Player Instructions – Inner Circle Basketball

Player Instruction

No such things as mistakes, just learning opportunities

TRAINING vs GAMES

Focus on your shooting, dribbling, passing, footwork, and defense
Get up 1000s of shots while developing mechanics
Spend hours on skills repetition... and still scrimmage
Train locally & keep your weekends
Coaches are motivated to create better players
Allows time to be a multi-sport athlete
The average player touches the ball 1 minute, 47 seconds/game.
Little time spent on fundamentals & basic skills
More expensive and time-consuming - with less benefit
It doesn't matter if your team is great if you're not
Unnecessary travel
More prone to injury or burnout

There is a place for training AND games, BUT if you spend all year playing games, you’ll never stop to improve on your fundamentals and only cement your bad habits.

It’s not one or the other. Spend time training this Spring and Summer – even if you also join a team!

Ahmed has coached from the grade school levels all the way through top HS AAU basketball teams. He has coached with & coached all levels of players including some of the best players in the world who currently are NOW in the NBA & WNBA.

In his experience, athletes spend too much time playing games and not enough time stopping to learn and practice the fundamentals needed to make sound players.

Read what Tyler Coston, founder of Point Guard College, has to say.

Coaching & Player Education & Philosophies

The BEAST philosophy was conceived by one of Coach K.’s colleague and mentor Carlos Humphrey, in which he accredits to the hundreds of players and coaches who influenced him as well. BEAST=Better Educated Athletes, Strong Teams.

The program is based on the premise that kids have the most fun when enjoying the feeling that comes from working hard and earning what they achieve.

All individuals are capable of lengthy improvements through hard work, extensive training, motivation, and positive reinforcement. In order for us (BEAST, the parents and the player) to accomplish our goals as a team, we must work together at providing a positive attitude and environment.

Physical talent is only one piece of the puzzle. It is important that we look at other aspects in the game of basketball where we can gain a significant advantage.

These areas of physical and mental development include:

Intelligence: Understand the importance of certain drills and/or exercises
Determination: Follow through on specific training programs
Pride: Possess both personal and team pride; willing to give 100% at all times
Mental Toughness: Learn to work through small problems and adverse situations
Emotion: Motivate oneself and others and be able to show control under stress
Aggressiveness: Play at full speed and accept contact: basketball is a contact sport!
Confidence: Know that you can meet any challenge given when you're prepared
Physical Toughness: Get faster and stronger through footwork, dynamic warm-up, and conditioning
Repetition: Dedicate oneself to practicing fundamentals again and again

Key Teaching Points

Help support athletic development
Incorporate comprehensive and fundamental approaches to movement patterns and other skills needed to be a successful athlete
Offer players the ability to push themselves and learn at their own pace
Guarantee a challenging and positive environment to learn basketball skills

Motor learning requires active learning on the part of players.

Skills Addressed:

“If you practice with intensity and purpose, you’ll play with passion and confidence.”

What to expect from ICA coaching:

Athlete’s performance is directly related to the coach’s ability to teach.

Coach has to know what he is doing, and have an enthusiasm and enjoyment for doing it.

It’s not enough to know your subject, you must also be aware of your player audience.

Three basic keys to successful coaching.

DEFENSE (Wins games):

Pressuring the player with the ball – “BALL”

Aggressively pressure the ball handler
Eliminate the triple threat
Stay low. Stay on toes and be ready to move
Have both hands up to take away shot and pass options
Take away the middle by influencing/forcing toward baseline (trap zones)

Challenging the shooter – “SHOT”

Influencing the dribbler- “BASELINE”

Attacking the trap dribble – “DEAD”

PLAYING DISRUPTIVE PRESSURE DEFENSE:

Makes opposing coaches coach the game defensively
Forces our players to anticipate and play aggressively
Eliminates major upsets
Makes the difference in close games
Makes you competitive in mismatch games

Proven results & benefits:

Press keeps opponents from executing their set offense(s)
Removes the ball from opponent’s best ball handler/leader’s hand
Forces rush or bad shots which decreases opponent’s shooting percentage by over 10%
Creates 8 to 10 more bad passes and turnovers per game
Results in easy transition baskets which increases scoring and shooting averages
Encourages players to play more aggressively with sound defensive fundamentals

