"Stop making excuses."
"We play in a tough league."
"We don't have enough talent."
"We can't shoot."
"We lack size and athleticism."
"We're inexperienced."
"We lack a winning tradition."
We've all been there, because every coach laments what she doesn't have, while not every coach utilizes the available resources.
The best activities combine offense, defense, decision-making, competition, and conditioning. Why not just scrimmage? That's more useful when players have more skill and don't require as many 'touches' for each player during development. That's why 'small-sided games' have increased in popularity.
Design your team intentionally from the bottom up by improving technique, tactics, physicality, and psychology. Consider blending multiple facets like skill and physicality together.
Skill and conditioning. Drills like "Racehorse" blend passing, cutting, receiving, and finishing. "Don't cheat the drill."
Skill and strategy. We practiced 3-on-3 at both ends inside the split.
Introduce examples in your drillbook and playbook then add defense. These are not all the examples. Simulate "half of horns" flattening the defense by locating the 3 in the corner. Then practice pick-and-roll offense and defense with x3 allowed to help.
Use 'box drills' with defense to teach 'basketball actions' from the elbow. Players learn to front and reverse pivot, to read the defender quickly and to attack on the catch starting back to the basket.
Skill, strategy, physicality, and resilience. Play half-court 4-on-4 with no dribbling or 5 versus 7 "advantage disadvantage" to simulate full court press breaking.
Skill and physicality. 1 on 1 on 1.
