Losing With Class In Basketball

November 18, 2014 By basketballtrainer

Do You Lose With Class In Basketball?

As young basketball players, it is important to understand that when you and your team lose to an opponent, it is crucial that you do so with class and dignity. In every competitive game of basketball, there can only be one team that wins, that is the beauty of the competition. In saying this, the players on the losing side of a game need to be able to deal with the fact that they just loss in the appropriate manner. Here are some helpful hints that you can implement to your behavior when you find yourself on the wrong side of the scoreboard at the end of a ballgame.

Losing is a Part of Basketball

Everybody loses at some point. The best basketball players in the world lose games every year. Michael Jordan, despite his overall success as a basketball player, lost plenty of games in his career. Losing is a part of the game that nobody enjoys, but that everybody experiences on many occasions. This acceptance of a loss is an aspect that relates to mostly all sports. Boxing legend Muhammad Ali said it best.

“I never thought of losing, but now that it’s happened the only thing is to do it right. That’s my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life.” Here Ali has accepted that losing is a part of competition, and doing it appropriately is essential.

Being a “Good Loser”

Nobody likes losing, and you don’t have to either. Furthermore, nobody plays the game to lose; you should always play to win. The desire for one team to outlast another is the essence of competitive sports. What helps a team be successful is their ability to put more points on the scoreboard than the other team. However, you must learn to handle the joy of a win as gracefully as you would the disappointment of a loss.

Understandably so, there probably isn’t one competitive basketball player on this planet that wants to be classified as a “good loser.” What is meant by the term “good loser” is being a player that can maturely handle the emotions that accompany loss. A good loser accepts when his team has been beat by another in that particular game and shakes their opponent’s hands to congratulate them on their success. It may not be the easiest thing to do for you young players with a lot of pride in your game, but it shows incredible character. A good loser learns from the loss, then attempts to correct the mistakes that were made while eventually learning from the mistakes to earn a win in the next game that is played.

Keep Your Head Up

“Sportsmanship for me is when a guy walks off the court and you can’t really tell whether he won or lost, when he carries himself with pride either way.” Jim Courier, former World #1 Professional Tennis Player

The best part about basketball is that there is always another game to be played. Whether your team got crushed by 30 points or lost on a last second buzzer beater, understand that walking out of that game with your head held high is crucial to your success in the following games that have yet to be played. The players and teams that make a habit out of winning are those that use their losses as motivation for the upcoming games. Whatever it is, whether in basketball or in life, make an emphasis on handling your losses with sportsmanship and grace.

Losing like a Champion:

Understand that everybody takes their losses
Be a “good loser”
Keep your head held high, there is always another game to be played

How To Be a Better Basketball Teammate

June 1, 2014 By basketballtrainer

What Do You Want From Your Teammates?

Do you want to be a great basketball teammate? What should youth basketball players want from their teammates? It sounds like a strange question, but it is one that needs to be answered.

Why is it important you understand what you want from your teammates? Well, it took me a long time as a player to figure out what I wanted from my teammates. This affected how I treated them, how I approached the game, and even how I selected teammates in pickup basketball. I want you to bypass some of the issues I had in this area. I want you to be a great teammate and view your teammates in the right way. Pay attention to these four things to look for in your current and future teammates.

You want teammates who can play basketball

For a long time, I wanted to play with guys who would give me the ball. I didn’t care how good they were; I just cared if they were going to pass to me when I wanted it. So I “encouraged” my teammates to give me the ball whenever possible. If you’re a pretty good offensive player, you may have this train of thought as well. And this is wrong thinking. I eventually realized that I wanted teammates who could play basketball whether I was on their team or not. Do you know why? It’s because when you really start to understand cutting, setting and using screens and the two-man game, the game is so much easier. You never want to play on a team where the defense only has to key in on one person trying to do it all himself, whether that person is you or somebody else on your team. It makes any scorer, shooter or playmaker’s job much harder. And it makes the game less fun overall. Once this clicked for me, I began encouraging teammates to play their games. And I began helping them to do just that. I began setting on-ball screens for driving teammates, getting in position to receive passes from playmaking teammates and looking to find shooting teammates for open 3 point shots. The game became easier for me as a playmaker and as a scorer. It also became more enjoyable for my teammates because I was encouraging them to use all of their skills to help our team win.

