3 Things You NEED To Do To Become A Better Ball Handler (Podcast Episode 106)

Welcome to the Vision Ambassador Trading Podcast. Appreciate you guys for tuning in today. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, Google podcasts, wherever you may be listening from. And obviously all of you guys who are watching now on YouTube, I appreciate you drop a like subscribe if you're new, leave a comment, let me know what you think about the episode, if you got anything from it. You have any comments, any questions, suggestions for me? Definitely drop that in the comments below. And if you are on Apple podcasts or Spotify, drop a review for me as well. I, I really appreciate that. So today we're going to talk about three things that you need to do if you want to become a better ball handler. And really it's going to be an all encompassing sort of thing where you do these three things. You're going to become a good ball handler, you become a better ball handler. I think a lot of times players will miss one of these categories, two of these categories, and then it's just an incomplete approach to becoming better in that, in that area. And this, this translates to a lot of other areas. But I want to talk specifically through that lens today. If you're missing out on one of these, then you're always going to be limited in terms of either what you can do as you improve or if you even see improvement. So that's why I wanted to go through this today. The first thing that I think is really, really important, this is probably the area that players miss the most of these three and that's just handling the ball against actual defense, right? I think that is where it starts. If you struggle to handle pressure, you probably don't practice handling pressure enough. When we talk about actually seeing improvement, that translates into the game. You want to look and say, okay, what is the task here? The task is handle pressure, handle the ball in a game, and what can we do in practice that represents that task, right? What is task representative? The the most task representative thing would be to handle the ball against pressure when you're practicing, right? If you wanted to translate, that'd be the easiest way to make it translate is to do the same thing. So this can be really, really simple. There's a lot of ways you can do this. Obviously can be as easy as grabbing a friend or a teammate. And you know, you give yourself maybe, maybe we say the paint, right? You're just handling the ball in the paint and they're trying to steal the ball from you. You are trying to make it for 10 seconds without losing the ball or 15 seconds, whatever you what the goal might be and that's a great way for you to be able to work on handling pressure, handling actual defense, learning what that actually looks like. And you know, if you wonder why you're handling doesn't transfer, it's probably because you don't know how to actually handle the ball when there's somebody trying to take it from you. Right? You can do all the drills in the world and I'm a fan of doing drills too, don't get me wrong. And we're going to talk about that later on as well. But you can do all the drills that you want to do. If you don't ever work on it against defense, you're never going to know how to actually apply it to games. And therefore it's never going to be something that actually shows up for you. And you're going to spend all this time working on it and you're going to wonder why it's not transferring. You're not seeing the results in games and it's because you haven't learned how to actually execute that skill in the context of, hey, there's someone trying to take the ball from me. And I'm trying to whether it's, you know, drive to the basket or make a pass or just get the ball at the court, if you haven't practiced that, you can do all the on air balloon drills you want. You're always going to struggle a little bit. So that's one way to do it is just one on one with a friend, with a teammate, you can do it that way. Obviously it can also be in the context of having a five on five game and you just try to handle the ball more or a three on three and you just, hey, my goal is to handle the ball more and to work on it this way. Another great way to do that is force yourself to be a little bit uncomfortable sometimes. So if there's an opportunity for you to bring the ball up or put the ball on the floor a little bit more in the context of a game, then do that. Be willing to be uncomfortable and make mistakes. I until eventually you get better at it and it becomes something that you just can kind of do. Right? But you're always going to be limited if you do not work on handling the ball against actual defense. I think that's a really important thing. And there's ways to make it even harder. I think that one of my favorite things to do is to do a one on two handling pressure. So maybe you go like sideline to lane line, you have all that area from baseline to half court, and the offensive player has the ball and there's two defenders and you have to get from the baseline to half court. And that can be. That can be your goal right there. I think that's a great way also to add another level of challenge to it, a challenge that probably is more difficult than you're actually going to see in a game, which I think is a really good thing to do. So, first thing first, key to becoming a better ball handler. One thing you need to do to become a great ball handler is to practice handling the ball against live defense. The second thing that's important when it comes to becoming a better ball handler is working on the movement associated with