Expanding Your Game, Playing Through Pressure, Off-Season Focus, and More (Off-Season Q&A)

Foreign training podcast. I appreciate you guys who are tuned in today. Everybody listening Apple podcasts or Spotify or Pandora or Google podcast or whoever else. And of course everybody who's watching right now on YouTube, shout out to you guys. Appreciate you guys who are tuned in if for YouTube right now, drop a like subscribe. If you're new, leave a comment, let me know what questions you guys have, what, what your guys thoughts are. If you guys are not following me on Instagram right now, make sure you do that as well. Isiondriven basketball and then along with that too. If you guys are on Apple podcasts, drop a review for me. I think Spotify does them as well. But regardless of where you're listening, there's some way you can interact with what I'm doing. So I appreciate you guys. And so today I'm kind of making a adding on to something that I already talked about last time, which was just the offseason in general and kind of giving you guys steps to take to have a great offseason. But I kind of wanted to open it up to you guys as well and ask about your questions for the offseason and, and try and answer as much of those as I, as I can. And so on Instagram I, I put out a poll just trying to get your guys questions and there was a lot of really, really good ones, like a lot more than I thought. A lot of times when I ask questions or when I do Q&As or whatever, like maybe 50% of the questions are either like not relevant or I can't really answer them because they're too narrow or too specific or I don't have enough information about it or it's something that I've maybe answered a lot before or whatever. Usually like half the questions I get like aren't that great. But for this one you guys brought it with the questions. You guys asked a lot of great questions. So many that I was like, oh man, I'm gonna have to do like a separate episode with this. I don't even know if I'm gonna get to all of them as well. So I'm gonna get to as many as I can. A lot of these questions are kind of touching on similar ideas as well. So it'll work out a little bit with that too. So first question we'll touch on is how do I know when to use dribble moves like step backs or fade aways or pull ups. And I believe I may have made a video talking about this. If I did, I'LL link that above right now. You guys can check that out where I go through some different breakdowns talking about when to do that. And I know for sure actually that I made a reel on this on Instagram as well, where I was talking about when to get some pull ups and step backs and punches. And really so much of it is a feel thing. There's things you can look for. So for example, when, when you feel your defenders turn to flip their hips because they have to turn and sprint to recover, that's the best time to get to some sort of stop or change of direction because they're going to have to keep on going because they crossed their leg over already and their momentum is taking them that way. So that's one way to do that. But there's a lot of nuance within that. So a lot of times it can also be determined a little bit about like just based on who you are. Right. If you're 6 foot 8, then you might be able to get to a pull up much more easily than somebody who's 5 foot 8 because you can pull up over anybody. And if you're 5 8, you might not be able to do that. So it's also a limited based on the affordances that you have physically. But there are some general things with that, some general concepts. Like I said, just getting a feel for the momentum of your defender. And so much of that comes through just playing and getting a feel for it. But like I said, I don't believe I made a YouTube video on it though. I know I've touched on it in videos, but there's a reel on my Instagram. You guys go and check that out. I want to say it's from probably beginning of March is when I made it, but when, when I drop this episode, you guys want to see what I'm talking about? I will, I will put this, I'll post that reel on my story so you guys can go check that out as well. And if you're listening and this is after the fact, just DM me and I'll DM you the video on Instagram with that as well. And I'll probably have to go back on YouTube at some point, touch on that. In fact, I will do that for sure. I'll make a YouTube video just dedicated to that right there. I think that'll help you guys out as well. So very good question though. Very important question. But at the end of the day, you'll learn a lot of that by playing and getting a feel for it as well, so moving on to our next question. Actually, I really like this question. Should players expand their game and add new moves or get rid of bad habits and polish? So again, great question right here, and I think that it's a little bit of a mix, but it depends a little bit on what we're talking about. So let's say that we're. Let's take shooting, for example, right? I would say shooting is the most important skill to have. Like, the most important foundational thing that you have to have is the ability to shoot the basketball. When you can shoot the basketball, you have so many more options, and there's so much more that's open to you, right? So when I'm working with a player and they're already a great shooter, that's the best thing ever, because now we can just work on building options out of that. Okay, the defense has you on the scouting report as a shooter. Well, that, that means that it's going to be much easier for us to work on getting to the mid range, getting past your defender, because they already have to take away the shot. And when they don't have to do that, it makes it a lot easier for the defense take away everything because they can give you space. So we're talking about shooting, and maybe you have a bad habit. Maybe your footwork's not very clean. Maybe you're not on balance when you shoot. Maybe your sequencing is off in terms of the ball moving first or whatever. And so, you know, your, your. The power on your shot is a little bit wonky. It's a little bit hit or miss with that. Maybe it's your hand placement's really bad or you have some really weird spin on the ball that makes you inconsistent. There's. There's plenty of bad habits you can have as a shooter. And in those situations, like, yeah, you want to tackle that first. Right. If there's a bad habit. If I'm working with a player and they, they aren't very good at getting on balance into their shot, well, we're gonna hit that first before we move on to all the other stuff that we may add to that as a shooter. Right. I post all the time about