Keys to success:

OFFENSE:

Get the ball up the floor as quick as possible
Quickly move the ball from one side of the court to the other
Share the basketball
Set screens
Look for lay-ups or easy shots
Rebound

Ways to improve our offense:

Avoid running with your back to the ball
Take care of the basketball (limit turnovers)
Play smart with and without the basketball
Know the offense
Commit to running the floor
Commit to rebounding (flood the boards)

Rules of Motion Offense:

Use the floor when beginning to move
Move with authority – cut hard all the time
Read the defense and the ball, then react
Get open or get out of the way, don’t stand still
Be an actress; take the initiative, use believable fakes
Lose the defender
Run through the leather (meet the pass and come to the ball)
Get close to get open
Set low legal screens (basketball is a contact sport!)
Two scoring options on every screen: cutter and screener

TEAM GUIDELINES

PMA (Positive Mental Attitude) – Be a giver

Enjoy the Process

Tough Responses-No Excuses!

Be a “Learner,” not a “Knower”

Be the Best

Take Care of the Ball

Teamwork

Teamwork is the Ultimate Competitive Advantage

THE THREE MAJOR CAUSES OF DEFEAT

INDIVIDUAL ON-BALL FUNDAMENTALS

Teaching Methods-Shooting

ICA Camp’s Shooting sessions and approach to our basketball shooting camp is essentially the same as our world-renowned approach to teaching ball handling. ICA Camp teaches the camper to perfect their shot through intense, repetitive drills that lock the necessary shooting technique into the camper’s muscle memory. This will enable the athlete to execute proper fundamentally-sound shooting mechanics.

This is accomplished by breaking the shot down into several stages, and then making sure the shooter fully understands and learns each step. This process is a lot of hard work with great attention to detail, that will produce unbelievable results. If you are willing to do the work, then ICA Camp’s Shooting sessions will dramatically improve your shooting percentages.

For our younger athletes and most of our older athletes we begin our teaching process with an overview of the basic elements of the shot commonly referred to as B.E.E.F.:

Balance and Footwork

After a quick overview, we begin by focusing on the shooters’ balance and footwork. Improper footwork causes improper balance. Bad balance for most players is as responsible for a low shooting percentage as bad form or poor shot selection. Before we move on to the shot itself, the campers will have a very thorough understanding of balance and the importance it plays in the execution of a proper shot. For our more experienced campers, we will get into which footwork to use in relation to where they are on the basketball court and in relation to their defender. For example, if they are coming off a “pick” east to west or west to east, they can create space with a pull-back move and then take a shot. We also cover topics like shooting off the dribble, quick release of a pass as the defender slips under the pick, and stepping into a jump shot. All these situations and techniques require proper footwork to achieve proper balance.

Center of Gravity

Obtaining a good center of gravity is critical to the shooter and again is achieved with proper footwork. This is obtained when the feet are properly placed, the shoulders are square to the basket, and the shooter’s body is in proper relation to placement of their feet. This, like all other areas of the player’s game, has to happen instantaneously. The athlete does not have the time to pre-think and sort all of this out during live game play. If all of this different footwork is firmly locked into the athlete’s muscle memory (like playing the piano), their mind and body will instantaneously work together to execute whatever footwork is necessary to obtain a good center of gravity and proper balance to execute whichever shot they choose. As always there is only one way to get all this information locked into the athlete’s muscle memory, and that is with repetition. The camper must drill over and over until enough repetitions have been executed to firmly lock the skill into their muscle memory.

The Shot

For teaching principles, we break the shot itself into 4 main categories. Again, as always, these are locked into the shooter’s muscle memory through repetitive drills:

Hand placement

First, we cover the basic hand placement of the shooting hand and the guide hand. This will be the same for the vast majority of our shooters. There are a few variances for special need’s athletes. (For example, if one player has a different angle to his wrist, we will slightly change his/her hand placement.)

