IMPROVING YOUR DECISIONS

The greatest cause of poor decisions by players is the lack of a necessary skill at a critical point in the game [which leads to panic decision making]. The player's who have the handles, passing skills, and footwork have the greatest amount of options and can more freely play the game and respond to a series of rapid YES-NO decisions when they occur. However, just having great skills does not make you a great decision-maker.

The more experience, skill, and understanding you have and the quicker you can execute them under control, the better your decision making becomes. The one thing that typically holds players back from playing at a faster more powerful tempo is often simply basic skills: dribbling, passing, running, jumping, shooting, and defensive footwork.

Here are a few tips for practicing to improve your individual skills:

1. Practice with purpose and systematically so that you are either competing against a clock, someone else, or a goal. This helps you to understand if you are actually improving or back-sliding and will reinforce good work habits when you practice.

2. Make full use of all your practice time. Great players don't fool around in practice. They realize over the course of their career they have a given amount of time and make full use of all of it to improve areas they lack in on the court performance.

3. Pick one weakness per week and spend a considerable amount of time automating that skill to bring your game to the next level. This might be your left-hand dribble, passing skills, shot off the dribble, 3-point shot, defensive footwork, etc. If you pick one skill per week, and concentrate on improving that skill, after just a few weeks you will see a remarkable difference in your game.

4. When practicing your individual skills against a teammate, practice the concept of YES-NO decision making. Learn and build a library of experience to pick up critical cues by your opponent which signal a primary or counter move to beat them.

5. Practice individual skills with high intensity and effort at all times. Remember timing is critical to developing good decision making and the more you vary the speed you practice at, the longer it will take you to adequately automate your basketball skills. Practice everything you do at game-like speed, because that is the speed you will ultimately have to make those YES-NO decisions when it counts.