working different sorts of, you know, different sorts of, like, differential learning where I'm throwing all these different things at players. And okay, now we're working on shooting with this sort of footwork, and now I'm going to mess up that footwork and now we're going to change momentum and there's all these different things you can. That that I can throw at a player, that's great. But if they can't get on balance just on a normal shot, then it's going to be a struggle for them to be able to do that when we throw all the other stuff at them. Okay. So when it comes down to it, we're going to build those foundational needs first and then you can much more easily build off of that and get to all the advanced stuff and the stuff that, you know, really begins to make a difference right there. So I would say for, for the most part, you're going to want to look to do that, but also it doesn't have to be one or the other. So as we're working on, you know, balance or the footwork, you know, getting so that you, you are, you know, you're catching it and you're, you're ready to shoot the basketball, it doesn't have to just be that. Right? Maybe at the same time we're also, we, we work to, you know, you know, get, get to the pull ups or whatever. And so now we're working the footwork, getting into that as well. You can work that footwork, that balance coming off of a ton of different shots. So we can work that coming off of a backpedal and off of a relocation and off of just like a spot up. So we can add pieces to what you're doing already while still focusing on building that good habit. Okay. So it doesn't have to be one or the other. It can be multiple things. Maybe when it comes to shooting, you have a bunch of habits you're trying to work on, but you can work in other areas on expanding. Right. And then that can be how you approach it as well. So there's no one size fits all. There's no one right answer with that. It can be a combination of both. But at the end of the day, if there's limiting factors in your game, you definitely want to work to remove those limiting factors, correct those problems. Because then obviously it's going to open up so much more to you long term and when it comes to just a much broader scope of the game. So next question here. Should I bulk or stay the same size for next season? So this is, this is very much a, it depends sort of answer, right. I would say the, the best way that you can go about determining this is asking yourself, okay, was I limited this year by my size or my strength? Meaning did was one of my points struggling this year that I got pushed around, you know, when I, when it came to Finishing, I was just getting pushed around and I was missing layoffs because I just physically couldn't handle the contact or when I was handling the ball, I was getting it taken from me because guys were stronger than me and they were able to kind of push me around a little bit. You know, did I struggle to use screens this year because I kept getting bumped offline, I couldn't get a good angle. Or defensively, was I always getting, you know, bullied in the post or was I always getting posted up? Was I always getting taken to the basket because I just, I couldn't deal with the strength difference between me and the players I was going against? If that's the case for you, then, yeah, you're going to want to get stronger, probably get a little bit bigger, right? If you're playing, you know, if you're playing, let's say you're. Let's say you're playing guard and you're six foot two, you know, 125 pounds. Well, yeah, you're probably going to want to put on a little bit of size, right? But if that, if, maybe that was your strength, maybe, maybe you have strength, maybe you're a strong, a strong individual, and maybe that doesn't need to be your focus, right? Because maybe if you continue to overdo that, maybe that's going to slow you down in other areas. Right? Well, putting on weight, yeah, it'll make me stronger, but will it make me move slower? Right. That's not obviously something that you would want if you don't need to put on that exercise. So definitely size can be a limiting factor for sure. Like if you're not strong enough to do what you want to do, then that's something that you have to address most definitely. But if you were somebody who didn't struggle with that, then I would say it's really up to you, but there is no need to do it. If that wasn't a limiting factor, kind of touching back to our previous question, if that wasn't a limiting factor for you, then there is no necessity to do it. Okay. But again, that's something that you have to ask yourself is, hey, is this an area that held me back this year? And if so, then, yeah, you're going to want to do that. So, next question, and I think we'll touch on this again in another question later on. But we can kind of deal. We can take this two ways. So the question just says, how do you deal with pressure? So I'll approach this from two ways from a literal sense And a figurative sense, literally dealing with pressure. We talk about ball handling, right? Let's just say you want to get better at handling pressure. Because I don't know what this question is asking me. I don't know which form of pressure they're asking about. So I'll just cover both of them. When we're talking about ball pressure and handling that, the best thing you can do is just work on handling pressure against somebody. Get somebody to guard you, get two people to guard you and just work on that. You can even make it as simple as starting at the baseline. And you can give yourself an area. So, hey, sideline to lane line. That's my boundaries right here. Or you can set up a cone or some, like a line of cones, whatever, to just give yourself a boundary. And then it can be you versus a defender. And you have to get yourself to half court handling the pressure. They're trying to steal the ball from you and stop you. And then you can add to that and say, okay, now I have six seconds to do it. I have six seconds to get from the baseline to half court inside these boundaries with a defender guarding me. And if that becomes easy, then maybe you add a one on two. And now you say, okay, I have to get to half court against two defenders now. Or you can even make like an area. Like maybe you make a circle or you just go in the paint, or you go in that, the circle around half court, and you have you and either one defender or two defenders and use it to handle the ball for a certain amount of time, 15, 20 seconds, you're trying to handle the ball and not lose it against a defender in a certain area, whatever. That's the best way to get better