How To MASSIVELY Increase Your Basketball IQ (The TRUTH)

Have you heard the saying that basketball is 90% mental and 10% physical? Well, I completely disagree with that. If you can't actually make the shot, make that move, or make the pass, the basketball IQ means nothing. But at the same time, a lack of basketball IQ can make all those skills pretty much worthless or far more useless than they should be. In this video, I'm going to go through the three steps you need to take to absolutely skyrocket your basketball iq. This will help you to score way more points and make way more plays on offense, and it's going to become much more easy for you, and you're going to be able to do it at a much more consistent rate, and you'll finally be able to become somebody who can dominate not just an offense, but on defense as well. And make sure you stay until the end, because I'm going to give you an exact list of things that you need to study if you want to build that elite basketball iq. And I'm also going to give you another tip that I guarantee you probably never thought about before. Let's get into it. So I know the first point I made was the whole basketball is 90% mental versus 10% physical sort of thing, and I still had to disagree with it. And I disagree with that statement because it's very surface level and most players never understand. A lot of coaches don't understand it, but most players never understand this. And. And it's why they always have that lack between their actual skills and then their ability to perform on the court. So I'm going to explain to you right now, if you struggle to actually produce on the court, even though you're working out, doing all this stuff, I'm going to tell you exactly why that is. So when you hear the word skill for right now, I want you to throw the definition of it out the window. Pretend you don't even know what it means. A skill in reality has three parts. First of all, you have to actually look around and see what's happening. So that's called perception. You have to make a decision. So, okay, I see that the lane is open, so I'm going to drive to the rim. And then the action, which is actually have to drive to the rim and finish the layup. So there's three different parts to a skill. Now, when we look at it, the first two parts of that are both mental, right? Understanding what's happening and then making a decision, that's both a mental sort of thing. And then the third part is the physical, which is the actual act of doing that. Another simple one is catching the ball on the wing, seeing that you're open and deciding to shoot the ball. And. And then the third part would be actually making that shot. Here's the thing though, you might hear that and say, okay, well then that means that basketball is like 66% mental, it's 2/3 mental. But here's the thing. When you have a physical lack of ability, like you aren't capable of doing something, you aren't going to perceive it or actually see it happening. So, for example, Shaq sees the game a lot differently than Steph Curry does because they both have different things they can do well. They literally see the game differently. And it's the same thing if you lack a certain physical ability and if you can't shoot the ball, if you can't make a contested shot, you're not going to see that as an option when you actually perceive what's going on and therefore you're not going to have it. I say all this to say that the physical and mental are very much tied together. So when you hear the 90% mental versus 10% physical, I would say that's completely wrong. And I would say it's basically 50, 50. Now that we have an understanding of what the mental side of the game actually encompasses, let's talk about the part that's probably the most important things to develop and that's anticipation. So when we think about basketball, a lot of times we talk about it being reactionary, right? It's the game of reactions. I do this, my defender does that, so I do this or my defender just did that. So now I do this or if I want defense, the, you know, the guy in Guardians did this and now I do that. And that is a big part of the game. But the next level of this is being able to anticipate instead of having to react. When you're reacting to something, you're always a little bit behind that thing. Well, you can anticipate, you can be in front of it and therefore have the advantage over whatever the situation is that you're in. This is why it's so important to build that. So we talk about building a high level basketball iq. What we really mean is building a high level of anticipation. And when you do this, it's going to make the game so much easier because not only does it mean that you have to understand the game at a high level, it means you're always going to be a split second ahead of the defense. Or again, like I said, this could Even be on offense or when you're on defense guarding somebody, you're a split second ahead of that person and it's going to make your life way easier as a defender. That's why a lot of times you'll see players who aren't necessarily elite athletes who can be elite defenders. It's because they really understand the game and they can anticipate things well. So they can make up for maybe not being as athletic as somebody. So if you struggle to guard players who are quicker than you or whatever, this is really important for you to learn to understand. So how do you improve your ability to anticipate? And this comes down to a couple of things. But above all, you have to understand the game and at a really deep level. And you have to be able to understand the basic concepts that are involved in the game. And you've got to be really, really good at picking up on patterns. So let's talk about exactly how you can do this. Number one is you need to watch a ton of basketball. And I do not mean overtime, mixtapes and Instagram clips, because I know that's what 95% of players do. And they consider that watching basketball, that's not watching basketball, that's watching highlights. And there can be value in doing that. But I'm talking about watching full games of basketball often. And this can be any level. This could be high school, college, NBA, wnba. This can be overseas basketball, the FIBA World Cup. It could be any, any sort of basketball, watching it through. And there are certain things, IQ wise, that you will only pick up by watching full games of basketball or at least extended amounts of basketball. Right, because let's think about it from an offensive perspective. What was the offense trying to do? What was their game plan coming in? You'll never pick that up