Playing Point: Lesson 1
Don’t turn the ball over!!!
Don’t turn the ball over! If you would like to play the point position and be one of the primary ballhandlers on your team, you cannot consistently turn the ball over to the other team. In fact to be a trusted ball handler, you need to be able to turn the ball Over less than any of your other teammates. For that reason, we are going to continually drill in practice dribbling with your head up and with your offhand every single skill session, so that dribbling becomes second nature, and you can dribble effortlessly through the defense, while keeping your head up, eyes on the defense, and brain thinking about how to beat the defense, not thinking about your next dribble move, or even how to beat your man off the dribble. Some of the greatest point guards have an incredible ability to beat their man, draw the health, Defense, and make an incredible pass to a wide-open, teenage for an easy shot or dunk, which is the highest efficiency basket in all of the sport.
Great point guards can dribble while being double teamed and find the open man for the open shot or they can dribble around or threw a double team to take an open shot or pass one to a teammate. If you are thinking about your dribbling and worried about the ball getting stolen when you are double teamed it will be very difficult for you to see the open player and make the correct play. Therefore, every session in this series is going to start Wiz ballhandling skills.
When you think of ballhandling skills, you might think of Chancey between the legs, or behind the back dribbling, which we will practice however the majority of the most effective moves in basketball, and avoiding turnovers, is simply protecting the ball with your body, and performing a retreat dribble when necessary. There is nothing flashy about either of these moves, however these are the foundation of a great point guard and used consistently throughout his or her career and must be mastered at the lower level. For youth basketball players, there’s a higher likelihood, that the behind the bad or between the legs or other difficult dribble moves, will result in a turnover, therefore these are not to be commonly used although they will be commonly practiced. In order to remain turnover free, the points player needs to protect the ball, sometimes that means crossing over or hesitation, move or a combo dribble move, but they should only be utilized in a game after mastering them consistently in practice. highlight reel moves only account for a small fraction of the points in a basketball game with a mask majority of points coming off of boring old fundamental Basketball.
