How to Make 2025 the Best Year of Your Basketball Career

With the new year underway, I'm going to give you the three steps you need to follow if you want to make 2025 the best year of your basketball journey so far. Now, if you're putting in a lot of work and you're still struggling to improve and see results, it's not because you're not talented enough. It's probably because you're not going about things the right way. And right now I'm going to break down the exact way that you should be doing it if you want to see the best results that you've ever seen. So far, so many players are focused on the physical skills. So becoming a better shooter, a better ball handler, maybe more athletic, and those are all great things and we're going to talk about how to improve those. But the problem is that a lot of players go about it the wrong way. And I almost view it like the example used in the Bible where talk about building your house on a solid foundation of rock or building your house on a weak foundation of sand, right? And how if you build it on the sand, it's going to crumble and if you build it on the rock, it's going to be sturdy and you're going to be able to, to prosper because of it. Right? So a lot of players build their house on a really weak foundation and that's why they might feel really good in practice or in their own workouts, but then they get to the games and they crumble. So I want to tell you exactly about how to make sure that you build your house, you make your improvements by building a solid foundation so that you see the best in game results that you've seen to this point in your career. I'm going to break it down really simply into three steps. Let's get into it. So number one, the most important thing that you can do if you want to become a better player is you have to challenge yourself to learn the game on a much deeper level. Again, so many players are stuck on a very basic short term focus when it comes to improvement. And they don't worry about building on a solid foundation, they just want to build. And where we really see this is players understanding of the game. The more that I'm around the game and obviously, you know, the big part for me was starting off as a trainer, obviously as a player initially, but then transitioning more into training and my, I was so focused on, okay, well how do I help my players become better shooters or better ball handlers or, you know, better finishers, whatever. And Eventually I started to realize that that stuff isn't really what separates the best players. Right. You obviously need some of that. But what really matters even more than that is the IQ and the feel for the game that a player has that matters so much more when it comes to the actual in game results, as opposed to how many ball handling drills they do or how many shooting drills they do, this, that and the third. And so that was kind of the shift that I made right there. One of the biggest things that holds players back is just their, their understanding of the game. And when you finally build a deep and masterful understanding of the game, your skills will take off and your performance in games will take off and the game will start to feel easy. And that's really where you start to play with confidence and consistency. So let's talk about just some, some simple things. First of all, it's understanding offense. What do I need to know in order to be successful in score points? Every player wants to score more points, right? Everybody wants to make more players for their team. How do you actually go about doing that? Just because you get better at, at handling the basketball or shooting the basketball doesn't mean you're going to go out and score more points. Because the game is played five on five and there's a time and a score that dictates what you're doing. Some places a shot clock, you have, you know, referees, you have all these different things that go into what am I supposed to do when I'm actually, I actually have the ball in my hands. And if you don't understand that, that, that, that concept, you don't understand those situations, you're not gonna be able to, to apply what you have. It's like you could have the biggest toolbox in the world, right? Maybe you're, you're a construction worker and you have the biggest toolbox ever. You have all the nicest, most expensive, expensive tools in your toolbox, but you've never been trained on how to actually apply those tools and when to apply them. So you're useless even though you have the best tools, right? It's like that in basketball too. You can have the best tools in the world. If you don't know how to apply them, then you're, you're going to struggle. So really one of the big things I think is understanding off ball movement. So this goes into when do I want to cut to the basket, do I understand if that ball gets low, maybe around the block or the short corner, a 45 cut from the opposite wing Right. Or when my teammate drives at me, do I understand what to look for when I'm trying to get to a backdoor cut in transition? Do I understand, oh, I got to win my first three steps to half court so that I get out ahead and I'm open to be able to get a pass and finish in transition? Do I understand that when my teammate drives, I got to relocate to give them an angle to kick the ball out? To me, all those little things are super important when it comes to your understanding