handling pressure is just by doing it. And it can be very, very simple. Again, you just call up one of your friends, say, hey, let's just go work on this. You guys can go back and forth, offensive defense right there. You guys will both get a ton out of that right there. I would say the other piece to that is going back to our last question. Getting stronger, I think definitely will help you with that. Just because you're going to be able to handle being bumped, your arm getting pushed, you getting pushed. So we talk about developing just core strength, overall body strength, upper body strength, all that stuff goes into it. So I would say those are the two biggest things when it comes to handling pressure is just actually working on it, putting yourself in that position to work on it, and then getting stronger as well. And those two things are going to Take you far with that. When we talk about handling pressure from a. Like a more. A more figurative sense in terms of the pressure that comes along with whatever, whether it's the pressure of trying to perform, the pressure of trying to get a spot on a team or keep a spot on a team, or the pressure that comes from, you know, the people in the stands watching you, pressure coming from your family or your. From your friends or from whatever. Whatever the pressure your coach is, whoever is putting pressure on you, wherever you're feeling pressure from, dealing with that. And I think that becomes a little bit more nuanced, I would say. One of the first things to understand is a lot of times pressure is so. It's so overblown, and it's hard to tell from being in the situation. Right? It's hard. It's hard to. Because you feel that, but it's hard to actually know how accurate this pressure, like, is it. Is there actually this pressure here? A lot of times there is not. And it's not. It's an unnecessary amount of pressure being put on yourself. So, you know, for example, a lot of times you might think, okay, well, you know, what if I go out there and what if I miss a layup? Right. Maybe that's where you're putting pressure on yourself is, oh, I don't want to. I don't want to take it to the basket, miss. And you think about it all the time, and that's what you're worried about. You get into a game, you're just worried about, hey, I get in there, what if I. What if I blow a layup? What if I miss inside? If you go and do that, you go and miss a layup. Yeah. At the time, people want to be like, oh, come on, man. But 20 seconds later, nobody's going to remember, you know, so how consequential, actually, is that? A lot of times we think that the consequence for something is much greater than it actually is. You missing a layup, you turning the ball over at the time, it sucks, but usually it's not that big of a deal. Now, if it's repeated and you do it all the time, it's a different story. Okay? But these different isolated incidents where things go wrong, that's basketball for you. Like, I'm constantly on the players that I work with to not keep themselves in a box and to constantly try to branch out and try new things. And if we. If we're working on something and they have an opportunity to focus on that and try something, because in order to get better at something. It's not going to be a natural thing if you aren't. If you are not somebody who drives to their weak hand ever. Like, you just never have done it. And that's a weakness. That's a limiting factor in your game. You can work on your weekend 24 hours a day for a month straight. If you don't, in the context of a game, make a conscious decision to say, hey, you know what? I'm going to try and get to my left here. Even if it's just at first, you're gonna have to consciously do that a little bit. And then once you get comfortable doing that, once you get familiar with doing that, it becomes less of a conscious choice you have to make. But if you don't make that decision, then you're gonna struggle. But what that means is that you're probably. The first few times you do that, there's a good chance that it's not gonna go quite as well as you probably hoped that it would go. Gonna lose the ball, you're gonna not get to the basket, you're gonna not get to where you want to get to. It's not gonna work. But the results, the success comes after you actually make that commitment to try it and to become comfortable doing it. I think that's an important thing for players to understand when it comes to improving and dealing with that pressure. The other thing that I would say is, like, part of it is you have to appreciate the fact that there is pressure. Right? I think a lot of times people want to deal. When people say deal with pressure, they mean like, oh, how do I get it so I don't feel pressure anymore There. I'll. I'll reframe that for you in. In two ways. First of all, if you're doing anything of consequence, if you're doing anything of meaning, there's going to be pressure involved with it somehow. Okay? So there's. If you're doing something that you enjoy and that is any bit competitive, there's going to be pressure. So there's never a. You can never say, hey, how do I deal with pressure so that I don't have it anymore? That's just not possible. What I will say is that adding to that, if you are doing something and there's no pressure involved, it might feel like, in your mind, oh, it'd be great. There was no pressure, but it's actually way more boring. If there was no pressure involved in basketball, you would not enjoy it as much. Right. It would not be as meaningful to You. The pressure is a very necessary part, and it's part of what makes the game enjoyable. Even if you feel like at times it's like, what makes it not enjoyable for you, obviously too much of it is not ideal. Right? There's. We don't want to go overboard with it, but there's always going to be a little bit of pressure right there, and you actually need that pressure. So the first thing is understand that, identify it, but then appreciate the fact that there's pressure. Appreciate that you're doing something, that you're in a position where there's pressure on you. Because if there's no pressure on you, then there's no need for you to get better. There's no need for you to elevate yourself. There's no need for you to see how great you can be at something. You could just, you know, walk through, you know, take a stroll in the park, going through everything and not have to worry about being better or being great at anything. And even if that seems like, oh, maybe that would be odd, it actually wouldn't be. I can promise you that it would be way less enjoyable and basketball wouldn't be what it is to you, okay? So appreciate