This Workout Will Transform Your Ball Handling

I just got this comment on one of my YouTube videos asking me about how to play with pace and apply it to your games, he said. I wish there was a book or a person that could tell me exactly what to do based on a defender. And while I can't tell you exactly what to do, you can learn how to utilize change of pace to make yourself as hard to guard as possible. And I'll give you a full workout to develop your change of pace and ball control to a crazy level. When people think about ball handling, they automatically think about ball control, how fast you can dribble and how deep your bag is. But the reality of it is, none of these things matter if you don't move well as a ball handler. The guys in the NBA that you think of as the best ball handlers are also the best movers. Of course, you need to be able to control the ball as well, but then understanding how to control your movements and your speed is very important too. So right now we're going to talk about three keys to playing with great change of pace, and then we'll go through a full workout to train this as well as your ball handling in general. The first thing that great ball handlers can do is play slow. This means that they deliberately will dribble at anywhere from 20 to 80% intensity because they recognize the importance of saving their top speed for certain situations. Right here you see Trae young at about 20% speed before he hits 100% and gets downhill. He plays slow until he needs to play fast, and by doing that, he's able to catch his defender off guard. Here you see Jalen Brunson catch the ball and deliberately play slow in order to keep Tyrese Maxey behind him before he then explodes and gets to the basket for an uncontested layup. This clip becomes very interesting when you really look at the details here. Jalen Brunson comes off of this handoff and goes downhill and he's at about 90 or 95% speed and he finally hits 100 on like his last dribble in catch and beat off guard for the finish. Right here. Kyrie's bringing the ball up at maybe 50% intensity and then he uses that between to hit 100 and get that step on his defender. The second thing that great ball handlers do is manipulate their defenders with their body language and posture. Defenders subconsciously relax and they see you as being relaxed and not a threat in ball handling terms. This is when your feet are narrow and you're standing straight up I like to use the analogy to pretend like you're getting measured at the doctor's office. Then when you decide to hit top speed, like we talked about, that's when you'll get low and your feet will get wider. But when we can go from relaxed to explosive, it'll always put you a split second ahead of your defender and they'll be playing catch up. Here you see Jalen Brunson's relaxed and upright posture, along with his look to the left, allow him to change speeds and hit 100 and burn Kelly Oubrey to the rim. The third trait that great ball handlers have is unpredictability. When your defender is constantly on edge because you're hard to predict you'll have them in your pocket. You do this by being able to hit 100% speed at different positions and dribbles, sometimes a normal dribble, maybe between the legs or a push cross or a wrap. And you also need to have the ability to change speeds whenever. Sometimes it's at the start of your drive, sometimes in the middle. Utilizing a quick stop and go is a great way to do this. Here we see a great example of unpredictability, as Kyrie is relaxed and able to hit 100% coming out of this half spin, which catches his defender off guard and gives him a step. Here we see Kyrie hit 100% after getting to more traditional drop footwork, which is just where he gets his feet split like this. That takes him from relaxed to explosive so he can get downhill. Here we see Steph get to an explosive drive coming off of a float dribble or a lateral dribble right here, and which is able to set his defender up to the left before he explodes to the right and gets the rim. So now let's get into a full workout that you can use to train this ability. And not only will it help you become great at changing pace and being unpredictable, but it'll also help you level up your ball control and overall handles. Let's get into it. So first we're going to start off working this ability to get from these relaxed positions quickly, dropping into these explosive positions and freestyling it, using different types of dribble moves and footwork to get into those. So sometimes I'm just going with this drop footwork that we saw Kyrie use, other times going with the between or behind or a push cross or anything to get myself from relaxed down to an explosive position. Now we're going to do the same thing, but we're going to add a ball into the mix here. So I still want to start off in this relaxed position, and I want to mix up how I get myself into that low and explosive position, trying to be unpredictable, creative, and really minimizing any time between relax and explosive. So