These drills that are listed below are great and it was really hard to try and narrow it down to 3 in each category. But with the widespread basketball ability of our readers it was the best culmination. 

These drills are drills that I’ve done throughout my playing career that spanned all the way until I retired from professional basketball at 27.

If you want to be successful in basketball you need to have a solid foundation and great fundamentals in order to be the best basketball player you can be. Today, we are going to go over the ONLY 9 drills that you need to get better.

When you have a good foundation that makes it easier to build up the more advanced skills you will need faster and be a more consistent player. 

How to do Basketball Workouts The Right Way? 

How to do basketball workouts the right way is something that a lot of people don’t really understand what to do. They don’t know what to do or why to do it. So hopefully these tips help. 

6 TIPS that will help you become a better basketball player:

 100% and “Game Speed”

They are NOT the same thing. You should ALWAYS go Game Speed, and rarely go 100%. If you’re always going 100% then you’re most likely moving too fast and too often. Changing speeds is more important and keeps you in control of your own body. 

Not everyone needs to work on the same thing

We are not all the same. You can´t workout the right way without understanding what you need to work on. 

Have a Plan

When you workout, create a plan and a goal that way you can be productive and efficient when you get into the gym. If you’re in the gym for longer than 1.5hrs you’re wasting your time and your body is not getting adapted to what it needs. Exception of this is team practices or if you’re playing pickup. 

Tracking is very important

Track how well you´re shooting by doing drills  and competitions that track makes and misses. It’s important to see progress to keep going. 

Start with Ball Handling

Start every workout with some sort of ball handling drill. It doesn’t need to be dribbling, but you should be getting your hands adjusted to the ball so that it can help with dribbling, passing, and even shooting. 

Compete with yourself daily!

The drills should be markers of the scores you want to beat! Don’t leave until you feel yourself getting better!

If You Had to Pick 3 Drills To Do Over, Which Drills Would You Choose?

That answer is really hard because there are so many drills that I wish I knew when I was younger. Drills that I believe might have made me play at a high level in college if I had practiced them earlier in life, or put me on a better path. 

There are also so many areas of my game that I wish I was better at when I was younger. So the really long answer is that I’m going to give you 3 best basketball drills for kids (I wish I had done this when I was younger). Most of which can be done by yourself. 

Best 3 Basketball Shooting Drills 

DROP SHOOTING

Drop shooting is a shooting drill that you can do from any distance but it is a perfect drill to teach you balance and grow your base. 

It’s really important when you shoot that you have the right amount of tension in your legs with every shot and for every set up to be exactly the same (consistency). 

Drop Shooting can be found on the app if you’re looking for an example. 

Beat the Pro 

Beat the Pro is a competition that you can do with yourself on a daily basis to track how well you´re shooting on any given day. Beat the Pro is a fun drill to do that you can do by yourself or with a friend that has you taking 3 shots from 7 different locations and finishing with 5 free throws. 

You will keep your own score and track it against yourself and your friends. If you have the app you can complete it there and compare yourself to people across the world and against some of the best pros and college players that use our app. 

Pull Ups

Pull ups are awesome to practice regularly because it gets you used to shooting off of the dribble and in different situations. You can change how this works by practicing from different ranges, going in different directions, and even add different step back variations. 

You can be doing these from everywhere on the floor going right and left. Taking 1 or 2 dribbles. Practicing step backs. Shoot from 3.

Whatever, grow your game!

3 Best Basketball Dribbling Drills

2 Ball Dribbling

There are some people who don’t really like two ball dribbling because it is something that you will never do in an actual game, but two ball dribbling has benefits that are super advantageous.

Two ball dribbling allows the player to work on both hands ability to dribble at the same time. This saves time and makes your workout more efficient. That’s the physical benefit it gives. 

It also gives you a huge mental benefit. You can’t possibly think about both hands dribbling the ball at the same time, so what your brain is doing is working on one of your hands subconsciously and the other one you can think about. Ideally you’d like to get to a point where they are both being worked on subconsciously. 

Either way it’s really advantageous to work with two balls at the same time. 

Change of Pace Dribbling 

Being able to change the pace at which your body moves is super helpful when trying to get by your defender. What takes you to the next level of being unguardable is if you are also able to change the speed at which you dribble. 

The combo move that I do when I do this drill is a between the legs crossover. How I start is I will go a specific distance (free throw line or half court are good places to start) doing the move as fast as possible continually until I get to the point.  

I will then perform the same drill but dribble the ball as slow as possible, hanging the ball between each dribble. 

Then I will get into the change of pace dribbling where I will do 2 fast combos (as fast as you can go) and then do 1 slow combo (as slow as you can go). I will continue this sequence until the set point. 

After I do this, I will turn around and do the same sequence in reverse. I will do 2 slow combos into 1 fast combo.

Burnouts

These are my absolute favorite ball handling drill to do and I always save it for the end of my workouts. 

This is a timed drill and the ball will stay in one hand only for the whole duration.

You will take a total of 200(really 250) dribbles as fast as you can and see how quick you can finish.

Here are the dribbles: 

1. 50 Knee High Pounds
2. 50 Ankle Dribbles
3. 50 in-n-out dribbles 
4. 50 windshield dribbles (this is where the extra 50 dribbles comes in because the windshield goes both ways, 1 across the body and one back)

This drill is great to save for the end because you will want to push yourself to go as fast as possible and if you’re new to the drill your arm will be dead after. 

Once you go with your one hand, switch hands. 

If you want to really test yourself you can subscribe to our app and test yourself against all of our users that are doing this challenge. 

 3 Passing Drills for Kids

6 Line Passing (if you have 6 people)

You can find the explanation of this drill on the Drills You Should Do For Basketball Practice. Link

Double Move Wall Ball

This drill is really good if you’re by yourself but you still want to become a better passer. If you’re doing drills outside make sure you’re not doing any of the wall ball drills against a building that may not like noise. However, if you’re in a gym this is perfect. 

How this drill works is you want to start between 5-10 feet away from the basket with the basketball in hand. You want to perform any double dribble move of your choosing. Moves like between cross,between between,behind cross, etc. 

Once the ball gets back into the hand that it started in you will then throw the ball to the wall and let it bounce back. It’s important to pick a spot on the wall that you’re trying to hit and if you don’t hit it don’t reward yourself with a completed rep. 

Do this 5x with each hand and then switch up the style of the pass. Once this becomes easier, begin to move back gradually. 

Some of the passes you can practice are a one handed chest pass, a bounce pass, a wrapped bounce pass, a side hook pass, or you can turn your body 90 degrees and work on overhead hook passes. 

2 Ball Wall Ball

This is much like the drill listed above. The only thing that’s different is it is an added degree of difficulty by adding a second ball. You’ll have to time your dribbles and be able to focus on the pass and the dribble at the same time. 

You can do all of the passes that are listed above, you can stand the same distance away, and the reps will be the same. 

Common Questions

Should I work on everything every day?

The first thing about this question is that you shouldn’t be working out every day.

Putting your body through 7 days of hard work in a row, consistently, is not good for your body over the long haul and your body needs days to rest. So we suggest either 5 or 6 days of hard work!

Second, the answer also depends on how often you workout. If you only workout a few days a week than you need to work on some things every day you work out. However, if you work out multiple times a day then you shouldn’t work on the same thing every day. 

This is the way we suggest working out. Multiple times a day, 5 days a week, and each workout has a specific purpose of progress. Whether it’s dribble moves, shooting drills, defensive stance drills, passing drills, or whatever it is that you think you need for your player development.