handling the ball. Right? So we think about ball handling, we think about hands, we think about what your upper body is doing with the ball. We work on pounding the ball and doing all these things, right? That is a part of it for sure. Like, obviously, handling the ball requires your hands, so your hands do matter, but that's not the entirety of it. And I would say at times it's not even the majority of it, because at the end of the day, ball handling is. It's a means to an end. The goal is to put the ball in the basket. Somehow you're using ball handling in order to get you to do that. There's going to be some sort of movement involved, you're trying to get somewhere or do something with the ball. So if you can't move well with the ball, you're never going to be able to do that at a high level. And therefore, it doesn't matter how hard you can pound the ball into the floor. If you can't move with the ball, and if you aren't able to move and have the ball keep up with you, then you're going to struggle to actually be an effective ball handler in games. So a couple things to think about with this is working on your change of speed, right? Or your change of height. So this can be as simple as. Even if you don't have a ball in your hands to start it just working on, you know, you can be like straight line. Okay, I'm just walking and I'm transitioning on to, you know, to a run, to a jog. Okay, I'm going to start off and I'm just kind of. I'm going to kind of walk and I'm going to go to 20% and then 60% and then 80% and then 100%. And then maybe you mix it up, maybe you start to start off at 40, you go to 80, you drop down to 20, now you're at 100, back down to 40, and you're just working on being able to change up how fast you're moving, right? Change up your pace that you can play with. And that's a super simple way to do it. And then just putting a ball in your hands, right? We're going to talk a little bit more about freestyling, but putting a ball in your hands and then just handling the ball, working on handling it at 20%, and boom, you hit 80%. And okay, now I'm down to 60. Now I'm at 100, now I'm back to 20. And now we're working on the actual movement, the movement qualities associated with being a great ball handler. So that's one example. Obviously, you can do the same thing with a change of height. You can work ahead of the ball up high, you can work on dropping and handling the ball low. Another way to, again, work on a different sort of quality associated with it. And then we can talk about footwork, too. So how well, how good are you at, you know, getting to, you know, your dropped or your acceleration position where you can go from being at a standstill to now having a back foot to push off of, right? And there's all these different nuanced footwork that can go with it. But ultimately, am I working on my ability to start, so ability to go from not moving to moving, and then my ability to stop, so getting to some sort of snatch or some sort of, you know, drag or something in order to get you to be able to stop and change directions or whatever. Do you have control of your feet as well? That's a really, really important aspect of ball handling, too. That, again, I think a lot of players overlook at times, and all of their ball handling is done just stationary, right? Or barely with any movement, or they're just dribbling through cones. And none of that, again, as I said earlier, none of that is representative of the actual demands of a game where you have to be able to move. I have to be able to go from here to there. I probably have to do it pretty quickly because there's a defender trying to stop me. So how good are you at actually moving? And there's a lot that goes into that. I'll talk a little bit more about that later. But I think that's a really, really important thing, is just working on being able to move with the basketball as well. So, again, there doesn't have to be all these Crazy, detailed things. But practice moving with the ball. So a great way to do this is, like I said in the first point, just having a defender there. And maybe you play one on one, full court, okay? Now you got to handle pressure, full court. And now you're learning how to move with the ball. Maybe you again are just going one on two from baseline to half court. And again, you got to be able to move with the ball. Now you're going to have to be able to stop and change directions and start and do all these different things as well that matter, that translate to the game. So second thing, make sure that you're working on them, on your movement. That's a really, really important key when it comes to becoming a better ball handler. And the third thing that you need to do in order to become a better ball handler is you need to have the ball in your hands a lot. And this is. I'm going to go a couple different directions with this. Like I said earlier, drills, drills can be great. Drills can be very, very helpful. I do ball handling drills with my players all the time. And I think the problem is if all you do is drills, if you just drill, you are going to be limited in terms of what that actually means for you in the context of a game. So I think the first thing to understand is like, if I want my stuff to transfer, I can't. I have to do the first two things. So the first steps talked about handing the ball was first pressure, first actual defense, and working on your movement. Those are two things you have to do if you want your drills to actually matter. Okay? And then you supplement that stuff with the drills, you're going to become even better. But if you're going to stand there working