of the game and being able to score. Talking about like recognizing the most vulnerable situations for defenders. So we talk about closeouts. Whenever the defense has to rotate towards you because the ball moves to you, that's the best time to look to drive because the defender has to sprint towards you, take away the shot, slow themselves down and not get beat on a drive. It's the hardest thing to do on defense. So recognizing and hunting closeouts to attack is a huge thing that players could do if they wanted to score more points more consistently. Understanding reads when it comes to ball screens and different coverages that may come with it, whether it's a blitz or a switch or a drop coverage. What do you do in those different situations? And all that goes into actually building a solid foundation when it comes to offense. Right. And so we'll talk in a second here about some quick things you can do for that. But diving even deeper into those situations I talked about, that stuff matters so much. And as a, as a, as a coach now, like I mentioned before, so so much of my, how I started with this channel, but just basketball, my career in basketball in general was as a trainer. And then I've transitioned more into team coaching. So I'm a varsity coach now and this is stuff that we work on every single day. Because when I see my players get better at this stuff, all the skills take care of themselves. We'll work on shooting and all that stuff as well. But that stuff doesn't matter until they understand this. So if you want a, a resource that's going to walk you through exactly what I'm, what I just talked about there with all those different things, I have a free hour long basketball IQ masterclass link down below. It'll help you score more points, create more for your teammates, and just play with a whole new level of confidence. We talk about these exact situations, understanding how to play without the ball, reading different cuts on, on pin downs and away screens and understanding ball screens, understanding the mindsets that go into being a successful basketball player. Again, an hour long can immediately help you to add six or eight points per game just with the stuff that we talk about in there. And I continue to get so much good feedback. So like I said, completely free, top link down below. Make sure you check that out if you want to dive deeper into that sort of stuff. Like I said, there is nothing more important than that, so be sure to check that out. But going back into that sort of stuff here, a lot of players say they have a good feel for the game, that they understand the game. But when you ask them about the situations, they they don't know. And so that's why they struggle to be consistent and to perform well on the court. So we talk about what you can do going forward to make sure that you actually build a deep understanding of the game and you have to make a commitment to become a student of the game. And that that has to be like true in every sense of that phrase there. Watch film, like study basketball. And I mean, it's from a couple different perspectives. The players on my team who watch the most film of our games, the teams that we play, tend to be the most successful, right? And it's been like that in every team that I've been a part of because you're going to see something that you're going to be able to tuck away and next thing you know, you're in a situation and you can call back on what you've watched, what you've picked up on, and it allows you to make a play that if you hadn't seen it, you might, you might have missed it. And it's as simple as that. So are you willing to put in the time of watching your own film? First of all, if you have the access to that, high school college players, you know, likely do. But aside from that, it's watching great players play basketball. So watching college basketball games, watching NBA games, watching international games, there's so many resources out there that you can watch and you can say, hey, I want to get better at using off ball screens. You can go on YouTube and find so many videos of, of breakdown, of breakdowns of film studies, of just, you know, different compilations of guys using off ball screens, different reads, all this sort of stuff. You want to get better at using ball screens. You can look at, you know, a player who uses a lot of ball screens and you can see what they do. Say, hey, you know, Chris Paul ball screens. You can search that and find so many videos about that and learn the game. That way you can turn on what I highly Recommend you do is turn on a college basketball. If you're in high school, watch more college basketball. Because it's. In a lot of ways, it's very similar to the high school level in terms of the flow. Flow of things. And you get to see, you know, well, what did this team do in that situation? Okay, this team went on a 4, 0 run. What does the offense do after the timeout here? And you start to learn these things. You have to pick up on these things, and it allows you to really have a good feel and understanding for the game. So studying and watching and saying, hey, I want to get better at this, so what can I do? What can I look for that's going to help me to understand that at a higher level, the more you watch, the more you're going to understand the game. And it's really, really as simple as that. So you're gonna put like, what