The Ultimate Basketball IQ Guide for Wing Players

If you're a wing player, then you probably already know how important skill and athleticism are. But the truth is, basketball IQ is what separates good players from great players. The best wings in the game, guys like LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Jayson Tatum, aren't just talented. They know exactly when to attack, when to move the ball, how to create open shots and how to make winning plays. And it's not just those superstars. Guys like Derrick White, Mikhail Bridges and Jalen Williams are as good as they are because of their high basketball iq. If you've ever felt like you're getting lost in the offense, struggling to make the right reads, or not getting the opportunities that you want, this video is for you. So if you're a wing player, or even if you're a guard or more of a forward, this video is going to give you everything that you need to make a bigger impact on the game to become a smarter player and overall supercharge your success really, really quickly. Let's get into it. I think the first thing that's important to understand as a wing player is what your role is, what your job is as a player who's not always going to have the ball in their hands. And the big thing that we have to understand is that you have to embrace the 95. What that means is that 95% of the time you are not going to have the ball in your hands. And so, so much of our training and focus is on, well, what do I do with the ball, how do I get better with the ball in my hands, these dribble moves. And while that has its place, 95% of the time when you're on offense, you're not going to have the ball in your hands. So do you understand what to do in those moments? And that's how you become an elite wing player who can score points at a high level and create plays for your team at a high level as well. Now, the first area that is so important when it comes to this is cutting away from the basketball. And this stuff seems so simple in elementary. It actually is so important. Your teammate is screening for you. Do you understand how to make the right read off of the ball to create an opportunity for yourself? First, finding opportunities for backdoor cuts. So like I said, this could be when a screen is coming to you, and instead of using the screen, you go back door because your defender is overplaying it. It also could mean as you're on the wing, maybe your defender turns to look at the ball, so you make a Quick backdoor cut. And those are opportunities for you to utilize and embrace the 95 and be great in that. We also have a tight curl, so if you're coming off of a down screen or an away screen, your defender is chasing you over the screen. A tight curl to the basket of a lot of times can lead to an open layup for you or an attempt run the rim. And then looking for opportunities to get to what's called a 45 cut. All that a 45 cut is, is a cut to the basket from the wing. Generally you're going to do this when you're either the ball is in the opposite low post or mid post. Great time for a 45 cut. Or if your teammate drives from the opposite wing. So your teammate drives in the right wing, you, you're on the left wing and you cut to the basket. A lot of times your defender turns to focus on that drive on the other side and you can be wide open on a cut right there. So just looking for those specific opportunities are going to be great ways for you to steal a couple points per game just by embracing and caring about the 95 and the time that you don't have the ball in your hands. The other aspect of the 95 is screening. And this is such a massive part. And again, it seems so elementary and you might think that it's kind of boring, but it's so important. When you're not sure what you're doing offensively, when you have the ball in your hands, you're just standing there and not nothing's happening. The best thing you can do is go set a screen. Go set an away screen, ideally. Okay. Because what you're going to do in these moments is that you're going to force the defense to move. And when we force a defense to move, that's what we call a trigger. Because now the defense has to guard the screen a certain way. If you go set a screen and they chase your teammate over the top, your teammate can tight curl the basket. You just created something for your teammate by going and setting a screen and setting what we call a trigger in the same way. What could happen is that you set that screen and your teammate goes with a backdoor cut. And your defender has to help on that. And now you might be wide open right there. That goes into the most important part of scoring, especially as a wing player, creating and attacking advantages. The big word that you have to keep in mind if you want to be a great offensive player, as a wing player especially, is the word advantage. The most obvious one is size or athleticism. So if you're way quicker than someone guarding you, that's an advantage to attack. If you're way bigger than them and advantage to attack right there, those are the obvious ones. But the other one that we can create all the time is closeouts and defensive rotations. Those are advantages that you can attack as well. Because for a defensive player, a closeout is a really hard thing to do. You have to get there, take away the shot and then be able to slow yourself down so you don't get beat on a drive. It's the hardest thing a defender is going to do. And a lot of times when a defender is closing out, the whole defense is rotating in to help. So you're going to be able to get to the paint and the defense might be late and help. So those are opportunities that we want to look to attack as much as possible. Now the big thing that players struggle with is okay, when do I attack or when do I move the basketball, when do I score, when do I pass? And I think the important thing is to be willing to play the long game. So you have the ball, do you have an advantage to attack? Meaning do you have a closeout to go at? And we can think of that as like a momentum advantage. So is the defender's momentum coming towards you? And, and if it is, that's an advantage. You can attack right there. That's a good time to drive. If it's not and you don't have a size or athleticism advantage, that's when you want to move the basketball and then go set a screen which is a trigger, right? So if you have an advantage, attack it. If not, move the ball and then you set a trigger. And then a lot of times what that trigger is going to do is that's what's going to create the advantage, whether it's