Shooting pocket/alignment:

Shooting pocket is the point from where a shot is started. The player’s shooting pocket will vary depending on their age, skill level, and strength. It is very common for coaches and parents to try to move the athlete’s shooting pocket up too high before the shooter is ready.

Alignment may very well be the single most important part of the shot. Assuming our shooter has established a good center of gravity, their hand, and most importantly, their elbow, must be aligned with their shoulder, which must be square to the basket. With our younger athletes, especially younger female athletes, they tend to lack the necessary upper body strength to keep the elbow properly aligned on outside shots. However, they can have proper alignment when working on their form and while “form shooting”.

Release point:

The release point is that point at which the shooter releases the ball. An improper release point is one of the reasons the ball will have little to no rotation. A shooter can have decent follow through, hence good rotation, but still have a bad release point.

A bad release point is prevalent among most young players. It is commonly referred to as “pushing the basketball”. Pushing the ball will cause a low-angle, flat flightline path to the basket, thus greatly reducing the chances of the basketball going through the hoop. It is a simple matter of geometry.

A basketball that is dropping toward the basket at a 70 to 90 degree angle from above simply has a larger diameter target to drop through than a ball approaching the hoop from a 30 to 50 degree inclination. (See the image immediately below, and the diagram further below.)

It again should be noted here that for our more advanced players, their release point will vary depending on how quickly their defender is closing out on them. We will work on quick-release shooting with these advanced players. This is not taught to most young athletes. As a rule, the higher the release point the better. A high release point will eliminate pushing the ball, will give you great rotation, and cause the ball to approach the basket from a great angle thus dramatically increasing your shooting percentage. It should be noted here that a high release point for younger players can only be achieved within their shooting range (close to the basket). You can increase this range by adding more legs to the shot.

Follow through:

Follow through is sometimes referred to as “touch” or “shooter’s touch”. Great follow through is what will cause the ball to have great rotation. Proper rotation is what will cause the basketball (providing the ball has not been pushed and is dropping from a proper angle) to grab the backboard or rim and drop through the hoop rather than bounce out.

ICA Camps’ Shooting sessions uses many drills to work on each of these areas of the player’s shot. All shooters, regardless of where they are in their skill development, can and will benefit from each of these drills. How much time each camper will spend on a certain drill will depend on which part of their shot needs the most correction. There is truly only one way to lock all this into our shooters muscle memory and that is to drill and drill. Long, hard, boring, hours of repetitive drills.

Of course, it really does help to have someone who can break the shot process down and show the shooter the right drills to use. Some camps would simply have the campers push the ball up at the basket for 8 hours. While this approach will produce a better shooter than staying home and watching television, it does nothing to educate the player or fix the areas of the their shot that needs to be corrected. While Advantage Basketball Camps’ Shooting Camp is a lot of hard work, we do produce great results.

Let’s take a look at some common problems that you can spot in your young athlete’s shooting techniques and what causes them.

Oblong ball rotation

This is where the ball will have an oblong or sideways rotation to it. Factors that cause this to happen are:

Flat rotation or no rotation

This is where the ball has little or no rotation. The shooter has eliminated all of the above problems, but still has more to correct:

No follow through. The shooter did not snap their wrist at the apex of their shot. This is usually caused by a bad release point, which is generally caused by pushing the ball.
They are usually, but not always interconnected, but usually are.
"Pushing the ball". This is very common and is very prevalent in new campers. Changing this one bad habit will dramatically improve an athlete's shooting percentage.

Flat shot

The shot takes a low-angle path to the basket, rather than a high arc which provides a larger target. (See diagram below.) This is caused from pushing the ball, which is often the result of the shooter being outside their shooting range or they have a bad release point. They may lack the upper body strength or skills to shoot from a longer distance. Also refer to “Shooting range”.

Ball consistently misses to the right or to the left

Shoulders are not square to the basket.
"Thumbing" the ball.
Feet are planted too close together when moving east to west or west to east, resulting in unstable balance. In this situation, the player is essentially falling in the same direction they are moving when they decide to pull up and shoot.
Elbow out instead of aligned.
Positioning the ball in front of the face, thus creating bad alignment.
Fingers on the shooting hand are positioned too close together on the ball.
The shooting hand is improperly placed on the ball.
Feet are not pointing at the basket.
Moving the head to the side, caused by bad alignment.

