How To Develop Your Instincts and Basketball IQ - Podcast Episode 10

Welcome to the Visions of Basil training podcast. Appreciate you guys for tuning in today, whether you're an Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube. Thank you guys for listening. We'll hop into it. Really appreciate all the feedback I've been getting recently just on recent videos specifically. You know, a lot of you guys have, have really been sending me a lot of questions, which definitely helps out with, with, you know, knowing what I want to make more of. You know, what videos are gonna help you guys, what podcasts are gonna help you guys. So continue to do that. Any questions you have, make sure you DM me on Instagram @visiondrivenbasketball. Try my best to get to all of them. And obviously, if you're on YouTube, you can leave a comment as well, but Instagram is the best spot to do that. And also just give me a follow so, you know, when I'm going live with my workouts or any other things that you might want to know, any posts that I have, you'll be able to see those as well. So make sure you guys check that out. Today I want to talk about specifically how to improve your instincts and your basketball iq, your ability to make reads, all those things. This is a question that I get so often. I mean, one of the most frequent questions that I get is just players asking about how they can, how they can improve those things in their game. Because typically what's going to happen is that, you know, I'll get a DM saying, hey, coach, do you have a workout or a drill that can help me improve my IQ or my ability to make reads or my court vision? And, you know, a lot of times I give the same answers. So I wanted to make a podcast is a very, very important question to note because it is, it's very like, it's a great question. And it's something you need to think about, you know, if you really want to be at your best. You know, obviously the physical traits and skills of the game, of basketball are a major part of the game, right? So, you know, your ability to shoot, your ability to dribble, and then we can even get more specific. Your ability to hit step backs, your ability to score off the dribble in the mid range, your ability to play out of the high post, your ability to, you know, break your guy down off the dribble, your ability to, you know, do all these different things, go to, different crossover moves go to. You. Obviously I talk about my, you know, my go to moves, the, you know, the punch drag. I had a post on Instagram Breaking that down, you know, being able to go to, like, the float dribble, you know, you guys have seen the video I just posted on Friday of those drills of the out of the flow dribble. Obviously, there's a lot of skills that you work on and that you can develop through doing those certain drills. And obviously, everybody who's serious about basketball understands that and is willing to do those things to work on those skills, because they understand, like, oh, if I want to be good at something, I gotta actually practice it, right? And, you know, obviously there's workouts and there's videos online for basically every skill you could possibly want to have. You know, for the most part, I mean, if you want to get better at something specific, you can find a video on it. You can usually find multiple videos on it. And again, you know, maybe, you know, some videos might be better than others, but you're gonna find things to do. There's help out there for you. And, you know, obviously on my own channel, for example, I've got drills and workouts for a whole bunch of different skills. Obviously, we have the NBA player workouts, which are gonna target different types of skills, different situations. Then I have more, more specific workouts where I'm working on shooting. You saw again, the drill I just posted about the flow, where we're just basically going through float. Like, shots of the float dribble, my jab workout, so many ball handler workouts, Like, a lot of finishing workouts, too. Like, literally, for every sort of skill you could want, there's workouts for it. And that's great. And obviously, like, that's one of the best things about where we're heading, is just, like, there's so much help out there for players. You know, even when I was younger, like, there was, like, YouTube was still big when I was in, you know, middle school, early high school, like, it was still a massive thing back then. But, you know, even at that point, it wasn't. The quality wasn't what it is today. There's a lot of really quality basketball content on YouTube. It wasn't like that, you know, whatever seven or eight years ago, just wasn't. So it's moving in the right direction, obviously, in terms of drills and workouts and stuff like that. But more specifically, what I want to get into is the unfortunate trap that a lot of players fall into when it comes to this, because they know, like, okay, I could find all these drills and workouts on YouTube to work on these skills, and they fall in love with doing drills and they think that drills are the way to actually get the success in the court that they want. And that's unfortunately not really the case. It's part of it, but it's not the full story. Okay? And a lot of players don't. Don't quite get this. A lot of players feel like