Ethan Khoza walks through curved angle drives, a ball handling drill that builds the footwork and agility you need to attack the basket from different angles. The workout focuses on movement patterns that translate directly to game situations.
If you want to be a great ball handler, it's important that you're a great mover. Big part of basketball is not just straight lines, of being able to play at curved angles as well. This is something a lot of players never work on, but yet it's something that happens all the time during games. If you go and watch clips of your favorite player driving to the basket or driving in general, you're going to notice that most of the time when they go, there's a defender that's somewhat in front of them. So they're almost always going to take an angle that's not directly straight, but more so along the curve. I'm trying to go to the basket, and I have a defender right here. I'm probably going to have to take a little bit of a curve in order to go. I want to go. So the better and more efficient you are at being able to drive in these curved angles, the more efficient and effective you're going to be being able to drive the basket and get where you want to go on the court, which is going to make you a more effective player and is going to translate to you being a better ball handler as well. And this is something that very few players train. It can really set you apart from the rest of the pack. So we're going to start at the crawl. Start right here. We're going to go with just this half circle trace with this series and get to a few different variations. So to start off right here, I'm just using this half circle right between the paint and the top of the key here. And I'm going to start at a crawl position so right here. And I'm going to fall into that trace where I'm just tracing this circle. So I'm forcing myself to have to move at a fast speed and be able to play at this curved angle as well. For the first variation, all you're going to do is continue to follow that lane line down. You can get to the rim for a layup. For the next variation, we're going to work on the ability to be able to trace that circle, play at that curved angle, and then quick bang it out into a straight line drive. A big part of being able to use curved angles to your advantage is being able to play at that curve. But then when you have that advantage on that defender, being able to turn it back into a straight line angle. So that's what we're going to work on with this variation right here. So now we're going to change our direction Again right here. And we're going to get around that curve and we're going to go straight across towards that opposite elbow into a shot. Now we're going to go around this curve and get ourselves into a quick stop for a shot. We're going to continue to work on playing at that curved angle, but we're going to add a freestyle element to this now. So you start over in the corner. We're just going to trace a three point line arc. Okay. So I'm going to be able to do kind of whatever I want, but I'm going to be mixing it up where I'm just turning and sprinting along that curve with the ball. I might stop, slow my pace, add in different moves, but I'm really working on being able to, okay, be in a freestyle, hit that curved angle, be able to play that as fast as I can before I get back to my stop or I slow myself down. Being able to play at curved angles is all throughout the game of basketball. So if you want to be great with the ball in your hands, make sure you're working on this.
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