you put into it is what you're gonna get out of it. Highly recommend that you do that. And again, use so many resources on YouTube. But also, like I mentioned, make sure you check out that. That masterclass down below completely free. We dive into a ton of this stuff as well. So that's the first thing is you need to make a commitment to become a student of the game. And I literally mean student of the game. You almost have to treat it like it's like. It's like it's like a school, right? Like it's a class. Like you're trying to study and learn and actually immerse yourself in the details of what's happening instead of just sitting there and watching with no purpose, right? Go into these things and say, hey, I want to watch this game and I just want to see how players are scoring without the basketball in their hands, or how players are scoring in transition or how players are going to use ball screens, and you're going to get a lot better because of that. Number two is you want to commit to being in learning mode as much as possible. Okay? So so many players focus on being in performance mode, and they focus on being in it all the time. And I'll explain exactly what this means in a second here. In reality, we need to flip that and be in learning mode as often as we possibly can. There's two different modes you can be in. One is learning mode, one is performance mode. We need both, but we need to know when we need both of these things. So we talk about performance mode. Right now that I'm as I'm recording this, it's January So most players are in season, meaning most of the time you're in performance mode and you should be right. When we have a game, we have a game tomorrow night. We need, like, I need my players to perform, like, I need them to put their, their best foot out there and, and play their best, right? Because it matters, right? We're trying to win a game, we're trying to accumulate points and, and, you know, a position for the playoffs, all that sort of stuff. So what matters is going out there and doing what you do best and sticking to those things, right? You want to look really good, you want to look perfect, you want to shoot 100% if you can, because trying to win a game, we're in performance mode, right? Let's rewind six months from, from today, right? And we're in July. Well, different story. There's no scoreboard, there's no referees. We're not competing for a, a chance at, you know, a district title or a chance at a conference title or a chance at the state playoffs. We're getting better. We're trying to prepare ourselves for January. That's what we're doing in July. So we're not in performance mode. We shouldn't be anymore. Meaning we've got to be in learning mode, where now all of a sudden, this isn't about going out there and only doing what we do well and trying to be perfect, right? Because you have to think of getting better as very similar to getting stronger, right? If you go into the weight room and you lift 100 pounds on the bench press and you just only ever lift that weight, eventually you're going to stop getting stronger because it's not challenging you. It's not forcing your muscles to adapt in order to be able to meet a new challenge. Shooting or ball handling or finishing or any skill in basketball decision making. Those only improve if you force an adaptation. You force your brain to adapt and to improve and to get better. And we don't do that in performance mode because we avoid things that we're not good at. We run away from situations that we're not good at because we have to win. So, so many players get stuck in this performance mode year round where in July they still don't want to do anything that makes them look bad, that makes them uncomfortable, that they don't, that they aren't great at already. They don't want to do shooting drills that are going to challenge them and make them miss more shots. Right? They want to do stuff that they're going to do. They're going to perform really well, and they're going to feel really good about. And because of that, they don't really get much better because there's not much of a challenge that. That your brain has to overcome in order for you to get better at that, at whatever the skill is. Okay? So learning mode is focused on challenge and growth and embracing failure and adapting. In order to put ourselves in a learning mode, we need to think about the drills that we do, the workouts that we have. We want to understand the Goldilocks principle, which essentially just means that we want to succeed about 30 to 70% of the time. Okay. And if we're in that mode, we're going to be getting better. If we are below that, we're, like, never succeeding. Well, probably not. You probably aren't quite ready for that level of challenge. It's probably not super helpful. But on the other end of that, if we're succeeding every single time or almost every single time, like I said, there's no reason for your brain to adapt because you already mastered it. Right. Why would you get better? And because of that, you're not going to get very much better, and you're going to get back the next season. You're going to feel like the same exact player, and you're going to. You're going to be the same exact player because you haven't improved. So what you have to. To focus on doing is saying, okay, if I'm doing this shooting drill, maybe you do like a normal, like five shots, five spots for