The ball consistently comes up short

The ball consistently goes long

Tracking shots

“Tracking shots” is a technique used by ICA to pinpoint what a shooter needs to work on. Problems with a player’s shot are instantly and easily spotted by a trained eye. It is helpful for the shooter to see where their shot is consistently missing in relation to the basket. It is only after they put in the hours of hard work necessary to fix the problem, and their shooting percentage has increased, that they are ready to listen to the coach and do more of the necessary work to correct other problem areas of their shot.

To track a player’s shots, start by drawing 100 circles on a piece of paper. Every time the player takes a shot, place a mark on the circle indicating where the ball hit or missed the rim. For example, if the shot misses to the left of the rim, put a dot on the outside left of the circle. If the shot is good, but it is off-center to the front, place a dot on the inside front edge of the circle. If the ball swishes and doesn’t hit the rim at all, put a dot in the center of the circle.

For more advanced players and shooters, the tracking system includes a lot more information such as where the shot was taken from on the floor, was the player moving from left to right or right to left, was the player set, or was it a jump shot? Was the shot a “runner’ or “floater”? Was the shot taken with the left hand or right hand?

Our shooting diagram shows the angle at which the basketball approaches the basket.

When the ball approaches the rim from a 30 degree angle of inclination, this is called a “flat shot” or a “rope shot”. It is a very low-percentage shot. It is possible for a shot to go in from this angle, but it must hit the basket perfectly. Most younger players shoot flat shots. It takes less power to get the ball to the hoop, and therefore the player can shoot from further away, but will dramatically decrease their shooting percentage. The ball coming at a 30 degree angle only gives the ball 9 inches of the available 18 inches for the ball to go through the hoop. Refer to the diagram and notice how narrow the rim appears to the ball. With a flat shot you are not using the available rim and your shot must be perfect.

From a 50 degree angle, the shot has 16 inches of available rim space for the ball to go into the basket. From this angle you can be off as much 3 inches in either direction and still have the ball go into the basket.

At a 70 degree angle, there is a little more than 17 inches of rim space for the basketball to go through the hoop. Shooting percentages will dramatically improve for shots made at this angle compared to shots made at lower angles.

Shooting percentages

So far, we’ve focused on basketball shooting techniques and tips. Another important skill taught to students at ICA Camps is shooting. Our Shooting sessions consist of how shooting from different locations on the court will increase their shooting percentages. This is often referred to as “shooting range”. Once a player gets outside their shooting range, they must lower their release point, push the ball and, therefore, dramatically decrease their shooting percentage.

Tracking shots can really help a player and coach increase a shooter’s success. For more advanced players, several variables are tracked: angles to the basket, defenders, left to right or right left movement, type of shot, “power foot”, and so on. For most younger players, the rule or lesson is simple: the closer to the basket, the better the shooting percentage is going to be.

Here’s an example:

Players B and C put up a total of 12 shots for a total of 16 points. Player A was the leading scorer but took 23 shots to accomplish this. If player A could take 23 shots and hit 17 of them, then have at it. But Player A, while consistently being the team’s leading scorer, is actually hurting the team by taking low-percentage shots. If Player A would take fewer bad shots and give the other, smarter players more shots, the team’s shooting percentage would go up and the team would win more games. While many fans and coaches at the lower levels of the game are very happy with their leading scorer, great coaches and scouts at the upper levels will pass on the 18-points-per-game player who is shooting in the 23-percent scoring range. They will instead opt to recruit the 10-point-per-game player who is shooting in a 58-percent scoring range.

Shooting range

Shooting range, simply put, is the distance or range from the basket where the player can shoot the basketball with good form and make a high percentage of their shots. To increase their shooting percentage, advanced players need to gain an understanding of which shot to use and where that shot should be used on the court and in relation to the position of their defender. When a player has moved far enough from the basket that they start pushing the ball to get the ball to the basket, they have moved outside their shooting range. Once a player is outside his or her shooting range their shooting percentage will drop off dramatically.

