Coaching Second-Grade Basketball

As the New Year approaches, I'd like to share my thoughts on our non-competitive league, where we have a 45-minute game each Saturday and one week night practice. So far, it's been a lot of fun and the kids have improved each week, but I have the following observations:

1. Our league's rules compel teams to play man-to-man defenses. I think this is a mistake, as does another dad, who's a middle-school teacher who coaches his school's boys' b-ball team. The reason: not every kid can handle the ball, a majority can't blow by a defender on a dribble, and not all understand the "triple threat" position. As a result, defenders play chest-up defense (even if they may not begin to guard opponents above the foul line and even if they may not double team, it's still hard for the refs -- HS kids -- to police those rules constantly), and passing has all but been eliminated. While, sure, purists love man-to-man defense, the rule that you have to play it constantly means that you've eliminated passing from all but very close distances.

2. Most kids don't have the fundamentals down. They're okay passers, and they can become decent defenders, but the dribbling is lacking. My guess is that the average kid isn't as good a ballhandler as the average kid was, say, 30 years ago. The reasons for this: 1) there are many more "little league" types of sports now than there were then, so kids don't play pick up hoops nearly as much as they did three decades ago, at least in suburbia, 2) the advent of dozens of TV channels and video games, making kids somewhat less likely to go outside and play, 3) the security consciousness of parents who don't want kids to roam the neighborhood gathering kids to play games the way they used to and 4) kids don't watch games as much on TV, which means they aren't picking up the nuances about the game that we did years ago (such as the importance of setting picks, cutting, etc.). Put differently, of the 9 kids on my team, only 4 can move the action significantly through the dribble. Of the five others, one is getting there, two sometimes dribble two-handed (and have to be reminded they can't), and two are wont to dribble in front of them, guaranteeing the ball will be slapped away.

We're drilling as much as we can, but I doubt that kids work on their games much, if at all. Why? First, it's cold in this neck of the woods, so kids won't get outside to practice. Second, they play games season to season, so they probably don't play much pickup in the off-season. Those who do will end up getting better. We'll keep on stressing the importance of dribbling, and hopefully our exhortations will resonate with the kids even after the season is over.

3. The kids work really hard and want to get better. They defend tenaciously, and they get into it. One kid really surprised me in our last game, about 2 weeks ago. He seemed tentative, but he guarded ably a kid who was several inches taller, much stronger and who called for the ball in the low post. The boy on the opposing team didn't score in the fourth quarter, and it was fun to see the smile on our player's face when I congratulated him on his effort.

4. They learn, but they're attention spans are short. We put in three new drills that helped solve a few problems. First, we started a "follow your shot" drill, where the kids take a mid-lane shot and then follow it up and get two more chances to put the ball in the basket. We also stressed to them that they needed to hit the boards when either our team shot or the other team did. We ask them a question: "who owns the ball?" and have them shout out "we do." Put differently, they're polite kids for the most part, and we want them to be more aggressive and go for the ball.

Second, we started a drill where, again, mid-lane, we toss them the ball chest high and teach them to shoot it once they catch it. Many kids are prone to trying to put in on the floor, and most will lose the ball. We worked that hard both in practice and before the game, and that drill resulted in our getting better shots and not losing the ball.

Third, we started a play to cure our most significant problem -- kids who either pick up their dribble and get stuck, with nowhere to pass because they're covered like a glove, or, alternatively, kids who are stuck because after they get the pass they're covered like a glove and aren't confident enough to put the ball on the floor. It's the old version of the dribble handoff, and what we do is have a kid dribble, with a teammate trailing him, and then have the dribbler stop and hand it off to the trailer, who then either drives toward the hoop or passes it back to the initial dribbler on a give-and-go. That play created many open looks in practice, especially among the four best players on the team. We also ask the kids a question: "What's the most important thing we do on offense?" They respond: "Protect the basketball." We have explained -- and they get it -- that they have to be careful with the ball when we have it and not lose it to the other team.

5. We still work on defensive slides, dribbling drills (including having the kids look up at me and shout out the number of fingers I'm holding up so that they get used to dribbling and not looking at the ball), passing drills (chest, bounce and overhead) and layup drills, and we'll probably teach a pick-and-roll soon. They're pretty eager to learn, they practice hard, and, in the end, and most importantly, they're getting good exercise and having a lot of fun. Typically, there aren't more than say 10 baskets scored in a game (although there is one kid whose mom played college ball who can shoot from outside; we haven't played his team yet).

It's fun to see how much the kids care -- a few keep score in their heads, even though we don't as a rule keep score. We've more than held our own, and thanks to a few books, watching games and even watching other teams practice, we've come up with some good practice plans to make things interesting. I look very much forward to the rest of the year and seeing more improvement from the kids.

The kids get frustrated because they aren't hitting that many shots, but we're making sure they're playing more under control and taking better shots. As I tell them, the thing about good shooters is that they aren't afraid to miss. That doesn't mean we want to turn these kids into gunners, but we want them to accept the fact that they have to take 'em to make 'em, and that they need to rebound from a few bad shots/misses and keep on working hard. So far they get that, and it's been fun to watch their determination.

Everyone gets to play 2 quarters in a game, and two kids each week get to play 3, and I rotate who those kids are every week. I try to split my top four into groups of two, to make sure that I have at least 2 ballhandlers on the floor each quarter. Sometimes there are 3, and that's when the team plays its best. The other kids are still learning the game. They know they need to get open on offense, but sometimes they are so far away from the action that only Chris Paul could find them open (and the average eight year-old can't begin to throw the ball that far). We encourage the parents to have their kids watch college games to get a better sense of the game, and it's hard to tell if anyone is actually doing that.

At any rate, there are always numerous plays each week to keep the kids coming back, and for me the greatest reward is to see the smile on a child's face after she or he has done something in one week that he couldn't do the week before. If my assistant coach and I can cause those smiles to recur weekly, then we're having a great time (and, hopefully, so are the kids).