You want teammates who play hard

This is another thing I learned over time. You don’t necessarily want the tallest guys on your team. Or the most athletic guys. Or the most skilled guys. Or the most confident guys. You want players on your team who are going to play hard. As a youth basketball player, you’ve probably already experienced that it takes more than just skills to pay the bills. You need players who play hard to score in those underutilized ways, to play effective team defense and to win those 50/50 balls that often make the difference in close games. My college coach would say “playing hard is a skill”, and he was right about that. All players don’t exhibit that skill, but you want to be around the ones that do. You can make an effort to encourage teammates to play hard by being a player who plays hard himself.

You want teammates that are committed to process

You might have heard your coach or trainer talk about the difference between “process” and “results” based training. Being committed to process means that you are committed to the correct things even if they don’t always produce the correct results. This is because over time, correct processes yield the correct results more and more. For example, let’s say you have a teammate who is a good shooter. Your point guard drives in and passes it out to him for a wide open shot and he misses. The next time down the court, the point guard makes the same drive but doesn’t make the pass to the open teammate. Instead, the point guard tries to take a contested layup over two defenders at the rim. During the next timeout, you ask your point guard why he didn’t pass to your wide open shooter teammate, and he says “’Cause he missed the play before. I’m not gonna pass it to him if he’s gonna miss.” This point guard is showing a commitment to immediate results instead of the process of getting a good shooter open shots. Do you know what you should do in that situation? You should tell your point guard that hey, this guy’s a shooter so pass him the ball. He’s gonna make that shot. You want teammates who are going to keep doing the right things and not abandon ship the first time something doesn’t go right. That goes for team defense, shooting, playmaking, etc. Teammates who are committed to process are going to encourage you when you miss a couple of shots that you usually make. This creates a healthy, positive team environment. You can get the ball rolling by encouraging your teammates to do what they do best, especially after they make a mistake or miss a couple of good shot attempts. Be the same type of encouraging teammate you’d like your teammates to be when the shoe is on the other foot.

You want teammates who stay encouraged!

It is easy to get discouraged when things aren’t going right. That’s human nature. But you need teammates to stay encouraged to keep up the fight until the end. Let me repeat that: you need teammates to stay IN-COURAGE. That means keeping an aggressive, hopeful, competitive attitude throughout the game. Every time one of your teammate makes a mistake, this is an opportunity to encourage them. Even though you may have a much stronger urge to do something else. When you see a mistake weighing heavily on one of your teammates, take the onus to tell them “it’s alright”, “don’t even worry about it”, or “shoot it again next time”. These words can do wonders, and can make sure your entire team stays in-courage and ready to keep fighting. Whatever happens, be the encourager for your teammates because an encouraged teammate is exactly type of teammate you really want!

Leave The Basketball Refs Alone

May 27, 2014 By basketballtrainer

Leave the Refs Alone!

Youth basketball players must learn to leave the referees alone.

Somehow complaining verbally, making faces and hand gestures, and even talking back to referees in response to calls has become a part of youth basketball culture. On top of that, players are now deciding to emulate some NBA players by flopping and baiting referees to make foul calls. These practices do much more harm than good, and they should not be a part of your game as a youth basketball player. Although you may not be able to change those around you, you can make the quality decision to stop complaining and flopping today. Here are the reasons to stop complaining and stop flopping, i.e. to leave the refs alone.