just from watching highlights. You have to actually watch a game to understand. Was there a mismatch that they were trying to exploit? Did somebody have a matchup that was good? How did the defense make an adjustment to what the offense was doing? And how did that open up another opportunity for the offense? Maybe how did the time and score affect what the offense did or what the defense did? And then how did foul trouble impact the game? How did teams try and feed the hot hands or what did they do to try and get one of their players going on offense? These are things that you only pick up by watching the flow of an actual game. Right? You don't get this from highlights, you don't get this from clips. You know, I think it's really important that I mentioned this because a lot of players I talk to don't watch the game. They watch highlights, they watch clips on Instagram. They don't actually watch basketball. They don't just sit down and, oh, you know, it's a. It's a. You know, it's an evening in November and I just got home from practice and, you know, the Clippers and the Thunder are playing. So I'm going to sit down and watch this game. Like, they don't do that, right? They just watch the highlights after, right? Or they watch whatever comes up on Instagram. You know, they don't sit down and they don't watch a, you know, a college game until it gets to, like, March Madness, right? If you want to really take your basketball IQ to another level, you've got to start watching full games, right? That's what's going to separate you from a lot of other players. Because like I said, the majority of players that I talk to don't watch basketball. They don't watch it again. They watch clips, they watch highlights, they don't watch the game. Now, you can play and learn a lot of these things, but think of it this way, if you watch the game instead, you can learn three, four, five times as much as in a third or a quarter of the time that it would take you if you were just playing, right? So what we're trying to do is stack not just your own reps, but other people's reps, so that mentally you're taking reps over and over and over, even when you can't physically be in the court. You can only play basketball so many hours a day. But if you're also watching as well, you're going to continue to pick up on patterns. This is what I was mentioning earlier. When it comes to building anticipation, once you start to pick up on patterns enough, that's how you really build that ability to say, okay, I see a pattern coming. And now I can anticipate right here. And that's where you see players who, you know, like Nikola Jokic, right? You watch the passes that he makes. That's just him picking up on patterns, right. And being able to anticipate because he knows what's going to happen. How do you think he gets to that point? By watching a lot. And then we're going to talk about another point here that definitely plays huge into that as well. But the first thing, the first point I want to make is understanding the fact that you have to watch basketball, and full basketball games are super important. The second thing is play, play, play, play. I can't say the word play enough. Like you have to play a ton of basketball and you learn by doing, right? Watching is awesome. And again, I'm encouraging you to do that because it's going to accelerate the reps that you're getting, but you have to also do as well. And you know, there's the third point we're going to get to in a minute that's going to supercharge this and take it to another level. But when you know, you take that, the first point, watching and then that third point and then you play, right, you see those patterns and you start to piece it together, you're going to start to see some of those things emerge when you actually play. You're just to pick up on some of those things and that's when you're really going to be able to reach your potential as a basketball player. And you know, a big reason why players lack when it comes to basketball IQ is because they don't understand how to make their skills work for them in the context of an actual game. Right. A lot of players spend all their time working out by themselves and, and what they do doesn't translate because you get to a game and now all of a sudden there's spacing that you need to understand. You have to understand off ball movement, you understand driving kick concepts. And if you don't know those things, you're going to, you're not actually going to be able to get to a point where you can use your abilities, right? It's going to be a lot harder for you to know, okay, when do I get my shots? Like when is a good shot, when it's a bad shot? How can I be successful consistently if you don't understand those sorts of things, right. And so any sort of playing is good, right? I'm huge on just playing as much as you can, just see a defender as often as you can. But I'm specifically talking about five on five here because that's obviously what we're training to be great at is the five on five game. And this is where you're really going to see the spacing concepts. All the other things we're about to talk about that'll kind of play into effect here is when you play as often as you possibly can. So combine watching more with playing more and you're going to make a massive jump in your basketball iq. And then the third area that I've alluded to that I think is really important is understanding basketball Concepts. So this is another thing that, you know, again, players don't really do. They don't really understand this. They spend all the time working out and they. They work on their shot, they work on their dribbling, they work on their finishing. But now they need to learn how to actually apply that into the context of a real game. And that's where there's a disconnect for players. So if you feel like you work out a ton, you get to games and you don't have opportunities or, you know, you struggle to know when to be aggressive, when to not be aggressive, well, you need to understand concepts at a. At a much higher level. And then you're going to start to know these things that basketball is going to feel much more natural to you. You're going to be able to score, make plays at a much higher level. And so it's understand that basketball is literally just a game of concepts. That's all basketball is. It's a game of concepts and it's a game of spacing overall, just offensive defensive concepts, reads and decisions. And if you don't truly understand these things, you don't comprehend them. You're not going to be very good in real games. So I'm going to give you guys some concepts that