that pressure and understand that at the end of the day, like I said, there's nothing. The pressure that you have that you put on yourself probably is not as great as you actually think that it is. So a lot of times it comes down to taking a deep breath, in through the nose, out through the nose, three seconds in, hold it for a second or two, out for six, and just allow yourself to play. Right? And. And again, as simple as that sounds, that's how you deal with the pressure is just by understanding it's probably not as crazy as you think that it is. And just playing. I think the other way to approach pressure or anxiety when it comes to performing is reframing what the goal is. Okay. And I think that a lot of times the goal for players is to not mess up or not look bad or to not lose out what they had. I think that's the wrong way to approach anything, is saying, oh, I have this. I'm clinging on to what I have. I have this starting spot, or I have this playing time, and I'm just clinging on. I'm just holding on to try and not lose it. A lot of players play with that approach. They're just not to lose what they have. They don't want to lose the playing time they have. I don't want to mess up and lose what I have. But if that's your approach, then you're. You're never going to be able to maximize what you actually can be. And again, this is something that I always try and preach to my players because I felt it for sure, right? Where it's just like you never actually quite know what you are, what you're capable of doing, because you spend so much time worried about not losing what you have. If I mess up, then I'm gonna lose what I have. Even. Even if you probably aren't where you want to be yet, you probably. You probably wouldn't say that what you have right now is your ultimate goal. But the, the paradox and the. The. The tough part about it is that in order for you to get what you want, you have to risk what you have. You can't just. You can't play it safe 100% of the time and expect to be able to push yourself forward. It's just not how it works. And, and that's the tough part of it, right? There's no. It's not easy, okay? But again, being great at whatever. And whatever goals you have for yourself probably are not, you know, they're probably not little goals. They're probably stuff that a lot of people want, right? So you have to be willing to potentially risk looking bad, potentially risk messing up in order for you to get to where you want to get to, right? So if your goal go. If your goal goes from play, mistake for you. Like, if your goal right now is don't look bad, don't mess up, don't get yelled at by the coaches, don't turn the ball over, don't miss the shot, don't miss that layup, if you can. If you can reframe it. And that, that. Get rid of the. The get rid of that being what your goals look like. And instead your goals being, hey, you know, did I get better today? Like, did I look to expand my game today? Did I look to try something new today? Did I look to expand what I'm capable of doing? If something you've been working on a lot is driving to your left, and in the context of a game, you drove to your left twice, maybe you didn't score on them, but you got to where you wanted to get to with your left, maybe that's something that you've struggled with. That's progress right there. So that moved you closer to becoming what you want to become, even though you had to risk potentially messing something up. So when you actually think about it that way, if that was Your goal was, you know, get to get to left hand drives. That game, even if you turn the ball over a couple times, you've actually now moved yourself closer to what your goals probably are, which is, you know, whatever, whatever those ultimate goals that you have. Let's say you're a high school player, you want to be a college player, okay? But you know that you have to expand yourself offensively. Well, that game, you just did that, you know, so whether or not you scored 20 points, or you shot 100% from the field, or you had zero turnovers, the fact of the matter is the, the, the ultimate goal you have for yourself, you did something that pushed you towards that. So think about whatever that might be for you, and if that is your focus and that's all that you care about, right? That's what, that's the lens you view everything through, then the pressure is still going to be there, but you're going to be able to deal with it because, you know, like, you have focus and you know, like, hey, you know, even if mistakes happen, even if missed shots happen, it's a part of it. It's going to happen. I know it's going to happen because I'm trying to be better, I'm trying to improve, and that comes with those growing pains. Okay? So when it comes to dealing with pressure, reframing how you view it, a lot of times can take that pressure from being something that's like debilitating and holds you back to something that actually pushes you forward. And that, I think is the ultimate goal when it comes to pressure. So moving on from that, I got a couple questions about this, so let's touch on this. Balancing AAU and workout lifting. And then same thing for my guy, Ian Brown. Shout out to Ian how to train during AAU season. Should it be treated as in season workout wise? So really good questions as well. I think it depends. It depends a little bit on your AAU schedule, practice schedule. Okay. Do you have a big tournament coming up where you're playing Friday, Saturday, Sunday, if that's the case, probably Thursday. Maybe you don't, you know, kill yourself going crazy for four hours on Thursday. Maybe you don't try and hit your deadlift PR on Thursday night? Maybe, you know, if, you know, you have to play six games the next three days, maybe you hold off on that. So I think you have to be able to adjust. Right. That's something that I'm consciously. I'm constantly thinking about that with the players that I'm training. If I know it's a Thursday and they're all playing six games the next three days. Probably going to take it a little bit lighter on Thursday, you know, and that's, that's a part of it. It's an art, right? So you have to be able to make that decision for yourself. Now when there's days, if it's a, if it's a Tuesday and we have, you know, they don't play till Friday, well, we're gonna go hard on Tuesday, then we might go hard on Wednesday. But you have to be able to, to gauge that for yourself. And also it's a field thing, right? So when you're in the gym, how do you feel? Are you dead tired because you just played six games and it's Monday? Well, then maybe it's a little bit lighter on Monday too, because, you