Reasons to Stop Complaining

• Complaining is disrespectful plain and simple. Are you going to be able to aggressively complain to your future boss every time he makes a decision you don’t like? No. Or if you do, you may not keep your job for long or leave the door open for promotion and future success. So get in the habit now of respecting the decisions of those in authority over you, even if you don’t agree 100% of the time.
• Referees are human. If you are constantly complaining about calls you don’t get or calls made against you, are you going to get the benefit of the doubt from the ref later in the game? With a lot of refs the answer is no. On the contrary, you may get on a referee’s bad side and create an officiating bias against you, even if it is an unconscious one.
• You risk the chance of a drawing a technical foul when you complain. In youth basketball this means 2 free throws and possession for the other team. In a close game, this is a huge difference maker. Also a technical foul puts you a step closer to being disqualified from the game, whether that comes via ejection or fouling out.
• You start worrying about the refs instead of the opposing team. When you become a complainer, you began to put some of the responsibility of winning and losing on the referees. When you feel like you don’t have control on the basketball court, you begin to get disheartened and may not give full effort for your team. I’ve seen this happen plenty of times. Stay focused on beating the opposition, even if the refereeing IS poor. You can overcome poor refereeing with your play. You can’t overcome a lack of focus or a defeated attitude.
• You give up points in transition. Players who stop to complain about getting fouled spend a second or two complaining to refs and don’t get back immediately on defense. That second or two is all the advantage the opposing team needs to get an easier transition basket.

Reasons to Stop Flopping

• It’s dishonest. Players who flop to draw foul calls are violating the integrity of the game. Integrity is something that players need on the court and in their lives. You should not get in the habit of violating your integrity to gain an advantage, as in many areas of life that can get you into real trouble.
• You leave your success in the hands of the referees. When you are looking for the whistle you are walking by faith in something you can’t control. You want to be in complete control of your game on the basketball court. Leaving YOUR success in the hands of anybody else on the basketball court is essentially weakness.
• Flopping takes energy. And flopping is misdirected energy. It takes work to “create” a foul when there is none there. Players who flop are not using all the energy they can to score a basket, even when the potential to score is there.
• Flopping creates the potential for a turnover or score. What happens when you try to sell a foul call and you don’t get it? More often than not, a turnover is created. This happens when you let the ball drop to the ground while you are acting out exaggerated contact, or the ball sails out of bounds while you are flailing your arms in the air. Flopping is a risky proposition; if you don’t get the foul call, bad things usually happen. On the defensive end, a flop to sell a charge that is not whistled can result in a clear path to the lane for the man you are guarding.
• Have you ever read the Boy Who Cried Wolf? If you are in the habit of trying to sell a foul when it is not there, you are at risk of not getting the call when it is there. When a referee begins to look at your reactions skeptically, you lose the benefit of the doubt when it is not 100% clear to him if you were fouled or not. This can hurt you late in games when you actually are fouled and it is not called. We see this happen frequently at the pro level.

Young players, stop complaining. And stop flopping. It is hurting youth basketball and it is hurting you as an individual. Remain strong in your effort to score the basketball and continue to give full defensive effort on the other end. If you do these things, not only do you build positive habits for yourself, but you remain in control of your success and you make the world of youth basketball a much better place.

How Do You Handle Basketball Criticism?

May 26, 2014 By basketballtrainer

A big part of the growth and development process for players is getting critical feedback from a team coach or basketball trainer. It is sometimes hard for players to accept criticism, but without it they are limiting their potential. We don’t want you to fall into the trap of rejecting or reacting strongly against criticism, so here are some tips on how to accept and grow from criticism.

Four Tips To Handle Basketball Criticism

1. Delay Your Response

Criticism can be very hard to hear. It can shock you. It can hurt. And it can make you angry. Criticism can even rob you of the confidence you’ve built in a certain skill you’ve developed, or on your overall ability as a basketball player. A natural, human reaction to criticism is to lash out at the person giving it to you, or to instantly defend yourself against it. Try delaying your response to the criticism, as this will do a couple of things for you. First, it will give you time to ponder what your coach or trainer is saying to see if it is true. After the initial hurt or anger wears away, did the criticism have any merit? Sometimes with a little time to reflect you may see that it does. Secondly, if a response to the criticism is warranted, a delayed response will allow you to respond without anger. Although you may very well want to express a feeling of anger towards the giver of criticism, that anger may cloud the clarity of the message you want to get across.