you need to study, right? So what I want you to do is as soon as this video is over, like, it's going to pop up on the screen. So you'll put a screenshot. You need to, like, search these things, like, go on YouTube, look them up, Google them. But commit to understanding what these things are and how they apply. And. And you're going to put yourself ahead of probably 95% of players out there who don't really understand these things because they can go and run a couple of plays. The coaches draw from them. They don't really understand how to play basketball. The majority of players just do not. So I'm going to give you guys some of these things. This doesn't mean that you need to become Phil Jackson or Greg Popovich, right? That's not what I'm asking you to do. But you should be able to clearly understand these concepts and understand, you know, what they are, why they happen, and how they would apply to you in a game. So I'll read them off by category. And again, like I said, I'm gonna have them listed right next to me somewhere on the screen. So you can just screenshot this. You'll be able to just go and look these things up after. But let's start with offense so kind of a general thing is just closeout. So reading and attacking options and then driving kick and then making the extra pass. Those are three things that are just super common when it comes to offense. In any sort of offense you're going to have these sorts of things. So understand what these things are and how they apply to you. Stock pin downs. So first of all, know what a pin down is also known as a down screen or an away screen. So there's reads coming off the pin down. So tight curl reads what you're doing when the defender is chasing you over that screen when they're trailing you. The tight curl option flare. If that defender goes under that screen, we're flaring out to the side. Backdoor cut. So that defender, you know, goes too early and jumps that pin, that pin down, we're backdooring it dive. So this is if we're that screener now. So we screen and you know, the teammate flares it out. So he pops out, we're diving to the basket and then slip. So you know, this can be, this can apply on on ball screens and off ball screens, but essentially means bailing on that and diving a little bit early on that screen and then pop. So if that, if our, if our teammate tight curls that are back towards it, we're popping out. And again this applies to off ball and on ball screens as well. Let's talk ball screens here. So coverages, so drop coverage is when that defender is playing over the top on ball and then that hedge defender is dropped like typically towards the nail or towards the paint and soft hedges is where that on ball is playing over again. But now we have that defender who is, who is basically at the level of the screen. That hedge defender, hard hedge is almost like a double except you know that that player is going to. That hedge defender is going to come out, wait until that on ball defender gets back and then recover back to the screener. And then blitz is just a double team coming off the screen. And ice is when you don't allow that player to use the screen. So typically on like a sideball screen, you jump up and force them to not be able to use the screen. Have to stay on the sideline. So then solutions so understanding like what a, what a role is, what's a short role. If you're that, that screener, a pop. If you're the screener, what does that look like on a ball screen? A shake or a corner lift, you're in that same side corner. All important solutions to have against ball screens and then defensively, weak side and strong side. So let's see the difference between those things. Gap help. What does gap help look like? And how can you be good in gaps? Switching, hard hedging, soft hedging, drop eyes, the ones we went over, but understand how to play them on defense, too. And then helping the helper, right? Understanding how to be that help two, two or three passes away. Again, you can Google all of these, you can look them up. I've got videos on some of these things. But commit to truly understanding what each of these are, and you're going to be way more effective in games. And the last thing that I want to bring up, and it's probably something that you haven't really thought about, and most players don't think about it. A lot of coaches, I think coaches know this, and I talk about this with a lot of coaches, is the best way, one of the best ways to learn something is to teach it, right? Teaching, the saying is to teach us to learn twice, and you gotta learn something one time. But then you also have to learn how to. How to actually, like, explain it or show it to somebody else in a way that they're gonna understand what you're saying, right? So it really forces you to have a deep understanding of what you're talking about, because otherwise you're not gonna be able to parlay that information to them. So, like, for example, when I make a podcast, right, or any sort of video, like, I've gotta really make sure that I'm on point with what I'm talking about. I've got to make sure I know what I'm talking about because now I have to be able to explain it and teach it to other people, right? So it forces me to really learn things twice and at a much deeper level. So at any time when you're able to teach something to somebody else, right, Whether it's a teammate or if you're just playing and you're helping somebody else with a certain concept, that's going to help you to understand it at a deeper level. So as much as you can, try to teach the game, right, if you feel like you have an understanding of something, see if you can help somebody else to also gain that understanding. And you're going to. You're going to start to know it and understand it and really just internalize it at a much higher level than if you didn't do that. If you guys apply these things, you're going to take your basketball IQ to a whole different level. And like I said, the majority of players don't do these things, so if you start to do them, you're going to separate yourself from the pack. And that's when things become really, really fun. I appreciate you guys for watching. Make sure you guys click the top link in my description below to get my free Elite Primitive Score program, which is going to help you guys take your skills to the next level. Which again, when you do that, combine that with increasing your basketball IQ and that kind of synergy, you guys are going to go to a whole different level. So make sure you check out my free program again. That's linked down below. I'll talk to you guys soon. Peace.