Which basketball skill is hardest to acquire?

[SVictor]

Playmaking. You either have it or don't have it.

It's actually learned to be honest. You don't just "have" playmaking, what does that even mean? But it's if you value it and enjoy it, and also have the ability to do it, it becomes natural to you.

I mean it is a natural talent. If a player lacks court vision, it's really REALLY hard to acquire it. You are either gifted with it or not.

[mcfly1204]

Winning.

[thinktank]

80 bazillion votes for offensive skills, 8 for defense.

Tells you all you need to know about what people know about defense. Nothing.

[picc]

Because defense has much more to do with pure effort than the other skills. You can't just try harder and suddenly improve your ballhandling, passing acumen, or shooting. Whereas players who are notoriously bad on defense can look much better in the span of one play, much less years of dedication to working on it, simply by putting more effort forth.

Thats not to say you can be Steve Nash and become Bruce Bowen just by hard work. But there's more of a chance Steve decides to put all his energy into stopping a guy and suddenly makes him work much harder for his points, then there is of Bruce dribbling his way through multiple defenders and wrapping a pass behind one of their heads.

[whocurrz]

The thing that's tricky about this question is that you cannot be a very good playmaker without an above average handle. If you're constantly having to look for your dribble, you are not going to be able to see things develop on the court. Nash and Paul are able to dissect defenses because dribbling is so natural to them. The can dribble through traffic with their eyes up because the ball is like a yoyo to them. This also allows them to get anywhere they want on the court with a great amount of control, opening up those lanes for their team mates.

Now, I think because of that and the fact that it can only really be practiced well in competitive 3 v3 to 5v5 action, playmaking is definitely the hardest to master. You can't work on your playmaking the same way you can work on your dribbling, but if you play enough scrimmaging, with team mates who know how to move around you, seeing a jump in your playmaking ability doesn't seem as difficult as making significant jumps in the ball-handling category. So I think ball-handling is the hardest to make significant gains in since it really is something learned at such a young age and mastered only by continuing to practice as your body grows. But playmaking for the most part requires you to be an above-average ball-handler for your position. Don't know if that makes total sense, but just a correlation I noticed between the two most popular answers in this thread.

In a real game true, but in pick up ball. Nope, especially if your as fast as Rose or Wall. When people pick up on my handles. I just run right pass them. Magic didn't have the greatest handles and he made it look easy.

Still Rose Wall and Magic all have great handles. They may not be the flashiest, but being able to dribble under control at those speeds and keeping your eyes up is not something many people can do out on the court. I just think ACQUIRING handles is harder to ACQUIRE than playmaking ability. Sure being an elite playmaker like Nash is very difficult, but being able to drive and kick or set up team mates through pick and roll or nice entry passes is not hard to do at an adequate level if you have good BBIQ and teammates who know how to move without the ball, but going from never dribbling a basketball to driving on guys in traffic is almost impossible to acquire unless learned from a young age. Like others have said, playmaking is the hardest to practice, but I think dribbling is the hardest to ACQUIRE.

[DuckIII]

Dunking. I've been trying to do it for years, and haven't succeeded at it even once on a regulation rim. And the later into my 30s I get, the less successful are my attempts. I think I just need to practice harder.

[Hops]

BBall IQ, see JR Smith

[HartfordWhalers]

Dunking. I've been trying to do it for years, and haven't succeeded at it even once on a regulation rim. And the later into my 30s I get, the less successful are my attempts. I think I just need to practice harder.

At least you still have her:

[doctorfunk]

Dunking. I've been trying to do it for years, and haven't succeeded at it even once on a regulation rim. And the later into my 30s I get, the less successful are my attempts. I think I just need to practice harder.

or smarter

[og15]

80 bazillion votes for offensive skills, 8 for defense.

Tells you all you need to know about what people know about defense. Nothing.

I think a better response would have been for you to suggest what the defensive skill that's super difficult to learn is, unless you previously did, and in which case, I'm sorry, but I missed it. The thing about defense is that a lot of it is IQ related in terms of being a good defender. A good amount of it can be natural or also learned (stealing and shot blocking), and a good amount is effort (not taking plays off, fighting through screens, making sure to box out, not doing lazy rotations or shot contests). There are good shot blockers who aren't the smartest players but naturally have good timing and anticipation, similarly good ball thiefs with the same situation.

There are sucky shot blockers who later become good after learning proper rotation and shot block timing, ie. Andrew Bogut, but you don't see that too often, and the guy usually has to have the length and quickness already.

Not too many guys work on stealing ability (I don't thnk they do), but being able to anticipate passes and get in passing lanes can be worked on in a sense. It is actually something I personally didn't "work on" persay, but decided to think about more and got better at it. And then being quick and having quick hands helps in that too, and reaction time is also a natural ability.

Learning how to not foul is also a skill, but is more about discipline with hands and body in addition to better rotation and feet movement than it is about learning the "no fouling" skill. And even with the later, if you're undisciplined, you will still pick up fouls.

Defense just has a lot more understanding as opposed to physical skills. On offense, you're doing all the similar defensive things (know where to be, how to spread the floor well, discipline with shot selection, how to use screens, how to set effective screens, how to anticipate plays, footwork etc), but then you also have to shoot, dribble, pass, post up etc. On defense there's no extra added dimension of maneuvering a ball around.

[og15]

Dunking. I've been trying to do it for years, and haven't succeeded at it even once on a regulation rim. And the later into my 30s I get, the less successful are my attempts. I think I just need to practice harder.

Obviously this is in gest, but dunking is purely a natural ability related thing; so unless you can already dunk at a decent level and are trying to learn new dunks, learning to dunk in and of itself is not a skill that an unatheltic not tall guy is going to acquire. So, no, even in gest, dunking doesn't count

[schematics]

Play making and it's not even close! If you have to question why then you need to seriously go play organized ball for some years n reconsider

[schematics]

Court vision is something you have to be born with

What!? False! That's def not the only way. You can most def develop court vision