Chadstroma
Footballguy
I am coaching a 6th grade team right now so basically 11-12 and a 3rd grade team. I am going to actually agree with the other coach here about a motion offense. I also would strongly suggest M2M defense. I will explain why but the short of it is- these are far superior to developing basketball skills than set plays and zone defenses. I installed a motion offense starting in 4th, in 4th I went with a 5 out. In 6th, I changed it to 4 out 1 in and was based off of the DDM mostly because the roster changed and I had a big man that I wanted to get involved low on. For 3rd grade, I literally just have them do a Give and Go, Screen, and Pick and Roll as the 'plays' on offense but I immediately start them on M2M.That's awfully kind, thanks. It's 10-11 year olds. I'm just looking at a couple online resources for practice drills and some basic plays. One of the dads wants to install a motion offense because he thinks it's important for his kid's development, but I think that's nuts at this age. If we can play help defense, push the pace, move without the ball, and maybe run 1-2 plays once in awhile, that seems good enough for me.Coaching is way different than playing. A good player doesn't make a good coach and vice versa.Got sucked into coaching one of my kids' teams this year. I've been playing basketball since I could walk but I'm realizing I have no idea how to teach it. There are some good tips on the first page of this thread - a belated thank you to those posters from a couple of years ago.
I had no idea how much I would enjoy coaching. I thought it was a good chance to spend time with my son in more direct sporting environment. I fell in love with it.
For me, my perspective going in was that I was going to take it seriously. Not for me but for the kids. I looked back on my basketball career as a kid and though I had no idea then saw how my development was stunted by well meaning but inadequate coaching. So, I invested and continue to a lot of time and energy in making sure I am providing these kids development in basketball and then using it to teach life lessons so hopefully I impact their loves beyond basketball.
What age group? I am happy to assist in any way I can.
For offense, motion is a great way to help them understand the game as it is and will be played in the future. Pretty much every motion offense (I can't really think of one that this would not be true of) is going to have them understand spacing, positioning, filling, off ball movement, fluidity, and the importance of passing. Any player that is able to understand these is going to be able to function in any offense that may end up playing down the line. If you have a couple of set plays, what they are learning is memorizing their responsibilities in the set play. I liken it to education and the difference between helping someone develop the ability to thinking critically on their own versus regurgitating a set of facts or stats or whatever it is that they will learn for a test and then forget later after it is no longer in use. The same here, motion teaches them the offensive game and allows them to be able to think through it on their own while a set play is the memorizing of what they are required to memorize and then will forget it as they move on.
On defense, you can not nudge me off of M2M for youth. It is a similar concept as learning a motion offense as it is M2M. If you teach M2M then the players can easily transition to a zone or junk defense in later years because they then know all the important aspects of defense such as on ball defense, denial, help defense, positioning, communication, closeouts, etc. and going to zone they can pick up 'this is my area of responsibility' and inject everything they learned in M2M. Now going from zone to learning M2M, that is a big learning curve. I am going through it right now with most of my team having not been on my previous teams and they played all zone.
Both are HARDER to teach at these age levels but it is in the long term interest of their basketball development to go with a motion and M2M. My 4 out 1 in is largely based on the DDM but it is not a pure DDM. Right now, the only offense we have is our motion offense. I did the same last year and then later as the season progressed, we added some set plays (mostly to get them with some screens as my DDM doesn't have screens as a real DDM lacks that to begin with). For M2M, in both 4th and 5th grade, we lost our first games and then later won the league championship. One of the key reasons we lost those first games was struggling to play good M2M with proper help defense and then they got it down and what happened was it was a competitive advantage for us. In our leagues, where at these levels almost all teams play a zone or junk defense, the offenses were just not used to being pressured at half and everyone in denial. They were so use to maybe one player pressuring up top in a box and 1 which was the most common junk defense utilized or the teams being in a zone.
Pushing the ball down court is awesome and great for development. Coaching them on learning when to push, the urgency needed and when to pull up and set up your offense is crucial though. Also, make sure they get a good understanding of filing the lanes, speed (passing is faster than running), urgency, and quick decision making. Also, along those same lines is another flaw in running zone.... if you are a good fast break team at these ages, you can slash up teams as the players are so set on getting to their assigned area that they often aren't paying attention to the ball like they should and you can attack the basket. If you practice a lot of fast breaks then you also are practicing transition defense which is helpful again.
A couple of other 'suggestions':
I give my teams a choice every year: I can either coach you where we all have a ton of fun and then hope we win some games or I can coach you hard and push you and help you guys do everything you can to get better so we win as many games as we can and have fun while we win. I go into detail of what that means and my expectations of them if they choose to work hard and win. 80% of ALL boys will pick the work hard and those that may not be up to it will be peer pressured into agreeing as I tell them it has to be a team decision. That gets their buy in. I am very hard on my teams but my boys love it. Boys that were not on my teams before wanted to be on my team, those who were and were moved wished they were still on my team, boys told me this year that they were happy they were on my team because they knew I would push them and make them better. Boys crave that but the key to unlock it is their buy in. As one boy last year told my daughter when she said "Yea but isn't he really hard on you guys?" and the answer was "Yes, but that is what we told him what we wanted."
Plan out your practices ahead of time. It really helps and you can control the flow of the practice. Of course, if need be, you can always change on the fly. (our first practice from this team our weave was so bad that I had to drop my plans and focus on getting them to pass well)
One thing that I do every practice and believe it or not the kids love it but it also helps with getting practice in 'pressure situations' is that each player shoots a free throw. If they miss, they run. If they make it they don't. From 3rd to 5th it was sprints. Now in 6th it is suicides. The kids love it and the parents love it and the other teams coming in for the next practice love it.
Put a lot of time into getting them to play as a team. I am a stickler for things like them doing nice, good, loud breaks with everyone in.... lot's of high fives.... I will come down on them for blaming a teammate on a bad play like "You were supposed to _______" in a negative way. I will line them up to run every time. I tell them all their communication needs to be positive. I will be the one telling players what they did wrong and how to correct it. If you communicate then it has to be positive and along the lines of "next time, can you cut right after the pass?" or whatever it is.
Don't be afraid to set the rules/expectations and if they don't live up to them, make them run. My teams know that when I blow the whistle at the beginning of practice, they stop whatever they were doing and hustle in. When a coach is talking, their eyes are on them and no talking, no dribbling or playing with a ball. Pay attention at all times, no sitting in practice ever, no leaning on walls, and no walking- always hustle. On sprints and suicides, they must all touch every line, or they run again. On all running "run hard or run again" so they put their full effort into it. I am likling forgetting some things and I know it sounds draconian but I also help them connect the dots. I explain why it is important that they all touch the line every time or whatever it is. I tell them it isn't for conditioning... if I wanted you guys to run, I would make you run but there are why's behind everything.
Most importantly, yes, basketball development is important but it isn't the most important. Most of your kids likely will not play HS let alone college but you can use sport in general and basketball in this case to teach life lessons. My goal every year above championships or winning, above development, way above fun is to help these boys be that much better after the season in terms of growing up into good, solid young men with successful lives.
If you want to work on something and want some drills just ask. I can help as a few others here.