your shooting, and you're really good at that. Maybe you can make 20 out of 25 shots. Well, how can we adjust that to make it more difficult? How can I give myself another challenge to overcome so that I have to improve at this skill? One of the really simple things that we do is we'll add a certain type of adjustment to a shot or a different challenge. We'll say, hey, you have to shoot this with messed up feet. Your feet can't be normal on these shots. Or we'll say, we're going to shoot it off a bad pass now. Or we'll say, you have to shoot these really, really quick. We'll. Or we'll alternate. You got to shoot one really quick, one really slow. And maybe we'll say, hey, maybe you got to shoot this off of one leg. And. Or you got to change up the hand placement on the ball. And so now we're adding challenge to these things. And guess what that's going to mean? It's going to mean that you're going to miss more shots. You're probably not going to shoot 20 out of 25. You might only shoot 10 of 25, but your brain is going to say, wow, I'm failing at this right now. I've got to find a way to make this work in any area. You need the failure reps in order to signal to your brain, hey, I've got to improve. If there's no failure that happens, there is no signal being sent to improve. So we want to chase after, we want to hunt after failure. And when we do those sorts of things, we put ourselves in a position to get better. So think about in the off season and your workouts where you're trying to get better. You want to find ways to miss more. You want to. Want to find ways to make things harder. How do you want to make sure that I lose the ball more in my ball handling drills? How do I make sure that I miss more layups on my finishing drills? I'm not saying purposely miss. I'm saying adjust it so that it's harder for you to actually be successful. Okay. When it comes to ball handling, maybe we'll say, hey, we got to increase the speed that we're doing it at. When it comes to finishing, we might say, all right, well, we got to take, we got to take off from farther away or we've got to, you know, use our left hand on every finish. And now all of a sudden we're challenging ourselves, we're missing more. And because we're missing more, that signal is being sent to our brain to adapt. And we're going to get better long term because of it. There needs to be a long term view when we put ourselves in learning mode. Because when you're in learning mode and you miss a lot of shots, you're going to feel bad about it. Like, you're not going to feel good. And your brain is going to send that signal to you saying, man, I feel terrible. I don't like this. Because it's. Improving is the hardest thing your brain does, actually physically changing itself, which is what your brain does. When you improve at a skill, there's physical changes that happen to your brain. That's the most taxing thing that your brain is going to do. And so you're going to feel way worse. But that's actually a really good thing. And so you have to be willing to sit in that discomfort for long periods of time in learning mode if you want to get better. The players who can't do that and Stick and perform with it and say, okay, I'm just going to go to the gym today, do stuff that's pretty easy for me that I know I'm going to do well, and I'm going to feel really good about about it. They're going to get back to the next season, and they're not going to feel great about themselves because they're not going to be much better. But the players who are willing to sit there and be like, yeah, I'm going to put myself through, struggle through difficulty, and I'm going to feel really bad. I'm going to feel some days like I'm not getting better. And, you know, I look at that other guy over there is making all his shots, and I, you know, it's going to be a struggle for you. You're going to get back to the next season, and you're going to be way better as a player because you're willing to do those sorts of things. So that's the next thing you need to do this year if you want to make sure that you make this the best year of your career and is you need to spend as much time in learning mode as you possibly can and then use performance mode when you need it. So when you get to your games, the games that matter, well, now all of a sudden, I'm sticking to what I'm good at. I'm making sure that I'm as close to 100% as I can be. That's what I'm performing. So. But then when that game's over and you go back to, you know, your workouts or whatever, you're back in learning mode. How do I challenge myself? How do I fail more? How do I make this more difficult for me? Because then you're going to get back to the games, you're going to face those challenges and be prepared for them. Okay? The third thing that's really important for you to do to make this the best year of your basketball career is you need to get really clear on your goals for this year. Okay? And this is such a maybe an obvious thing to say, and it's easy to just kind of throw this out. Be like, whatever, get clear on your goals here. But I really think that it's important that you literally write down what it is that you want to get better at this year or what it is you want to achieve this year, or, okay, so, for example, write down what skills you want to develop this year. Like, do you feel like, hey, I got to become a better shooter this year? I