for you or for your teammate right there. Now, diving even deeper into reading your on ball defender, there's really one read you need to be able to make if you want to know when to drive and when to pass. And it's simply the chest to chest or shoulder to chest read. So if you are chest to chest with your defender, that means that they're going to be between you and basket, meaning they have the advantage, right? Your goal is to get to the basket and they are between you and basket, that's their advantage. So in those moments like we talked about, that's you want to move the basketball and then go set a trigger for somebody else. And we're going to keep doing that until we eventually get what's called a shoulder to chest advantage. So you put the ball on the floor, defender closes out to you, and your shoulder is in their chest. That means that as long as you keep driving, you're either going to get fouled or you're going to get yourself to the rim. Because now they're not between you and basket and you have the advantage. We want to hunt that shoulder to chest advantage whenever possible, and we want to be able to recognize that as a great opportunity to keep driving. Okay? And again, we're going to get that advantage by making sure that we attack that momentum advantage to a closeout, or obviously attacking a size or an athleticism advantage as well, right there. And then another part of the 95 right there is figuring out how to get open shots as a wing player, right? Open catch and shoot threes are a big part of being a great wing player. When you look at the best wing players in the world, a big part of the game for them is catch and shoot threes, right? Even breaking down Kevin Durant's game, we think about Kevin Durant as being this guy with this crazy deep bag and, you know, he's able to make these really tough buckets and all that sort of stuff. And he is. But he also is really, really simple when he can be so catch and shoot threes, understanding when to relocate so that he has an angle. And what we want to be able to do is that whenever your teammate drives or whenever your team gets a low post touch and you're on the perimeter, you want to make sure that you relocate. So usually the most simple way to look at this is that when your teammate drives baseline, you want to relocate towards the baseline. If they drive towards the middle, you want to lift up towards like the top of the key or higher up on the, on the wing so that your defender is not in the passing lane, they can move the ball to you. Then also, if the ball goes into the post, we want to also relocate up or down because again, your defender is going to be in help and they're going to be in the passing lane. So when you relocate up, you create an angle that your teammate can kick the ball out to you. And that's how you consistently create open catch and shoot threes for yourself as a wing player. So probably the biggest mistake that I see from wing players, especially at the high school level, is not being willing to play the long game. And I kind of mentioned this, but you have to know when to attack versus when to be patient. Because your understanding of that is going to determine how successful you're going to be as a scorer and as a playmaker for your team. So a really common mistake is driving too early in the possession before there's an advantage to attack. And if you're going to attack in like neutral situations where there's no advantage, it's going to be really, really difficult for you to consistently win and score and be successful. You just can only do a lot more turnovers and just a lot more wasted dribbles and wasted possessions for you. The sign of a mature player is their ability to be patient and play the long game on offense. All that that means is that we have to understand that the longer the defense has to move, the more likely an advantage is going to be created for your team and for you. So you catch the ball, you see chest to chest and no momentum coming at you. So no close out to attack. And obviously not huge, a huge mismatch in terms of size or athleticism. That means you got to move the ball. So no advantage. I'm going to move the ball, I'm going to go away instead of pin down and balls going to move again and then again and then the ball is going to rotate back to me. Now the defense had to shift and rotate and maybe switch different things. And now the next time I get the ball now close ups coming at me now the defense is late in their help rotations and I have an advantage to attack or I move the ball because I don't have an advantage. Ball moves a couple more times, they switch somebody onto you who now all of a sudden is smaller than you or is not as athletic as you, and now you get the ball back, you have an advantage to attack right there, okay? But you have to be willing to play the long game and say, hey, I don't have anything right now. I've got to be willing to make the simple play, move the ball, go set a trigger for somebody else, and that way the next time the ball comes back to me, it's much more likely I'm going to have an advantage to go out. And guess what? I might not have one the next time. So I'm going to go set another trigger and then the next time it comes to me, the likelihood of me having advantages is even higher than that before a mature player, a successful wing player, is willing to play the long game and be patient and, and understand that if you don't have an advantage to go at momentum or size and athleticism move the basketball, be patient. The next time it comes to you, you're going to have a better chance of having that advantage right there. Now let's talk about how you can train your basketball IQ effectively. And there's a few different ways that we can do this. The first way we can do this is by watching your own games, right? So if you have access to huddle or synergy or even just you record your games on an iPad or on a camera and you're able to watch it back looking through and trying to find the things that we've mentioned. This video, okay, did I have a close up to attack? Did I have an advantage to attack? Did I try and attack when there was no advantage and maybe that led to a turnover? Did I relocate when, you know, my teammate drove to the baseline, that I relocate when the ball went into the post? Did I hunt an opportunity for, you know, a backdoor cut coming off of a screen or, you know, a tight curl my defender chased me over, or 45 cut when my teammate drove or when there was a low post touch? So all those things you can look at in your own film and