they can become great in games just by doing drills. And it's really. It's far from the truth, because there's a lot of things that you have to develop as a player that you don't get from drills. At least most drills, and especially drills that you're doing, you know, against no defense. You know, we all know players who don't work out, like, you know, quote, unquote, workout on their, you know, basketball game all that much, right? But they're still able to be effective on the court. Like, you know, they might show up and play pickup, and they might be the best player there, even though they don't really practice all that much. But maybe, you know, they're always playing pickup. You know, maybe basketball's not even their number one sport. But anytime that, you know, your group of friends is trying to get pickup runs, they show up and they just play, and they've become really, really good at playing. And that in itself is a skill that's very important to have. And that's really what I want to touch on today, because that. That is something that. That right there, that is a lesson you need to learn. And if you can apply that lesson with your drills, you'll become very, very effective in the way that you want to be. So, you know, obviously players, you know, players will ask me, like, how can I improve my instincts? And really, that's a good question. But the question that I get a lot, too, is like, how do you have a. Do you have a workout to improve my instincts? Do you have a workout to improve a basketball iq? Do you have a workout to improve my court vision or my passing? Like, here's the thing. I think passing in itself is a skill. Obviously, you know, be able to throw behind the back pass and, you know, no, look past or, you know, over the head, whatever. But at the same time, a big part of passing is knowing when to do it. Okay? Like, you can have all the skills passing the world, but if you don't know when to make that pass, it's really useless. So I'm gonna lump passing in with this, too. So when I get questions about passing and all those things, like, I'm gonna lump that in with this. And, you know, what I tell them is that, like, when they ask that question, you don't get those skills from practice. Like, you don't get those skills from doing drills. You don't improve your basketball iq. Now, you can to an extent, and I'll touch on this in a minute with basketball iq, but in terms of court vision, instincts, overall awareness, and passing as well, you develop those through playing the game, through actually playing against defense. That's how you develop those things. And really, there's some things in the game of basketball that you just can't learn without facing defense. You know, improving your instincts, like making massive improvements in your iq, you know, your decision making, all those things are things you develop through trial and error. Okay? That's the thing. Players want to skip that whole trial and error phase because it's uncomfortable. It's not fun to have to go out there onto a court against actual opponents and mess up and turn the ball over and make the wrong read. They want to do a workout where they can say, oh, I can just work on this in a workout and I can just go be perfect in games. But that's just not how it works. You can't, you can't look to approach things like that because it won't work out for you. And, you know, you can make your individual workouts planned. You can make them perfect. You can make them, you know, obviously a couple weeks we talked about, you know, block versus random training, where, you know, essentially when you have block training, it's where everything's planned out. I'm going to do this and I'm going to do this, then this and this and this, and I can make it perfect. Right? Random training is where things aren't going to be perfect for you. You know, you might be creative with your drills, which I'm going to touch on in a later podcast, the importance of creativity. But that's part of it. If you're working that by yourself. But then also random training includes actual, like game live situations, you know, where you're playing one on one, three on three, five. That. That's also training. It's random training, though, because you can't plan anything out. It's not perfect, right? Things are going to go wrong, you're going to make mistakes, you're going to get beat sometimes. And that sort of training is very, very effective in developing you as a player. So that, that is why you need to have that sort of, that sort of, that sort of training is developed through that. So in that podcast I talked about how, you know, block and Random training, like random training is statistically better. It gives you. Will give you better results. And you can listen that podcast if you want to hear the full, like the more detailed version of that. But essentially you still need to have both of those things. You can still improve your shooting by doing rep after rep after rep block training. Okay, you can do that. And honestly, you're going to have to. You. Even when I'm working out with my players, like, we're going to get up a lot of spot shots. Okay, we're going to get up a lot of them. So I also get questions a lot from players. Like, coach, is this blockchain? Like, coach, how do I make all my workouts