know, again, for me, I'm not interested in just like working hard for hard work sake. I think it's much more important to be smart about how you do things. And so like constantly just running yourself into the ground is not conducive for, first of all, being healthy long term, but it's not conducive for actually maximizing your results long term. Right. Sometimes light days are actually what's going to push you forward more so than a super crazy, you know, high intensity day. So it really, it depends. You don't have to necessarily treat AAU like in season. Again, if you have days that you don't have a tournament for a couple days or you don't have a practice that day, then go play. Like, don't, don't let this be a part of the year. And I've seen it with coaches where they tell their kids like not lift during AU season, which is absurd. And, and I, I would highly recommend especially parents listening if your coaches are saying that to your kids. Just, just here's what I would say. Just go watch a college basketball game, especially if your kid is in high school and they want to play at that level and realize that if you're not lifting, if you can't physically handle yourself, you aren't like let alone getting on the floor at that level. You're not getting onto a team at that level. Okay, so I digress. I don't want to go on a tangent here about that, but don't treat a you season like it's the winter season where you're practicing every single day. You've games three times a week. It's not the same thing. Okay? Your, your weekend tournaments and your practices, whatever you can still find time to lift, even if it's only twice a week for an hour. Like, it doesn't have to be crazy. Okay? Again, listen to your body. If you're playing basketball every single day, you probably don't need to be lifting. Like, you're probably going to become August when AAU is done, or September, you know, when it's in that fall preseason, you just have more, you have more downtime, okay? So again, balance that. But don't, don't take it as like I can't do anything because I have AAU this weekend. Well, you can find ways to still develop and still get in the weight room and still be able to go play, pick up or call up your friends and work on, like we're talking about with the ball handling stuff. Some one on one stuff, some two on two stuff. You can still do that stuff. You just have to listen to your body and be able to adjust and scale. And if, you know, I've got some stuff coming up this weekend, maybe I relax a little bit today, okay? So that's really what I would say when it comes to how you should approach aau. So another question here, talking about being undersized. I want to be the best, but I'm only 5 6. How do I get people to notice me? So, you know, whether you're 56 or, you know, 58 or whatever you are, you're undersized for the level that you're at. There's, there's a few key things you have to have. You want to be great as an undersized player. Really the, the main thing with being undersized is that you just have way less room for error. If you're 6 foot 7, you can afford to not be great at creating space. You can probably go over somebody, right? You can afford to not necessarily be super athletic around the rim because you have length. Okay? When you're five foot seven, you, you don't have those to your advantage now. So you have to be really, really good at a few key things. So the first thing, and this is the case with basically everybody, but you have to be able to shoot the basketball. You have to be a great shooter. That means off the catch, off the dribble especially. You have to be able to knock down shots. If you can't knock down shots and you're undersized, you better be the best athlete on planet earth. Because if you aren't, then you're going to struggle, right? Even, even when you look at guys in the NBA, if you are not if you're undersized. Like, the problem is like defensively, right? When you have teams that have good offensive players and they are playing as dude who's undersized, they're going to target that guy on defense. So your offense better be able to justify you being on the floor. First of all, okay? And that starts with shooting the basketball. You think about any of the guys in the NBA who are undersized. Think about a guy like Isaiah Thomas. Isaiah Thomas was a dude who would get targeted on defense and he's like the last ranked defensive player in the NBA because dudes just went at him. But he still was on the floor in his Boston days, especially because he's a great offensive player, right? And he's a great shot maker. So that's the first thing. And kind of going with that, the next step to that is you have to be able to make difficult shots. Again, if you're 6 foot 7, you might not need to be able to make super difficult shots and they might not be as difficult just because again, you have the length to go over people. But if you're that undersized guy, you have to be able to make those contested layups where your momentum might not necessarily be taking you straight to the basket. You got to be able to hit floaters off one foot, off two foot. You have to be able to hit those step backs and be able to create separation and hit shots coming off of that. You have to be able to shoot coming off of ball screens. So if those, if that defender gets caught or they play under it and they give you space for three, that's a shot you have to be able to make. And really those are the two biggest things I would say for undersized players is that you have to be a great shooter and you have to be able to make difficult shots, whether that be in the paint as like a floater or just in the mid range or obviously with ball screens as well. You just have to be able to do those things. And you have to hold yourself to a different standard when it comes to that sort of stuff against somebody who's not undersized, they might not have to be a great difficult shot maker to get on the floor because they can. They have other affordances that allow them to be great in other areas. Right? If you're 6, 7, you might be able to be a great defender because you have length and you can switch on different positions and you can rebound. So they're going to have value on other ends of the floor. If you're five seven. You're not going to bring value to your team because of you rebounding or your ability to switch and guard one through five. It's just not going to be the case. Okay? So you got to make that up in other areas and shooting and shot making, those are the two biggest things right there. And then the third thing that I'll give you guys with that is that like, you have to, like, the