say, hey, man, I might have missed that opportunity or maybe I was impatient on that possession, I should have moved the ball, got into another trigger, and maybe the next time I would have gotten a better opportunity to attack or to get to a shot or whatever the case may be, that's the first way. And that's probably one of one of the best ways to become a higher IQ player. If you don't have access to your film or even if you do. Another thing you can do in order to become a higher IQ player is by watching some of the best wings play and trying to pick up on, you know, what makes them successful. What are they able to do, you know, guys like Kawhi Leonard, Jason Tatum, Jimmy Butler, Kevin Durant, all these guys who are super successful wing players. And like I mentioned, it doesn't have to be the superstar players. It can be guys like Derrick White and, you know, these more like typical 3 and D players who just do their job at a really high level. Watch them and see what makes them successful, what goes into each play and try and pick apart, like, the small details that you see. Derrick White did this when his teammate drove right there or when he caught the ball and his defender was closing out on his high side. He did this to be able to get himself a driving lane. And there's the one dribble right here coming off of a closeout. So probably in this situation for 99% of players are going to take another dribble. What I love about this too is just him making a quick, what's called a 0.5 decision, which just means that within half a second of him having the ball in his hands, he's doing something because he has a defender closing out to him. So he knows that that's the best time to drive the basket is when that defender's momentum is coming towards him. And the only way that you're going to be able to exploit that momentum is by going right away. So he senses that what we see is a shoulder to chest advantage right here. So what I mean by that is when he, when he immediately rips through, he sees, okay, a shoulder, his shoulder to defenders chest right there. Whenever you have that, that means that you've won like you're going to win on this drive if you just continue to go, right? If you just put your head down and go, you're either getting fouled or you're scoring or both of them, which is what we see right here. So we immediately make that 0.5 decision right here. When you're 7ft tall and super athletic, you know, obviously the rules don't necessarily apply the same way to you right here, but, but a lot of really good concepts we see on just this simple play and just by really picking apart and trying to see those small details, it's going to massively increase your basketball iq. And, and then you want to be able to take this up and say, hey, how can I apply this stuff to what I do? And when I'm in these same situations in games right there, and when you pick up on those patterns, it's going to make you a much smarter player when you do it consistently. So find players that you, you want to watch that, you know, maybe play similarly to you or are in similar situations. And then the third thing is playing in what I would consider controlled environments. But that might be even be more than you need to have, right? You just want to make sure that when you play you're purposeful with what you're doing. So what I mean is this, when you know, maybe you call up a couple of your friends to play some two on two placement, three on three, and you try and hunt those opportunities to attack advantages like we mentioned earlier. And you know, you try and work on, okay, if I don't have anything, go set a trigger, see what I can create coming off of that right there. And so when you do that, like you're Just purposeful with, with, with what you're trying to work on. Maybe you go and play pickup at the YMCA or at the park or whatever and you're working on these same things. Okay, how do I make sure that I create advantages, attack, advantage? I don't have one. I got to move the ball, hunt opportunities for backdoor cuts, tight curls, 45 cuts. All the stuff that we're mentioning right here are, are you going into those games purposeful about doing that? Yeah, I could probably shoot this contested shot right now because it doesn't really matter. Maybe I could even make it. But I want to work on getting better at creating simple baskets for myself and simple opportunities. So I'm going to move the ball and get to a trigger right here. That's how you use games and pick up and all that sort of stuff to get yourself better. And that's one of the best ways that you can improve your basketball IQ is by going into those situations or with a purpose, with a focus. You can say, hey, I don't care if I win this game. I don't care if I make every shot. I only care if I put myself in this situation I'm trying to work on. And if I do that, then that's a successful day for me. That's a win for me. That's all that I care about. Ultimately, if you want to be an elite winning player, if you want to take your game to the next level, it's all about making better decisions and having a high basketball iq, learning how to recognize and attack advantages and, and knowing when to be patient and play the long game and move and go set a trigger for somebody else. The best players have a mental edge. And if you start applying the things that we talked about in this video, you're going to see it make a massive impact on your success as a player. Now, if you're serious about taking your basketball IQ and overall success to another level, I want you to click the top link in the description down below to get my free basketball IQ Masterclass. This is an hour long. This masterclass dives even deeper into some of the stuff that we mentioned in this video right here. This going to help you learn how to score more points, create more for your teammates and overall, just play with way more confidence, way more success on the court. And like I always say, I think that you take the things that we talked about, this master class, you can immediately add six or eight points per game to your average right now just by understanding these things. Like I said, if you're serious about taking your basketball at you. The next level right there. Make sure you check that out. Top link, down below, completely free. It's an hour long and I've gotten so much great feedback about players who have completely transformed the way that they view the game of basketball just by going through this masterclass. So top link, down below. I appreciate you for watching. Talk soon. Peace.