random? Like, you don't have to do that. All that I'm saying is that if you don't have access to a trainer, who's going to do this for you. So I also get questions about trainers, which I'm going to touch on again later, but not always. Will trainers have. Have block training or have random training. A lot of times can be blocked as well. But if you do block training, that's fine. Okay, that's fine. But you need to make sure that you also are playing basketball. You're playing pickup. You're playing one on one, three on three. That's going to be your random stuff. That's where you can actually learn how to develop those skills into actual, you know, skills you can use in games. Okay? So, like, don't make things. So don't make things super complex for yourself. Okay? End of the day, play more basketball. That should be what you get from this. Play more basketball. Now, going back to basketball iq, there are some things you can do to develop your basketball IQ off the floor. So, you know, there are a lot of film breakdowns, you know, IQ breakdowns out there. And there's a lot on my channel. If you go, look, I have some film breakdowns, I have some move breakdowns that really break down, like some of my favorite moves and why I think they're effective. I really encourage you guys to check those out. And you know, like another one, I have my off ball movement breakdown of Jeremy Lin where we just looked at how he moves about the basketball, why he's able to score so easily. There's stuff like that you can learn that will help you. You know, for me, there's a. There are a. There's a baseline of things that you can learn from film study. Right. And things you need to learn. So in my program, the 20 points per game blueprint, we Break down film in there because we're trying to build that iq. So when I teach a player, like attack his lead foot, right? When I teach a player, the best time to attack is off a closeout, right? And we look at situations in the 20 points a game blueprint of that happening and how guys are able to use that. That allows you to now be focused on that going into your actual training. So now you think, okay, you know what, I'm going to make sure, like when I catch the ball, oh, I remember I supposed to attack him on the closeout because he's been moving towards me. I'm going to have the advantage getting downhill on him, right? That's something that can directly help you. Okay. And we have a ton of stuff like that in there too. That being said, it doesn't just, it doesn't stop there, right? You can also look at a lot of NBA games, college games. If you watch those games, that can also help you. You know, you turn on the TV and you watch LeBron James using the pick and roll. You, you know you can learn from that, right? You can, you can do that, but it doesn't stop at that point. Okay. You can't just study film and then expect to go into games and just be able to do the things you see, right? You, you should study film, but also then you have to actually get out there and do that, like do what you're watching, right? If you're learning how to attack, if you're learning, you know, how to use a shot fake, how to use a jab, right? You, you can't just watch and say, oh, wow, that looks effective. Like, I guess I'll just go out and be great at that. Not how it works. You gotta actually get out there and do it and learn how to do it and go through that whole trial and error piece of the thing too. And you know, that was, for me growing up, that was a big thing for me. Like, a lot of the moves that I learned were just stuff that I would learn from online programs or from YouTube. And you know, the biggest thing was that when I learned them, I would actually go out and like practice them, right? And then when I practiced them and I felt like I could actually do them like physically, then I'd go and try to do them in games. Not necessarily, but pick up, you know, pick up or one on one or two on two. Like I'd get there in the practice still in a practice situation, still in that random training and work on those things. Then when I had that Down. I felt like I could bring that into my actual games. That's how you develop a skill completely. You know, you learn it, you see it, right? Then you take it into your practice, into your, you know, your individual practice, and you learn how to do it. Then once you have that down, then you use it in your pickup games or in your one on one. Then after you have that down there, you can use it in your real games, okay? That's how you go from, you know, not knowing how to do something to being effective doing it. And my commitment to doing that allowed me to get good at a few things, right? Like learning the whole. You know, one of my favorite things is the jab. And I feel like my jab is really good. And it's again, the reason I love this because you don't have to be a great athlete for it. You don't have to be like. But I feel like I've studied it so much, I've watched it so much, and I've practiced it so many times that I feel like I can create space coming out of that, out of that triple threat, out of that jab, out of that double jab, little shimmy, which I think is very, very important to do. So it can't just be, you watch something and then you don't go out and practice it and you don't go out and try it in your