2 Ways to Make Practice Better for your Team
Practice is the key to any successful team because that is where the groundwork is laid and where every coach should stamp his mark on his team. During practices coaches should be able to lay out the foundation that will make the team successful and if they don’t then the players will not buy in and the team won’t win. This should be done at every level of coaching.
When I played, the best coaches were the ones who made the drills interesting while stressing the importance of the fundamentals. Here’s 2 ways that coaches can make practices better for their team:
1. Base the drills on competition with punishments and rewards attached. An example is if you are doing 3 man weaves then split the groups up evenly. Every group that goes through without messing up doesn’t run but those that do mess up have to run. When doing shooting drills make sure that are laced with competition. Players thrive on that feeling and it needs to be developed. It will help develop better pressure players while making the drill realistic. No team drill should be done that isn’t pushing the issue of game speed or game type shots.
2. Split into groups. Don’t make the guards workout with the bigs and vice versa. Good coaches allow 25% of their practice to be used working on position specific drills. Let the centers work with other centers and do things that are specific to them. It lets the coach stamp his own idea of individual drills so that when the players are working out by themselves they can follow what they know their coach would have them do.
Like I said, practice is the key for coaches and players alike but to have a better practice follow my 2 simple steps and you’ll see a noticed improvement.
