The BEST Way To Make Your Basketball Team (Middle School, High School, or AAU)

It takes no talent at all to be vocal and to talk on the basketball court. But again, it's something that just doesn't happen way more than you think that it would. For something that's so easy to do, talking to your teammates on defense, hey, I've got ball. Hey, I've got help. That type of stuff is so easy to do, and yet a lot of players don't do it. When coaches see or hear guys who talk and are really, really vocal on defense, that makes the entire team better, right? If I'm in help and I'm telling my teammate, oh, hey, screen coming, screen coming, screen right, screen right. It's almost like you are elevating your teammate now because they can't see behind them, but you can. So you almost give them eyes in the back of their own head because now they know what's coming. They might say, hey, hand off coming, hand off coming. Or hey, screen coming. Get through it, get through it, get through it. You guys can communicate these things, and you're making your teammates better by doing that. And again, coaches want players who make the team better, who make their teammates better, and by just talking on defense, that's a simple way to do that. Be a vocal person defensively and doesn't have to stop on. On defense and stop. That's why it can literally be. You're vocal, you're encouraging your teammates, right? Your teammate misses a layup, your teammate has something up, you know, you're there to pick them up and. And you know, be like, all right, hey, we got the next one. Hey, good shot, good shot. Hey, we'll get like, that's the type of stuff that, again, makes the team better, right? Makes your teammates play better, right? When your teammate misses a layup and they're probably frustrated and flustered, and you go over and you encourage them, you say, hey, it's all good that you're made the next one. That is something that's going to make them better, and they're all of a sudden going to get off of, oh, I just missed the layup. Okay, he's right. Maybe I'll make the next one. That's, again, something takes no talent to do. It's literally just you being a good teammate. It's just an effort thing. It's an effort thing that you. That you have to either want to do or you either don' to do. And. And that goes with your attitude, too, right? Being positive when things go wrong. When your teammate misses a layup, when you miss a layup, you make A turnover. Your teammate makes turnover, right? What is your attitude like? Are you sulking around with your head down when it happens or are you positive, getting everybody focused on what's next? Right. That's where you should be. And then going along with that, too is just playing hard on defense and playing hard when it comes to rebounding. Right? There's the whole thing. I probably have to make an episode talking about this. Market smart tweeted out, it was out today or yesterday about, like, how defense is almost no talent. It's all about just effort. I don't agree with that, actually. I think to be an elite defender, you have to have some talent. You have to be a good athlete. So I'm not saying you have to go to the tryout and be the best defender there. That's not what I mean. You might not be, right. That's not something you control. You might go there. There might be some really great athletes who are great defenders because they're great athletes, right? Maybe you are a great athlete. In that case, you should want to be the best defender there. What I mean by this is again, just the controllables, right? You're playing as hard as you can on defense, right? You're trying your best to stop the man in front of you. You're making sure that you're getting into help when the ball is two pass. When the ball is on the opposite side of the floor, you're in help talking to your teammates when the shot goes up, you're finding your man, boxing out and you're going hard after the rebound, you're crashing the board hard, right? A coach can see that. And again, that. That goes back to an effort thing. So if I see that this guy's playing hard on defense and rebounding the ball, that lets me know that at the very least, that's a coachable kid right there. Whether or not you are a great defender or a great rebounder, like, we can work with that, right? If you play hard, you're probably coachable, meaning that you can probably get better at those things, right? You can probably get better when we. When we start to work on our offense, you're going to be able to get better because you work hard at. It's not always about the service level. Oh, I'm not a great defender. So what's the point? Well, the point is you have to show that you're willing to play hard and you're willing to be coachable. And that's what that. That below the surface actually tells you these two areas. Right. Being a player, the coach is like, and then your effort and your attitude, these do not guarantee you're made the team. At the end of the day, you have to, you have to be good enough. You can't, you can't be horrible and do these two things and expect to make the team. If there's a lot of good players who are trying out, right, obviously every situation is going to be different. Some schools might not have to cut anybody. Some schools might have 70 kids who go and try out. And you obviously can't keep 70 kids in a basketball team, right? So there's going to be, somebody's going to be the odd man out. That's something you have to keep in mind. But something that you have to think about is that when a coach really likes a player, they're going to try and find a way to get them on the team. They're going to say, oh, man, like I, that kid might not be ordinarily good enough to be on the team, but like, I really like that kid and I think that he is going to be a positive impact on the rest of our team. That's conversations as coaches that we have all the time. Like, oh, you know, this kid might not play a ton, but everybody likes him and he plays hard and he's just a good, like a good dude to have on the team. That's, that's, that's a conversation that I guarantee every coaching staff has. You can think of it like this, right? If you're a coach, right, you're going to keep 15 guys in your roster, let's say, and you know, you're getting down to cutting people. Maybe you have 30, 30 guys try out, you'd only keep 15 of them. You know, by the time you get to like guy 13, 14, 15, those guys probably aren't going to play a ton. So maybe you have guy 15, who, who's the 15th best player in the gym. Basketball wise, that's the 15th best guy. So he probably will make the team. But maybe guy number 20, 20th best player in the gym, is doing these things, right? Maybe they, they, they're a player who's, who's always listening, paying attention, listens the first time, right? Follows directions well, doesn't repeat other people's mistakes, talks on defense, is encouraging to his teammates, plays hard, and because of that, the coach is like, man, we got to try and find a spot for this kid. So maybe they decide, hey, at this point, like, they cut the guy who's the 15th best guy and they keep that guy who's the 20th, even though he's. He's not quite as good, they want that guy because he's going to be the 15th guy. He might not play a ton, but he's going to be a positive impact on the rest of the team. He's going to make guy number eight better. He's going to make guy number nine better. He's going to make Guy number six better. He's going to makeguy number four better. Okay, that's what Cody's thinking about, too. If I put this guy on the team, is he going to make my team better? Is he going to help elevate everybody else? So if you can be that, that. That guy, that girl who elevates the people around them, then almost the basketball stuff becomes almost secondary to that, right? Not completely. Again, depends on situation, but that's something to think about as well. I want to give you guys my free leap perimeter score workout. We're going to target a bunch of skills that you're going to need to have. You want to be an elite player on the perimeter, all you got to do to get that is click the top link in my description right below and I'll get that right to you.