your stationary ball handling and then you don't actually put yourself in a position to implement it in what you're doing, it's not going to matter as much. Right? So that's the thing to understand about drills, is drills can be great, but only if you're also doing the other two things that we've talked about too. And this kind of goes to my other thing too, which I mentioned earlier, which is freestyling. So freestyling can be something that is really, really beneficial because it allows you to work on, again, that movement we talked about. It allows you to work on being able to string different moves together, different patterns together. Because when you think about a game, nothing's planned out. When you're handling a ball, a lot of it is reactionary or anticipatory to what your defender is going to do. So you might not know, they might reach and you have to be able to quickly change hands and that might look different every single time. So if you're used to practicing in a way that's kind of random like that, it's a really, really beneficial thing for you when it comes to trans. To translating. So a really easy way to do that when it comes to freestyling is just give yourself an area. Maybe you go in the paint and you're just practicing, just different things. Okay, I'm just going to work on. My goal is to get all throughout the paint here and I'm going to go for 20 seconds, just mixing up my moves, my pace, my, the direction that I'm going, whatever. Like that's a great way to do it. A super simple way to do it. Kind of like how we talked about earlier. You can go on the wing and just give yourself like a, I don't know, a six foot area and you work on, okay, freestyle 20%. Boom. Up to 80% now and then I'm at 100. Okay, now I'm back there to 20. And you're working on changing up your pace, but also freestyling and stringing different things together. So again, when you get into a game and you're going to be forced to sometimes have to do things that are unplanned, you've already worked on that. So big fan of freestyle. I think that's something that could be really, really helpful for players and something that we talk about drills is probably when we go just basic drills. I probably freestyle more than anything else, any other sort of drill because I just think it's the most translatable when it comes to. Okay, is this actually going to matter? Is actually going to apply come game time. And I think that freestyling is a great thing for that as well. Also helps you again to become more creative. So you're not in a box when a game comes. Because if you're a player who only does drills and everything is preplanned, okay, I'm going to do 20 crossovers and 15 between the legs and then 15 behind the back and then 15 double crosses and then 15 between crosses, you're always going to be in a box because all you know is that move, right? You don't know how to be able to change that when needed. And a freestyle allows you to be able to do that. So highly recommend when it comes to drills. That's something that you do. But my whole point with this is with the Third point is have the ball in your hands as much as possible, right? If you're just dribbling the ball all the time, you're going to become more creative, you're going to become a better problem solver. You're going to become just better with the ball and that's going to translate to you being better. So handle the ball as much as you can, freestyle as much as you can. And as you do that, you're going to notice yourself just becoming more comfortable handling, handling the basketball. Okay? So again, the three things. Number one, handling the ball versus actual defense. Number two, working on the actual movement associated with handling the ball. And then number three is have the ball in your hands as much as possible. Mix in those freestyles, be creative, be a problem solver. And if you do these three things, you're going to become a better ball handler. It's just how it's going to be. There's no way that you won't. And I think that a lot of players again, are missing one or two or maybe even all of these right here. But three things that if you do all of them, you're going to see results. I hope you guys have enjoyed this video. I appreciate you guys checking it out. Again, anyone who's listening right now, I appreciate you. And everybody, of course is watching on YouTube right now. Drop a like, subscribe if you are new. As I almost forgot to mention, I'm going to be putting out a new ball handling program that's going to actually touch on a lot of this right here. And so I'm excited. That's still in the works. Don't have a timeline for it quite yet, but it's going to be really, really. I think it's be really, really good. It's going to touch again on having some stuff in there that you can do with, you know, a friend or a teammate that, that'll be able to, you know, work on handling versus live, but then also all the other things. So really hitting home that movement part of it, making up you a better mover. So that way when you have the ball in your hands, you can do what you want with it. You can go where you want to go. You feel confident and not stuck in a box. Again, a lot of different drills, but freestyling and getting you comfortable with being a problem solver, being creative. And I think it's really going to help a lot of you guys transform the way you're able to handle the basketball. So again, that's still in the works. You guys will know when it's out. I'm going to be sure to let you guys know when it's out. But again, I appreciate you guys for listening, for tuning in today. I'll talk to you guys soon. Peace, Sam.