down two. Ask the players for their solution.
10.Improve feedback. Create an expectation that players give feedback, like 1) I liked this about practice, 2) I didn't like that, and 3) I don't understand this, can you send me more information or guidance?
Lagniappe. Nietzsche may have coached.