weight room has got to be your best friend. If you have, you know, if you don't have the height, you better have the strength to be able to deal with being bumped. Be, be able to hit those difficult shots, especially around the basket, where your momentum is going to be off. Do you have the core strength to be able to hang and finish different ways and make these different acrobatic plays? That's super important. Handling the ball is a given. Like you have to be able to be a great ball handler if you're undersized, for sure. No question about it. I mean, you look at, look at any, look at any like Division 1 guard who is under six six, right? Even. I mean, let's look at the guys under six, three. They're all, they're all ball handlers, right? Especially the high major ones who are great. If you're in the NBA and you're under 6 5, you have like, you're a great ball handler. You know, all. Any of the guards of the NBA who are between, you know, six foot and six two, they're great ball handlers. They have to be like, you have to be, to be able to exist at that level, at that size. Okay, so those are the things that I focus on if you're an undersized player. So kind of going along the other end of the spectrum here, any tips for taller players trying to transition from center to guard slash small forward. So this is another thing that I think it's. It's important to recognize what you are first of all. So again, this is going to depend. This is very by player. Are you. I think that there's a lot of benefits to having that, that experience as a post player. So can you still find ways to be able to get back to that? So if you're a great post player, just because you're trying to expand out and become more of a guard doesn't mean you have to go away from being great in that area. That just means that maybe you can be more of a mismatch right there. Obviously there's the key things of shooting the basketball right that's number one. If you're just transitioning out there, then really focused on the catch and shoot aspect of it that the most important thing. So shooting off of relocations, off of backpedals, off of transition looks, off of pin downs, whatever, any, any of those different actions get into a catch and shoot, being able to do that at a high level is the most important thing. And then being able to handle the basketball, again, it's going to depend. If you're a point guard, obviously your level of ball handling is going to have to be very high. But if you're a more of a wing player who has some size and is more of a stretch kind of player, you might not need to be Kyrie Irving. But it's still, I think it's important to still have an ability to handle the ball because the better ball handler you are, the more opportunities you're going to have at your disposal when it comes to what you can do with the ball in your hands. Okay, so those two things super important. And then I would say just getting a feel for, you know what it's like to be in that position right there. So especially if you've been playing in the post your whole life, being comfortable with moving on the perimeter and understanding when to cut, understanding when to relocate, on driving kicks, understanding the driving kick. So you being a player when you drive, understanding, okay, I drew in the help defender. That means I'm gonna have a teammate on the weak side is open and knowing, okay, when do I kick, when do I have the finish? And I think just having the IQ and so that can be through playing, but also just through watching and watching basketball and watching players who are your similar position and similar athletically to you size wise in comparison to who they're playing. Just studying that I think is a very important tip if you're trying to transition to a new position for sure. So I'll touch on ball handling right here. I got two questions talking about this. First question, is it best to have a ball handling routine with the same drills or different drills each day? So I think that I'll say first of all, something is better than nothing. So if you have a ball handling routine that you like doing, you want to do that every day, do it right. I'm not going to tell you to stop doing that because it might not be the most ideal thing. It's better for you to be out there doing something than it would be for you to be overthink. It'd be like, well, I did that workout yesterday, so If I do it again today, it's not going to matter. And like, do better. It's better to do something than do nothing, for sure, 100% of the time. At the end of the day, the most important thing is just consistency. So if you have a routine that you can stick to, that's going to allow you to be consistent, that's going to get you better results than you being inconsistent but having a perfect new workout every single time. Okay? So consistency is the number one most valuable thing right there. That being said, I think it's. I think it's good to switch things up. Just give your body a different stimulus to react to. But switching up doesn't mean you have to completely change everything. For example, like if I'm doing a drill, a lot of times I'm going to start with the same kind of basic foundation. So let's say that we're going to work on. We're going to work a freestyle, but we're going to be moving backwards with it. So we started the baseline, we're going to go to half court, and they're just freestyling, but they're moving backwards with the basketball. Okay. Almost like they're retreating kind of, but they're just moving back. That might be how we start. And maybe we build on that by saying, okay, now we're going to change pace with it. So now I want you guys raising up a little bit. Okay, now we're low and we're quick and we're just getting used to changing pace while still moving backwards. Okay, we get used to that. Okay, now we can build on it. Now we're going to add some, some lateral movement to this. So you're going to get some float. So we're moving side to side as well. Still moving backwards, changing pace, whatever. But now we can change and we can add in different, different elements to this right there. And then, you know, we can add in like a, maybe some sort of visual cue. So maybe I'm in front of them, I'm giving them like a direction that I'll point to. When they see that happens, they have to get to that side. They have to float that direction or move that direction or whatever. Maybe I can add in some audio cues that tell them to go forward or to stop or to go to a certain side or to speed up or slow down. And that could be something right there. Maybe we add in a defender. So they're moving backwards now and that