actual competitive pickup games. And you got to do that too. And that's where you develop that basketball iq. That's where you take the basketball IQ from something you know. You know, you can recite to me. You can say, yeah, I know, coach, I'm supposed to attack his top foot. I know I'm supposed to do this and do that. But also, you know, I've internalized it, meaning that I've taken it from just being something that I know that I can tell you to something that, like, I actually live by and do, right? Something that, that, that's internal, something that is instinctual, right? You develop those instincts, that basketball iq, you, you turn it into something instinctual when you finally go out and practice it against live opponents, okay? And in games that, that, that, that's the important part for you guys to recognize. And you know, like I said, there's, there's a few reads and IQ points that we really touch on that you need to know, okay? But once you have those things down, it's about going and learning it for yourself, okay? And, you know, growing up for me, I was all about the drills, right? So, like, that Was the thing I. There was nobody like, where I grew, where I'm, where I grew up there. I don't know anybody who spent more time in the gym doing drills than I did. Right. Or I should say who was more consistent in the gym doing drills than I was. And. But what I learned, and it took me a while to learn it, is that it's not just about that. Like, you can't just be a guy who does drills all day. Okay, important. But also there's another piece to it that you can't skip out on because you're going to get better at shooting, at dribbling, at all those things. But your instincts, your ability to read and react, your iq, your ability to make decisions, quick decisions, you don't get that from doing drills. You get it from playing. So what I should have done as a younger player is played way more. I should have played way more where I should have played, way more one on one, should have played way more pickup. And I didn't start doing that until like my later years, high school. Like, I should have done that a lot earlier. It would have been a lot better for me. And you know, once I started to recognize that playing was as important as drills are, that was when I saw real progression. And honestly, that's the point that we got to touch on too, the importance of playing honestly. There's probably players out there who I would say, like, you need to play more than you train, like, you need to play, you need to play more live basketball than you than you do drills. Not every player is like that, but there are a lot of players out there who probably could benefit from that. Just ramping up the amount of times that they play. And, and you know, the whole thing with the drills was great because I'm able to pick things up quicker. I feel like I can pick up footwork details quicker, subtle moves quicker, because I just spent so much time dissecting things and working on them. But that second part of being able to make those reads and have those instincts in games is what I lacked early on. And you know, as I've stopped playing competitively on a team and you know, literally I'm just playing a ton of pickup. You know, at this point, I'm doing less drills than I was back in high school, but I'm at this very moment is the best I've ever been as a basketball player. And that's what doing less drills. The only difference now is that I'm just playing more, there's playing more pickup. So I just have the ability to really learn how to score in games better, how to make decisions better. And that's a point you guys need to understand. Once you start to play more, like, you're just gonna. There's a confidence you're gonna get that you just don't have if you only are doing drills, okay? And that's something you're gonna develop through playing. And really, it's a whole new perspective. And now when I'm training people, when I'm training my players, I understand that, like, it's not like drills are important. We're going to work on those physical skills, but at some point, we're going to go live. So we might be working on, you know, we might work on, like, the jab step on the wing, right? But, you know, maybe we'll spend the first 40 minutes doing that. In the last 20 minutes, we're going to go live where I'm going to. I'm going to make a pass out to you on the wing, maybe from a disadvantage from the middle, and I'm going to close out on you, and you got a score out of that triple threat, right? So now we're going to take the actual skill and translate into a game. So now when we do that repeatedly, that player is going to feel confident actually executing those moves with the defender on him. He's going to know, okay, I've got this much space. I can go to this now. Okay, I don't have this much space. I got to give him a. I got to give him a shot fake or. Okay, I can get downhill now. He crosses feet. I can go to that punch drag and get my shot off right there. Okay, I went to my punch and he recovered. Now I got to go between the legs. I can get to the other side of the room and finish. That's something that you learn from playing, okay? And that's kind of the best of both worlds. You get your actual drills in, but then you actually get the instincts, the IQ when you play the.