2. Ask Questions

Nobody has a perfect command of the English (or any other) language. Maybe your coach is meaning to say one thing, but you are hearing another thing because of how it is communicated. When it comes to criticism, this can happen often. Ask your coach or trainer questions about things you don’t understand or may not agree with. This may give your coach or trainer the opportunity to give examples that can help you see what he is saying, or it may give him an opportunity to change the wording of the criticism such that you can understand it better. Players who deeply care about their development may also ask “how can I improve in this area”, turning the conversation from a hard one to one that ends emotionally positive for the player.

3. Get a Second Opinion

Getting a second or third opinion on a coach’s or trainer’s criticism can be helpful for you as a player. This does not mean to go find someone who is going to tell you that your coach doesn’t know what in the world he’s talking about. It means finding a trusted buddy, a parent, or other knowledgeable basketball person and asking them, “Hey, my coach said [fill in the blank] to me. Do you know why he would say that? Do you see it like that?” Sometimes hearing the same criticism from a different source can help you accept it better. Also, if you are receiving criticism that you simply don’t agree with and can’t understand, maybe hearing someone else validate your feelings can be helpful for you. If you are receiving criticism you don’t agree with, you can simply have a later conversation with your trainer or coach, and ask questions about why it was given.

4. Consider the Source

From the outside looking in, you may understand the value of constructive criticism. But when you are receiving it, criticism may not seem so constructive. And it actually may not be constructive in delivery. For that reason, try considering the source. If you have a coach who you believe both knows the game of basketball and wants what’s best for you as a player, you might be very well be able to trust his intentions. If he gives you criticism that hurts you on delivery, it is likely for your good and will help you in the long run. If you have a coach who is tough and hard nosed but good at heart, you might assume the same. Maybe the delivery wasn’t optimal, but you can see the good in it. However if you have a coach you do not trust, criticism can feel like a personal attack and you might want to disregard it. But the aforementioned tips may help you deal with this. Even if the criticism is not given constructively, you may still take the message and grow from it. Mature players learn how to do this because they know that every team coach they have may not be on their side. For instance if a coach tells you, “I’m not going to play you because you’re the worst shooter on this team. I would hate to have to ever put you in the game” you can internalize a response like “okay, I may not be in a good situation on this team, but I know I can work on my shooting. That will help me in the future whether it’s with this team or not.” Negative criticism has actually fueled the fire of many a great player as they have looked to prove doubters wrong. You can do the same thing with the negative criticism you receive. Criticism is a critical part of youth basketball, player development and life in general.

Learn how to deal with and accept criticism to better yourself as a basketball player. Whether it is given constructively or not, we’ve given you methods here to either validate or qualify criticism, understand criticism, as well as considering using some negative criticism for your own good. Take everything in stride, and don’t let any piece of criticism steal your love for and drive in the game. Allow criticism to be one of the things that helps you become great in this great game of basketball!

Defy Basketball “Limits”

May 12, 2014 By basketballtrainer

What Are Your Limits And How Can You Defy Them?

Limits are for the birds when it comes to the game of basketball. Limiting yourself can come from a lack of confidence or a lack of current skills. The limits others place on you can come from the current perception they have of you and their lack of belief in your ability to improve, grow, or mature. Both types of limits are for the birds. I want to take a second to talk about the limits others can put on you, and how you can throw those limits to the wayside and achieve success. I hope it inspires you to do the same, and to throw away some negative limits you may have put on yourself because of listening to others. Here are the real-life stories of three guys I’ve known in my basketball life who defied the expectations of others and achieved basketball success.