got to become, maybe you can get specific. I want to become a better catch and shoot three point shooter this year. Like, getting as specific as you can be is actually a great thing to do. You know, maybe that's the first thing I want to get better at handling the ball against pressure this year. I want to get better at driving to the basket. You know, obviously you might have a lot of things you probably want to stick to. Two, three, four things that like, are your main focuses right now. Because obviously you're going to be able to devote more time and attention to those things there. You know, maybe you have a specific, like, outcome that you want to achieve. So you want to become a starter next year or next season, you want to, you know, make a certain team or, you know, you want to earn a certain spot at the next level, whatever the case may be, write those things down as well. And then we've got to work backwards. So what is it going to take for you to get those things right? So it might lead back to like, those first, like, skills that you want to improve, right? Okay, I want to make it to, you know, the next level or I want to go play at this school. Well, it's going to require me to become a better athlete. So I got to figure out how am I going to become more athletic? It's going to require me become a better shooter. So now I got to figure out what am I going to do to become a better shooter. And then we can work backwards and say, okay, well, how can I challenge myself, put myself in that learning mode as much as possible to make sure that, you know, I can achieve those goals and I can move towards those goals. Once you have those things, you can figure out what resources you, you have that are going to help you to achieve those things. So, you know, whether it be just, you know, your, your coaches that you have like, for your team, or maybe you have a trainer. There's so many videos online, online programs that you can use, and different online tools. Whatever the case may be, when you have clarity, it gives you focus. And so when you know exactly what you want and you ask yourself, well, what is it going to take for me to get that? And you have that all written out and it's gonna allow you to be laser focused on what it is that you're gonna do and your progress towards that goal is gonna be inevitable. Right? There's no way around it. It's gonna happen. Now that doesn't mean you're gonna achieve every single goal that you set for Yourself, you shouldn't achieve every single goal. Like I mentioned, putting ourselves in learning mode. It's not about being successful at every single thing that you do. It's about how do I maximize getting better at this one thing. And that might mean failing, that might mean failing at a lot of things, but it's important that we have clarity with these sorts of things here. So, you know, let's say you, you want to be the, you know, a starting guard on your varsity team next year. In order for you to do that, you know, like, well, hey, I got to become a better catch and shoot three point shooter and I've got to become better at handling the ball against pressure. And then you ask what do I need to do in order to achieve those sorts of things? And then from there you can write out a plan. Whether it be your workouts, whether it be the, the, the film studies that you're going to go through, the players that you want to watch and study and see what they do to be great at those things. You can write those things out, you can have a solid plan and a plan of attack in terms of what you're going to do. Okay, this is what my offseason schedule is going to look like. And these are the different things that I'm going to do to make sure that I'm becoming a student of the game in this area specifically. And then when you do those things, you stick to it. You're going to get really, really good at basketball in that area, whatever area it is that you're trying to improve at. So again, just to kind of wrap everything here, if you challenge yourself to learn the game at a really deep level and you commit to putting yourself in learning mode as much as possible, being okay with failure, actually chasing after failure and wanting to fail more because you know it's going to make you better. And if you get really clear on the exact goals that you want to achieve, and then you work backwards and figure out what exactly you're going to do to move towards those things, then 2025 is going to be your year. And it's going to be a year that you take massive steps forward and you're going to really separate yourself as a player. At the end of the day, it's all about being purposeful and being intentional with your time and your effort and your focus. So if you can do those things, this is going to be a great year for you. Definitely drop a comment down below, let me know if this resonates with you. Like I mentioned earlier, click that top link down below my free Basketball IQ masterclass where we go through a ton of stuff that we talked about earlier on in the video to become a student of the game. You're going to learn how to score more points, how to create more for your team overall. Just play with more confidence, develop the mindsets needed and just the understanding of the game needed to play at a high level. Completely free, an hour long. Go ahead and check that out down below. Appreciate you for watching. Talk soon. Peace.