Kids Basketball Drills and Skills

Many coaches struggle with ideas for kids basketball drills and skills. Here are two suggestions from Amber and from Phil that work well. Give them a try.

From Amber…
As an elementary school teacher I have combined the idea of cooperative learning and competition into the beginning of each basketball practice.

I divide the group into two teams (of even talent).
We do relays with skills such as dribbling, passing and pivoting, and lay-ups. The team that finishes last runs a lap then each team gets three minutes to work as a group to improve. The better players reach out to the strugglers and share tips that work for them.

I have already done what I know to do to teach them, but their teammates can use words or actions that I haven’t thought of. I make sure to mix up the teams every practice so the same player is not slowing down the same group.

From Phil…
I coach 7th grade boys, and every practice we have starts with a game of knockout.

The catch is, as soon as you’re knocked out you start running the length of the court, over & over until the knockout game is done. No one wants to run, and they sure don’t want to do a lot of laps so they focus real intently on their free throws & put-backs.

The winner is the only one that doesn’t run any laps—that’s their reward.

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