I'm either at 20% here and relaxed, or I'm down at 100%. There's nothing that would let my defender know that I'm going to get there. I'm either relaxed or I'm on go. So now we're going to work the same concept but on the move. So now I don't have a ball, and I'm working on moving at about 20%, being super relaxed and high. And then I'm going to drop into an explosive position that's going to take me forward for a couple of steps. Right here. Again, switching up what type of moves I'm getting to, how I'm getting to that explosive position, and being creative and as unpredictable as I can. Now, we're doing the same thing, but we're adding a ball into the mix here. So again, I'm being super creative with what type of moves I'm using to get myself into that explosive position, trying to be unpredictable. Again, I don't want there to be any time in between relax and explosive. So I'm either at 20% effort, super tall, not doing much, or I'm at 100%, and there's nothing that's going to let my defender know that that 100% is coming. I'm being as unpredictable as possible. Next, we're going with a relaxed freestyle. So you're going to think about playing as tall as possible. Again, thinking about being at the doctor's office, getting measured, and you're going to keep this same pace the entire time. So I'm slow mixing up my moves, but I'm very, very relaxed for this entire freestyle. And now we're going to go with the backwards freestyle. So you're freestyling going backwards the whole time. Now you can mix up your pace between relaxed and explosive again, mixing up those moves, trying to be unpredictable, trying to make sure that we're either relaxed at about 20% effort or we're down at 100%, just mixing up what we get to, going backwards the whole time. So now we're going to work this lateral movement, getting out of, like a float dribble right here. We're going to go super relaxed with these lateral dribbles, and we're going to drop into a quick, quick double move. This first move. In the double has to be a between, but it can be a between, cross or between behind. As you see me go right here again, super relaxed on the lateral dribbles. And then I'm dropping, getting low and explosive on those doubles. Now we're going to do the same thing. So two lateral dribbles into a quick single now. So now you can either go with a between or behind right here. Super relaxed and tall on those lateral dribbles. And then I'm going to get myself down and quick, quick with that single move. Next we're going to get to a relaxed to explosive float freestyle. So I'm starting off relaxed here, mixing up my dribbles. In order to get to an explosive dribble, I first need to get to a flow or a lateral dribble right here. So as you see, sometimes it just comes off a turn dribble. Sometimes I might cross the ball over into a float or go between into a flow, But I have to get myself into that float laterally before I'm allowed to get low and explosive right here. So it's training our ability to do that and get explosive coming off of that lateral movement again, mixing it up, being unpredictable. Next, we're going to go with what I call percentage freestyle. So you're going to think about having a couple of different percentages you can get to when it comes to your intensity level. So you can go 20%, you can go 50%, 80% and 100% here. So all that I'm doing is for maybe three or five or seven seconds, I'm going to hit one of those percentages. So I might be at 20 where I'm real relaxed. Then I might drop to 50 for a little bit, and then I might hit 100 for a few seconds. And I'm just mixing it up, switching between these different intensities in this freestyle, kind of staying in the same general area, but just trying to be unpredictable with when I switch in the different percentages and intensities that I switch to. And the last thing we're going to do is get to a music freestyle. So all you're going to do is pick a song to put on right here, and you're just going to freestyle to that song. So you might interpret that differently in terms of how you dribble to it, how you move to it, but find a song that you know well, that you understand the rhythm and the flow to, and then able to just freestyle to it. I think this is a great way to work on your pace and let me know in the comments if you can guess what song I'm freestyling to. If you start doing this workout consistently, I promise your handles and the overall way that you move is going to feel completely different and it'll translate to you becoming a much better and more confident ball handler on the court. If you're interested in a full program that helps you develop stuff like this and way, way, way more, make sure you check out elite ball handling 2.0, which is my full ball handling program, helped a lot of players transform the way they handle the basketball and their confidence in the court. That's going to be the top link in the description down below if you're interested. I appreciate you for watching. Drop a like and subscribe. If you're new, talk soon. Peace.