Our first goal is to learn to shoot the basketball with picture-perfect shooting form. This can be achieved with the right training and hard work. We hope to see you at an Advantage Basketball Camps’ Shooting Camp. Come prepared to work hard and take notes. The training will be some of the best you have ever had.

Key Concepts That Create Excellent Basketball Players

ICA Camp’s drills are designed to give players exceptional ball control from the front, back, and sides of a basketball. They allow players to execute lighting-fast direction-changing moves with the ball low to the ground.

Here are some of the key concepts that are taught at ICA Camps. When students understand and master these skills, they are truly on the road to excellence and success in their basketball careers.

Topping the Basketball

Most young players have been bouncing a basketball up and down from the top of the ball for many years. This is called “topping the basketball”. Dribbling a ball from the top is firmly locked into their muscle memory. This is the first thing that new campers need to change. Dribbling on top of a basketball works when moving in a straight line. Quick moves must be executed with your hand on the front, back, or side of the basketball.

Muscle Memory

The brain and body have an ability to know where its various parts are located spatially. For example, if you close your eyes and move your hands or legs around, your brain can still interpret where the body parts are without seeing them. This sense of body positioning comes from “stretch receptors” or “proprioceptors”, nerve endings throughout the body that communicate movement and location information to the brain. This kinesthetic ability is also known as “proprioception”. The brain analyzes the information, and provides a clear sense of the body’s orientation and/or movement.

Through repetition of a particular movement – practice – the body and brain become so familiar with that movement, that they together begin to “remember” the move without conscious intervention. In other words, after sufficient drilling, a player is able to perform a move without even having to think about it and each of the steps involved. The player can then execute high-level moves with lightning quickness while simultaneously planning their strategy and next move. This ability of the body to remember moves without conscious effort is called “muscle memory”. Each of us has some experience with muscle memory: typing, driving, even eating all involve unconsciously coordinating the movement of body parts. Without muscle memory, all basketball players would have to watch and consciously control every bounce of the basketball with every dribble.

Building Blocks

Building block drills are beginning drills that develop and lock basic skills into the player’s muscle memory. They are the foundation that all other drills and moves build upon. A strong foundation is absolutely essential to executing higher-level moves. Repetitive drilling of a specific move eventually allows a player to perform that move without conscious effort.

Quickness

Quickness is different than simply being able to run fast. Anyone can learn to make a lightning-quick direction change on their defender. Players learn when to apply quickness, too. If the player executes this move in the backcourt, they may blow past their defender, but only momentarily. The defender will quickly catch up. Executing a quick move in the frontcourt, however, creates the space needed to get the shot off – two dribbles and up for the lay in or dish to the post – and does not leave the defender time to recover.

Balance

All of our moves are designed to get our defender off balance and then blow by them. We want to get the defenders weight going one way while we are going the other way. Fake one way, go the other way. This is often called show and go.

Siding the Ball

Controlling the ball from the sides is an extremely important skill to develop. Siding the ball is like “palming” a ball except from the side. Centrifugal force, rather than grip, will keep the ball in the player’s hand. In higher-level moves, the arm can be used to pin the ball. Siding the ball allows the player to dramatically “sell a direction” or “fake”, and then instantly move in a different direction. This is also called “show and go” and results from an ability to control the ball from the sides.

Drop Step

The drop step is a fundamental defensive move. The defender will try to send the offensive play in one direction. If the offensive player is nice enough to go that direction, then the defender will stay low and slide with the offensive player. However if the offensive player goes the other direction the defender will have to execute a drop step and then slide the new direction. This is accomplished by the defender picking up their lead foot (also called power foot or top foot) and making a big backwards drop step.

Crossover This essential move is where the ball is bounced (at a 45-degree angle) from one hand to the other while moving quickly forward, bent over (also at a 45-degree angle), into a defender on the side with the empty hand. This keeps the ball away from the defender and, when performed quickly, the defender is usually left off-balance, ensuring the offensive player room to move around him to shoot, pass, or drive the lane. Practice, footwork, balance, and the ability to execute the move without looking down at the ball – muscle memory – are essential.