defender is going to, at some point reach for the ball. And then it becomes Live and trying to beat them, or they're going to jump to a side and it's live. So we take one simple thing and I just, off the top of my head, just add in six, seven different variations of it. You can do that with any sort of drill that you do, any sort of ball handling drill that you do. There's probably a way that you can add to it or change it a little bit. That's going to make it a little bit different or more difficult maybe, or just newer. And that's a great way that you can continue to add challenge to the drills that you do right here, especially if you have a routine or a couple drills that you really like to do. And then the second part that I want to talk about with ball handling is from my guy, Josh Smiler. Shout out to Josh. He said stationary ball handling versus moving ball handling, and kind of comparing the two. So I think there's a lot of, especially recently, there's a lot of demonization of stationary ball handling when it comes to basketball training. And for me, I almost had an epiphany like this is like, not that long, maybe a couple weeks ago, where I look at it, and I'm like, I think that in some ways we may have gone too far down. The stationary ball handling is bad, end of the spectrum. I don't think that it's bad. I think that it has its place. I think it becomes bad when it's all that you do. And there's probably drills out there that maybe aren't the best use of time. But I think there's also value in certain types of stationary ball handling. So it really, what it comes down to is what your goal is. So if you're just doing stationary ball handling, because that's what you do, I don't think that's the right reason to do it. I think if you have a specific quality you're trying to train, then it can be beneficial. For example, if you're trying to work on pounding the basketball and the speed that the ball is going from hand to floor, back to hand, then you can get a lot out of ball handling. You can work on just that strength of that dribble, right? And I talked about earlier being able to, you know, having the strength to be able to handle pressure. That's part of it right there, is how quickly you can get the ball from the hand to the floor, back to your hand, because the faster you do that, the harder it is for the defender to have time to reach in and steal it. Okay? So we can build that quality through working those different pounds, right? And again, there's ways that we can. We can even make that more difficult. So from my guy, Paul Fabritz, PGI Performance, he talks about a few ways he likes to do that, where he'll, like, have his guys on grass so that the energy returns not quite as much. They have to really put more into that pound or on carpet, or he'll have them, like, be up on, like, a elevated platform, maybe 6 or 12 inches off the ground. And now there's just more distance. They have to get that boat out of the ground, so they have to put more into it. Or you can take the air out of the ball, and now you have to put more into that ball to get that energy return back to your hand. So we can work on that quality in those sorts of ways, or even just normally with. With different pounds, we're working on trying to break the floor. That's like what you're thinking about right there. And again, you can work on stationary ball handling, working on. On manipulating the ball, cuffing the basketball over a cone, whatever. There's elements that you can build, you can work on really effectively, I think, through that, that stationary ball handling. Um, and there's even more hand speed, whatever the speed of the crossovers and getting the ball from right hand to left hand, back to right, as quick as you can. When you have a focus, I think that you can get benefits out of that stationary handling. The. The problem becomes when we do stationary ball handling, just because that's what you do, you know, I think there needs to be a purpose behind it, and you need to be able to say, hey, we're doing this because it's working on this quality. And so that's part of it. Now I would say that you need to have them. Like, you definitely can't be doing all stationary stuff like you play basketball moving. So it's not just about your hands, right? Your hands and your arms are a part of ball handling, but your feet and how well you move, your ability to change pace, change height, move laterally, move backwards, be unpredictable, change your pace, change the speed that you're playing at. That all is just as, if not more important to how great of a ball handler that you are. So I think it's important that. That the movement aspect of it is. Is a. Is at the forefront of ball handling. For sure, like, that should be the majority of it. But I think you can definitely supplement with stationary ball handling to work on those different sorts of qualities. So I'd say find time for both. Let's say if you were going to do a 10 minute, you know, a 10 minute ball handling routine every day or whatever, which I think is a video I'm probably going to make at some point where, or at least I'll put it on you on Instagram or something. Just talking about like if you're gonna attempt, if you're new, 10 minutes of ball handling every day, right. What would you get the most benefit out of? Because I think they're actually, I think you actually really can. I think if you had 10 minutes of ball handling, if you like use that 10 minutes efficiently, you can really get a lot better just by 10 minutes. And I think that honestly, if you approach it the right way, those 10 minutes can be more beneficial than like an hour long workout doing stuff that isn't quite as focused or you don't have that same sort of understanding of, okay, we're working on this specifically, but again I'll. That's a video that I'll make in the future. But if I have 10 minutes, I'm probably going to spend maybe a minute or two of that working on a specific quality. So maybe working on manipulating the ball or working on those pounds, whatever, then we're going to move and we're probably going to. It's going to be a lot of freestyling, a lot of just, okay, working on getting to whatever, imagining that somebody's guarding me. Okay, now I'm going from baseline, full court. Imagine like somebody on me, but I have to change my pace all the time. So sometimes I'm going 20 speed. Boom. Now I'm getting up to 80 speed. Okay, back down to 40. Boom. At 100 for a little bit. Okay, now I'm back to 20, back to 80, changing up speed, being unpredictable. And that would be how I would spend the majority of my time because I think that's the most