Basketball

I have had only one goal this summer (besides learning high school physics and math, but that’s another story), and that is getting better basketball. After being rejected from the school basketball team for two straight years in a row (it still hurts), I decided to make myself the best player I could be in 60 days, in 60 days (like my max potential that I could get to in 60 days achieved in 60 days… hopefully you understand now). In this article, I’ll tell you how I went from basketball team reject to a decent baller, and also give you some tips that I learned.

My Story

To give you an idea of how bad I was, I used to shoot around 30% of my shots, which is awful, and I would always get absolutely crossed up, mowed down, or blown past by when I was defending. Essentially, I would be a 2000 Mac computer in a store of Windows gaming computers.

So naturally, I had to lock in.

Shooting

The first thing I did was to change my shooting form. I was your average chest shooter,

but now I’m shooting like Kevin Durant and Shai combined. I also managed to improve my layups so that from a 65% accuracy I’m up to a 98% accuracy with a lot more tricks up my sleeve. I was surprised at how much better it felt as well, since now I had a lot more control over where the ball was going.

But it took me a long time to refine it, even if I did change it in a matter of days (consistency beats quantity, all the time), and to be honest, I still don’t like it. But my shot accuracy did go up, so… no complaints about that.

While changing my form, I realized one fundamental thing that I struggled with. I wanted to exactly copy the superstars forms, and that didn’t feel comfortable, and it also was really time consuming, as I had to look up how they shot, their release, and practice it. I started with MJ, then went to Kobe, then Steph, and finally, Shai. But it never turned out right.

So tip number one is: don’t copy the greats play for play, move for move. Sure, you can take some ideas from them, like a fast release or a quirky setup, but at the end of the day, do what’s right and what feels comfortable to you. Also watch some YouTube shooting drill/improvement videos to help with your shot. I recommend ILB and By Any Means Basketball.

(writing this later… you really have to practice it every day otherwise you’ll lose it completely… after school started I didn’t practice for a long time so now I’m 🧱ing all my 3pters😭😭😭)

Ball Handling

Then I started with the handles. Handles are basically how flashy you are with dribbling the ball, but it comes in handy breaking ankles. Now, I wasn’t that bad at dribbling the ball, but my movements were stiff and unnatural, like I had to think about how I would move the ball (which I was in fact doing), and that allowed for the defense to steal the ball from me and get a shot off.

Here, one of the first things I did was refine my dribbling so that it was smooth and I could change levels like second nature. Then, I started working on between-the-legs, behind-the-backs, and more. Now, my dribbling looks something like this, and even though it’s not that effective, it still works.

(Yes, I do the Kyrie mewing celebration, if you were wondering😅)

Something I learned from this was: be confident in everything you should be confident in, because if you always second guess, you’ll always be slow. Like I should be confident in my dribbling, as I practiced it over and over for 60 days, 2 hours a day. And this doesn’t just apply to basketball. It applies to life. For example, if you practiced for your test for a long time, but when it came to exam day, you were second guessing everything, chances are you made some mistakes because you were uptight and not relaxed, vs you being relaxed and just breezing through the test because you know you practiced and you’re confident in your practice as well.

Just think of it like this; if you’re not confident in something, you haven’t practiced it well enough.

Defense

Defense was pretty easy to get under my belt. All I did was watch a couple of Luguentz Dort defense clips (and analysis) and I let my brain take care of the rest. It also helped that my rep coach was yelling at me to “GET IN FRONT!!!” and “DON”T LET THEM GET THE BALL!”

Oh… the key to defense. Just get in front of the person you’re guarding. Don’t run beside them, don’t reach for the ball behind them, just cut their path off and stop them (but only if they have the ball).

If your man doesn’t have the ball, cut his path to the basket but also put one hand in front of him to stop any passes.

Defense is that simple👍😁.

Something I learned from this (yes, I learned some random life advice from every drill I did), was: never overthink, just think, and if this sounds weird, let me explain.

When you think, you usually work it out in your head, and maybe double check your work on paper or again in your head. But overthinking means in the period of time that you think, your mind is cluttered with one nagging question, “what if this is wrong?,” and that makes you anxious and overall makes you more likely to make a mistake.

Also don’t get this mixed up with “don’t think” because then you’re being lazy.

Basketball IQ

Basketball IQ was something that just came along. I really couldn’t improve it, but I could keep it sharp by watching the Youtube videos that test your basketball IQ. I also asked AI to create hypothetical game scenarios for my position, so that helped as well.

If you want my advice, don’t stress. Just play basketball, listen to your coach, online trainer, or even your AI, and your basketball IQ will develop over time.

I’ll keep updating this as my basketball journey progresses, but for now this is it.

😀😁😂🤣😃😄😅😆😉😊😋😎🫡🤨😑😶🤔😏😶‍🌫️😌😴😝😜😛🫠🤑🫨