Three Basketball Players Who Defied Their Limits

I have a buddy who attended the same college as me. We weren’t teammates, as he came after I was done playing, but we’re friends nonetheless. In high school he was considered undersized for a shooting guard, but he was and still is an outstanding shooter, and a good overall basketball player. He was a good player in a small town and had a breakout senior year to really put his name out there on the recruiting map. The scholarship offers he received were to some pretty decent sized Division 1 programs, but he wasn’t satisfied. He told me that his plan was to get to a bigger university in a bigger city so that he could network and build a life for himself in that new city after he graduated. He was thinking ahead – smart man. My buddy did something pretty risky; he decided to play junior college basketball instead of taking a D1 scholarship offer. He did this to have another chance at showcasing himself for top college coaches. He bet on himself. And his bet paid off. After his freshman year of junior college, in which he averaged 18 points per game and was named an all-conference and all-region guard, he was offered a full scholarship to my alma mater, a school that did not offer him a scholarship out of high school. He parlayed the college degree he received and his visibility as an alumnus player into a successful dual career (one sports related, one non sports related) in the city after he graduated.

I went to high school with a guy who is currently in the NBA. He has actually carved out quite the career, as he’s been in the league since graduating from college in 2005. We were cool in high school, and I remember him vividly telling me that he was going to be 6’2” when he got older. He had a growth chart mapped out. He told me this while he was 5’7”, the height at which he graduated high school. He was also known as a good player in our area, having been a 4 year Varsity player, but because of his size he wasn’t offered a college scholarship to play basketball. He accepted a walk-on role at a program in a neighboring state and averaged 11 points per game his freshman year. After a year there he transferred to another school across the country and continued to improve as a player. By his senior year in college, he was the third leading scorer in the nation. Oh yeah, and he was also an athletic 6’2”. After going undrafted in the 2005 draft, he had a successful NBA summer league showing and was signed by the Sacramento Kings. He has been a point guard in the NBA ever since, while also racking up more than a few “dunk of the year” level highlight dunks in the process. This man is now an athletic, dunking NBA veteran, whereas he was barely dunking his senior year of high school and not one Division 1 program offered him a scholarship. But he always believed in himself and always kept working towards his dream of playing in the NBA.

Another guy I know from back home I met through playing club basketball when I was a senior in high school. He actually wasn’t a teammate of mine, as he was two years younger than me and wasn’t “good enough” to move up and play with our older team. He played on the younger team in our program, and we would all practice at the same time and our teams would scrimmage against each other. After practice, this guy and I would hold mini dunk contests against each other. He would tell me that he could out-dunk me and I would tell him I could out-dunk him. In all honesty, at that time I thought we were about the same, but of course I could be biased. His game wasn’t there yet but he could really get off the floor. This guy was in a tight situation entering his junior year of high school because his coach was contemplating sticking him on the JV team again. Well, his junior year came and he ended up breaking onto the Varsity team, and by the end of the season was its best player. He transferred schools following that season and blew completely up… in a good way. This guy averaged 33 points a game his senior year and was rated as a Top 3 national basketball recruit in his high school class. He was a McDonald’s All-American and was recruited by some of the top schools in the country, but he didn’t attend any of them… because he jumped right to the NBA out of high school, in 2005. This guy is currently one of the most exciting and high flying shooting guards in the NBA, and he is a former NBA slam dunk champion. This guy went from not being sure if he had a Varsity spot the summer before his junior year to jumping to the NBA a couple years later. He soared over the limits people had set for him.

Most players have encountered some sort of adversity in their basketball lives, and the players who overcome it don’t allow others to have the final say-so on their basketball success. Because limits, especially the ones that others put on you, are truly for the birds. Start break through your basketball limits today. Basketball Trainers can often help you break through limits – find a basketball trainer today.

*Note: The players are JD Lewis, Ronnie Price and Gerald Green in the order of the story.

This article was written by Austin Basketball trainer Chris Price who still loves watching both young and accomplished players defy their limits.