beneficial for most players out there. So again, it's a mix, but I would lean more so towards ball handling on the move because I think it's just so much more translatable to the game. And probably the last question we'll get to, again, I have so many great questions here, guys. I really, I really do appreciate it because again, you know, you never know what you're gonna get. I asked her questions. You guys really came through with this one right here. And comes from my guy Josh again. He said I need to play more, I'm a decent shooter. How can I incorporate training and playing? So if you guys Saw my last podcast episode. It talked a lot about the importance of playing and being in those live situations when it comes to getting the most out of your offseason. And so I think you have to try and find a balance between the two of them. So obviously there's. There's benefits to getting up your shots and working on your ball hand like we were just talking about. But also it's important that you find time to work on applying this stuff against a defender. And so I would say the first thing is just we talk about shooting. Okay. How do you become a better shooter? Well, part of it is identifying what you need to be better at. So is there a certain type of shot that I struggle with? Is there a certain element of my shot that's not great? Do I need to adjust my form at all? Figuring that out is important, but when it comes to becoming a better shooter, I think you can add defense to your drills, and that is a form of playing, but also probably a more effective way to work on your shooting. So adding contestant. It can be as simple as one player starts with the block with the ball, the other player starts on the wing, and they just relocate either down at the corner or up towards the top of the key. As soon as they move, that player with the ball passes it to them and closes out and that player catches it and shoots it. Now you're working on a more realistic type of shot with a closeout coming at you. Okay. Or you can make it even more game like, and you can do the same thing, but now it's live, so you don't have to shoot the ball, but you can attack off it. But if you want to incentivize still making that shot, you could say, all right, we're live here. But if you shoot, if you hit that catch and shoot three, it's worth two points. Anything else is worth one. Or sometimes when I'm with my players, I'll be like, okay, guys, here's what we're going to do. Like, we had a draw last night where we were playing coming off of like a turn. So we were basically getting pressured on the wing. And at some point with like your back turn of the defense, they're pressuring you. You have to be able to turn and go and try and beat them to the basket. And so the rule was you are. You can. You can shoot any shot that you want. There's no limits. You can do whatever. You only will get points, though, for layups or floaters. So if you shoot a pull up in the mid range, you get the ball back, still your ball, but you don't get any points for it. Only get points for stuff in the paint. So by changing up the scoring structure or whatever, you can incentivize working on something specific right there. Okay. So when it comes to just the day to day of, okay, training, playing, ideally find somebody that you can work out with and you guys can go get your shots up. You can work on these different things. You can work on your ball handling on whatever, but you know, whatever. Maybe you find time, 15, 20 minutes within that workout to work on different situations. Okay, hey, we're going to work on attack and close out right here. And like we just talked about right there, you can adjust the scoring structure, you can make it so that you're trying to work on those shots, whatever. There's a million ways you can do this, but it comes, it comes down to being a little bit creative. So if, you know, I have to work on this or this situation, you, you just have to think about, okay, what kind of drill can I do? What kind of game can we make? Right here I have me and one of my teammates with me. What can we do to like work on that situation right here? You know, maybe you are somebody who gets the ball a lot coming off of handoffs, right? So maybe you have a chair set up and it's as simple as one of you guys is on offense, was on defense. One of you guys runs to get the handoff coming off the chair and then it's live. Or you could even say, I'm going to have my teammate stand on the three point line, he's going to hold the ball, I'm going to run, get the handoff. As soon as I get the handoff, he's turning into the defense where he's playing off that. So it comes out of me being a little bit creative in knowing what you have to work on. And if that's the case, then you'll be able to figure out exactly how to work on those situations. Those skills you need to work on right there. Okay? So hopefully that gives you guys some ideas, gives you guys some, some, some options when it comes to, you know, training. And, and I don't want to just be somebody who's going to give you drills. Like, I really appreciate people I get drills from. I, I follow some great people who give me great ideas, but I want to be able to give you guys ideas that allows you to be able to figure out for yourself what's best. Okay. Oh, I saw that he did that. Maybe I tweaked that a little bit and now I can work on that. Right. That's ultimately what I want, is that there's no right or wrong answers. It comes down to what works best for you. Okay. So again, I really appreciate all the questions I got. They were awesome. I love the amount of topics that we got to off do more of these as well, because again, I thought this was really awesome. And hopefully moving forward into the off season where it may now, so we have a few good months ahead of us. Weather's getting warmer, so all you guys who are in the northeast with me, we can be getting outside and getting to the courts, getting the driveway, of course. And you know, everyone playing AU right now, things will pick up a little bit more come summertime as well. So hopefully this gave you guys kind of a roadmap and some answers moving forward as well. If you guys have more questions, drop them below. Give me a DM on Instagram. And like I said, there's a couple things in here that we talked about that I'll put on my story. But if you guys have questions for me, go ahead and send me a DM, whatever. And again, if you guys are on YouTube right now, drop a. Like, subscribe if you're new. If you guys are on Apple podcast, drop a review for me. Let me know what you think about the show. I'll talk to you guys soon. Peace.