Coaching 11 and 12 year olds new to basketball

[chrismikayla]

I work with inner city youth and I am helping a friend coach a youth team. Most have never played before and I wanted to know some good things initially to work with them on without overwhelming them.

Thanks!!

[wallflower]

Defensive stance + a zone defense.

[Crackerjack465]

See if they can run the triangle, the Knicks have a lot of cap space.

[tidho]

at that age....press break, press break, press break, and then if there's time left at the end of practice - press break.

[esotostj]

I work with kids around the same age and level of experience. You really have to focus on the basic fundamentals even if it seems simple for you.

Things like proper chest past, dribbling without traveling and form shooting.

This is my favorite form shootings drill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxO-5-bJmoM

This is a good set by Step Curry that teaches BEEF:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXyXTRDVd3E

If you are going to play games make sure you take time to go over the rules of the game like traveling, back court violation, and how to communicate when subbing in and out of a game.

Good luck

[knicks512]

Teach them to become free agents the year before a new TV deal kicks in. That's all they need to know.

[NZB2323]

The fundamentals. Dribbling with both hands, shooting right handed layups, left handed layups, boxing out, defensive stance, and passing.

[hyper316]

I work with inner city youth and I am helping a friend coach a youth team. Most have never played before and I wanted to know some good things initially to work with them on without overwhelming them.

Thanks!!

I coached several years in house league at that age range

shooting form (gooseneck follow-through, start with one hand only)
dribbling (high dribbles, low dribbles, finger dribbles, dribble with head up)
passing (bounce pass, chest pass, step forward to pass, receiver hold up a target for pass)
layups (show where to start the 2 steps, where to aim at the backboard)

[Johnlac1]

The fundamentals. Dribbling with both hands, shooting right handed layups, left handed layups, boxing out, defensive stance, and passing.

Very good advice. I helped a friend coach grade school bb some years ago. At that age there are very few kids who can shoot or handle the ball adequately. Many kids are willing to go out and practice shooting for a period of time, but very practice ballhandling, passing, or working on layups by themselves.
Many high school coaches do not teach fundamentals or impress upon their players the value of having good fundamentals. Many coaches simply practice running plays or scrimmaging.
If a kid can shoot and handle the ball well at the grade school or high school level, he or she usually has a good advantage over most other players all things about equal as far as physical ability. But unless a kid has great height, a kid with good skills and a little less athleticism is better than an excellent athlete with poor skills.

[ohio]

no idea but I know a guy who's an expert. you can holla at him on twitter @Vivek

[76thBearCub]

99.999% won't be NBA players anyway so I would stress education and life skills above all else.

Besides that I would try to instill teamwork, sportsmanship, and respect. From a more pure basketball point of view I would stress things like defense and hustle.

If you luck in to a 7 footer don't let him take **** corner 3's all day, please.

[teerfour+40LG]

Slow the game down for them. Crowd the court with 6-7 defenders and have the kids get comfortable passing, catching, and dribbling the ball and shooting around the rim in traffic. When the kids are starting out, it can feel like defenders are right on top of them even though they never are.

[mccluskey]

I work with kids around the same age and level of experience. You really have to focus on the basic fundamentals even if it seems simple for you.

Things like proper chest past, dribbling without traveling and form shooting.

This is my favorite form shootings drill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxO-5-bJmoM

This is a good set by Step Curry that teaches BEEF:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXyXTRDVd3E

If you are going to play games make sure you take time to go over the rules of the game like traveling, back court violation, and how to communicate when subbing in and out of a game.

Good luck

The fundamentals. Dribbling with both hands, shooting right handed layups, left handed layups, boxing out, defensive stance, and passing.

Good stuff here....I coach middle school ball and we spend probably 80-90% of the first month of the season (before games start) drilling fundamentals. The majority of kids that age are not going to have much if any experience in a team setting and very little in the way of developed skill, so you have to start from scratch.

Our main emphasis is on ballhandling over anything else at that age. We run dribble drills through cones and one on one full court (with the defender just shadowing and forcing direction changes, not really trying to steal the ball - helps get the ball handler comfortable being able to handle the ball while in close proximity to defenders). We try to emphasize keeping your head up and not looking at the ball as much as possible while dribbling.

Second focus is on defensive stance and balance and how to stick with your man - in my experience a zone gives you best results at this level, but we always start out teaching man. Once they're good at it, they tend to pick up and play a zone better and it's great to be able to switch between the two. Boxing out is another big one that's important to work on as much as possible, and we do a lot of closeout and recover drills too.

Scoring with younger kids like that is mostly going to be fast breaks, layups and busted plays, so we don't spend a lot of time on shooting - mainly just FTs and layup drills and you'll be fine. We do spend a lot of time working on good passing and on setting proper screens. Also a big thing at that age is going to be teaching them how to get open and create space off the ball - we work a lot on learning to use picks (setting your defender up and running him into it), and when to backdoor cut and how to fake a cut and then pop back out to receive a pass.

Whoever said to make sure you work on a good press break was spot on - nearly every team we play presses and a lot of them just use it as their base D, so you have to have your kids ready for it. Most of the time at this level there's not much half court offense, so if you have a really good press break with good ballhandlers and can run a few simple plays in the halfcourt your team will be fine offensively.

Good luck man! Coaching is a lot of fun and very rewarding - just tune out the helicopter parents and you're gonna have a blast

[chesterisme]

Teach them the triangle.

[chrismikayla]

Thanks for the great advice so far. And yes above all else we are going to keep it fun

[Dmanning2]

At that age those kids are in middle school. On my middle school basketball team practice all we did was run and defense. Don't really remember touching a basketball ball during pratice

[flash22]

Dribbling, Dribbling, Dribbling. At that age fundamentals are the most important. The first half of your practice should be dedicated to dribbling. Also teach them basic dribbling exercises that they can do on there own and give them a ball to take home. With then not dribbling go over basic techniques, mainly shoot stance, passing and defense.

[Reginald Wayne]

End practice with a fun game: 21

Line the kids up in 3 groups - one group at the top of the arc, and one each between the baseline three and top of the arc on both sides. When the game starts the first kid from each team can shoot a 3, a mid-range jumper, or a lay up worth 3, 2 and 1 points respectively. He grabs his own rebound and passes it to next kid waiting at the 3 point line. Repeat until one team scores 21. All teams can shoot at the same time. The point is to score 21 the quickest. Have them count out their score out loud.

[Reginald Wayne]

At that age those kids are in middle school. On my middle school basketball team practice all we did was run and defense. Don't really remember touching a basketball ball during pratice

What a **** coach.

[PKABOOICU]

zone defense, box and 1 defense, shuffling feet, defensive stance, hands up all times, chest pass, bounce pass, overhead pass, layup drills, sprints, suicides, press, breaking press...