Ethan Khoza answers a viewer question about two-ball dribbling drills. He acknowledges two-ball and tennis-ball drills can have a place for variety, but argues one-ball drills are generally far more effective because they better simulate game situations and allow practicing high-speed, game-relevant moves. He emphasizes consistency, pushing speed (and embracing mistakes in practice), and prefers one-ball training as the primary method while occasionally using two-ball or tennis-ball drills to switch things up.
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So got another question from Acash and he asked me, you know what, what do you think about two ball handling? Some of my coaches and trainers have said that it doesn't really benefit you because you only use one basketball in a game. And it's another good question. It's a question I get pretty often. And you know, I do my, my live ball handling workouts twice a week. So you know, for a lot of you guys I know tune into that. If not, make sure you guys follow me on Instagram because I always post the day before when I'm going to go live for a workout. So if you guys want in on those, make sure you guys check it out. They're completely free, they're on YouTube. And you know, the more people in there, the better, right? The more work you can get in, the better. You know, I talked about my guys last week. I see a lot of guys in my workouts who are there every time or almost every time. You know, every time sometimes things come up and they can't make it. But there's guys who in there 90% of the time for workouts over the few months we've been doing this, right? But if you're one of the guys who's only in there once, you know, like I said, consistency leads to greatness. You cannot be great without consistency. Okay. So it's very important you're consistent with your work. So I think, you know, if you can get into that, check it out. Like I said, follow me on Instagram and you'll know exactly when I'm gonna do that. Also on YouTube, turn on my notifications too. So you know that as well. And anyway, this question has come up multiple times during workouts where guys will comment, they'll be like, hey coach, can we do a two ball workout next time? Which we've done, we've done a two ball workout and I think two ball workouts have a place in basketball. Like, I think that there are times where two ball workouts can be good more, they're more, it's more so just for developing, just for kind of switching it up. Like I think in general one ball, ball handling is just way better, way more effective. You, you'll, you'll get better if you use two ball, ball handling. And this is something that I've learned as I got, as I've gotten older. When I was younger, when I was in high school, I didn't really know that, like I didn't know, I just didn't know in general what I need to do. To get better. It's something you learn with time. But you know, I spent a lot of time doing two ball drills when I was in high school, which really was just not a good use of my time. There's a lot better things you can do to handle the basketball. And in general, a lot of the information out there about ball handling just is not very good. A lot of the videos you'll watch on YouTube just aren't very good in terms of developing real ball handling. Like when I look at guys who, who know what they're doing with, when it talks to developing ball handling, you know, Tyler Ralph is great at it. If you look at by any means basketball. Coleman, he's great at it too. Like those guys who understand like actually had to develop ball control those moves. And so I try and implement that, that sort of, that style of training into what I do. And you know, I'm sure those guys do two ball stuff sometimes, but the majority of stuff they do is with one basketball. And I think that in my own experience the most effective way to train ball handling is with one basketball. Because you can simulate game moves, right? I can simulate going quick split between the legs, then I can go into an inverted drag into, into a retreat, into a push cross, right? I can do that with one basketball. That's a game situation move right there, right, that actually I can apply into my games. I can't do that with a, with, with two balls, right. Unless I'm like unreal effective with the ballot with the ball in my hands. But you're never gonna have two basketballs in a game. So if I can get really good at having a basketball in my hands and executing in those game situations, I mean you can become really great at it. So I don't think two ball ball, I don't think two ball drills are bad. You know, people also talk about this kind of goes on with the whole thing. People talk about, you know, I've heard people refer to it as clown drills or Instagram drills, essentially drills where you know, there's a lot of extra equipment and stuff that you probably don't need. But like it looks cool, people do it and you know, I'm on the fence with that. I see a lot of stuff, honestly a lot of popular stuff that I think is like kind of clownish. Guys like, you know, holding like cones are cool. I'm not gonna say like, I'm not against cones or anything, but like, I think people sometimes tend to overdo it. People like overdo like, you know, you're you're going up, finishing, someone's throwing a ball at you, you got to hit out of the way. I think, I think that's kind of like, I'm not, I'm not a big fan of that. Look, I'm not completely educated. Look, I talked this earlier. I don't know everything yet, okay? So maybe there's some sort of benefit to that. But that's just my initial judgment of it. Okay. I don't think everything out there is, is, is the most efficient way to do things. Again, when I talk about my if you shoot, if you should shoot a thousand shots a day answer is no, because there are more efficient ways for you to get better. Right? If you shoot a thousand shots in a day, you'll probably get better. But I bet you could get as good or better than that with 250 shots. In fact, I guarantee you can. So it's the same thing with two ball. You know, you can get better with two ball ball handling. But would it be more effective for you to spend 20 minutes working on one ball drills as opposed to 20 minutes on two ball drills? Yeah, it would be. And again, in our workouts we'll switch up. Sometimes they'll say, you know what guys, today we're gonna go two ball. We've done it one time. I've probably done 40, maybe not 40, but at least, probably 30 live workouts and yeah, maybe not even 30. Maybe 20. Between 20 and 30. It's been the past few months and my entire outlook has been like we've done all those workouts in one has been two ball. One of them just to switch it up because someone asked. So I was like, you know what, cool, we'll do that today. And that was cool. The other thing too is like tennis ball drills. Like are tennis ball drills effective? And I think, I think that they can be. I think that there's a lot of. Again, if you watch Tyler Ralph, he does a lot of tennis balls, I think you can use tennis balls well too. Is it necessary? No. But I think there's a place for it too. I just don't think that that should be your main form of ball handling. I think the most, most time you should be working on being able to handle the ball at a very high speed. Pounding the basketball with one, working on those game situations, moves, pushing the speed of things. That's one thing I stress so much in those live workouts is like, guys, you have to push the speed that you do these drills that you need to mess these drills up because if you're not messing them up, you probably aren't pushing yourself. And if you're not pushing yourself, you're not going to get better at. Does not matter how good you look right now during your doing your basketball drills. I don't. Doesn't matter. Okay. It only matters if. If you have the skills during games, that's what matters. And you develop that by working hard and looking bad during practice. Okay. And I find that that's very. I find that that's easier to do when I'm doing it with one basketball where I can really simulate those game actions. Okay. So the answer to your question is there's both have a place but one ball. Drills to me are far better. Far better. Okay. And obviously that's why I spend most of my time with you guys with my own players doing one ball ball handling. Okay. Game plays for both but one ball majority of the time. I want you guys to right now go to the top link in my description and get my free elite perimeter score workout. We're going to work on a bunch of different skills that you need to have if you want to be an elite player in the perimeter. Make sure you guys check it out completely free. Click the link. I'll send it right to Sam.
