Coach Huber | March 14, 2016
Blog 14 – Youth Basketball
This past month, my 3 year old daughter Quinn started playing basketball at the local YMCA. While that has been quite an experience (and has me thinking it’s pretty crazy to have an organized basketball league for 3 and 4 year olds), it has also got me thinking about youth basketball. Basketball is such a great sport and there are so many people who love it and are dedicated to helping pass along their love and knowledge to younger generations. If we want to continue to grow and improve the game, we need to make sure that we are teaching it correctly at the youth level so that players are put in a position to develop AND have fun so that they will keep playing as they get older. With that in mind, here are five suggestions to help better teach basketball to our kids. . .
1. Youth basketball should be played on a lower rim with a junior ball. I believe that the rim height should be the child’s age plus 1 foot. In other words, a six year old child would play on a seven foot basket. When I see young kids shooting on a ten foot rim I cringe. First, many children can’t even get the ball to a ten foot basket and give up because they are frustrated. Even those who can basically have to heave the ball at the basket to make a shot. This develops bad shooting form that becomes a habit that can be hard to break when older. Rather, by lowering the hoop to a height where kids can shoot with proper form, we would be teaching them the correct way to shoot the ball so that we don’t have to go back and ‘fix’ their shot when they get older.
2. Youth basketball should be played 3 on 3. Daniel Coyle’s excellent book The Talent Code talks about why there are so many great soccer players from Brazil. One reason he comes up with is that in many cities they play futsol, which is a game of soccer played with fewer players on a smaller field. This allows players to have the ball more and speeds their development. The same should be true of basketball. If we played 3 on 3 instead of 5 on 5, players would touch and guard the ball much more often (approximately 33% of the time as compared to 20%), allowing them to get more experience with defending, passing, dribbling and shooting in game situations. Players would also constantly be involved as opposed to 5 on 5 where less aggressive or experienced players often ‘hide’ away from the ball and thus are not an active part of the game.
3. Youth basketball should not run plays, but should be taught how to play. At the youth level, good plays will almost always result in a good scoring opportunity because of the limited abilities of most defenses. This is good if the primary goal is winning. However, I believe the primary goal should be development and fun. To increase development, we should be teaching our players how to play. They should be taught how to cut and how to screen. They should be given the freedom to do these things in game situations to learn what works and what doesn’t. Running a play correctly doesn’t necessarily mean you are a good basketball player. It may just mean you can follow directions. Learning how to play and being given the freedom to do so (I am a big fan of the Read and React offense to accomplish this) will make players better.
4. Youth basketball (until middle school) should require man to man defense. I have no problem with zone defenses. We play zone defense at times. However, I think every player should develop a solid base of man to man defense before being placed in a zone. At the youngest levels, if you pack in a zone and make kids shoot outside shots (which few do well (see point #1)) you will probably win most of your games. However, have you kids learned how to guard the ball, how to play help side, how to communicate, how to jump to the ball, and other valuable defensive skills? Possibly not. If they want to continue to play into high school, they need to know these things. Players who come in understanding this have a huge leg up on the competition. Again, if the primary goal is development, teach them how to play man to man defense. They will thank you later on.
5. Make it fun! I abhor going to youth games and seeing coaches yelling at the kids for a mistake or acting like a game is the 7th game of the NBA Finals. I understand that everyone wants to win, but does it really matter who wins a 3rd grade CYO game? Will those kids remember that in fifteen years? Or will they remember the coach who constantly screamed at them and made them quit playing? I think all coaches should think about how they would want their players to remember them years later. As a youth coach, I would hope that is as someone who taught them about the game in an understandable way and made it fun so that they wanted to keep playing.