Pre-season Basketball Coaching Tips
and Your 6 Steps to a Successful
Basketball Season!
- By Don Kelbick
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - How to Put Your PlayBook Together (Choosing Your Offense &
Defense)
Chapter 2 - How to Build Your Master Practice Schedule
Chapter 3 - How to Create Your Practice Plans
Chapter 4 - Developing a Pre-Season Workout Program
Chapter 5 - Time Management Tips: How Do You Find Time To Teach Everything?
Chapter 6 - Getting Your Players Off To A Good Start and Excited For The New
Season
Chapter 1 - How to Put Your PlayBook Together
(Choosing Your Offense & Defense)
What should your playbook look like? What should it contain?
That is up to you. Most playbooks are a collection of offenses and defenses. Usually
they are entered in illustration and comparable text. Usually they are organized
according to situation, man offense, zone offense, man defense, zone defense, special
situations, etc. Some playbooks have terminology, as well. What a "screen" is for you
might be a "pick" for a player from another program. Common language is very
important and a terminology section is very helpful in that regard. I have seen
playbooks that include sections of philosophy and motivation. The most complete
playbook I have ever seen was Byron Scott's for the NJ Nets. He had drills and
progressions that led up to each play on both offense and defense. Pat Riley has
motivational sayings separating every section. There is no, nor should there be a
cookie cutter for playbooks. They should be as individual as you are as a coach.
Deciding what should or should not go into your playbook is critical decision that all
coaches have to make. What type of team do you have, what style of play will you
use, who are your best players, what are your team's strengths and weaknesses? What
type of coach are you, what can you live with and what can't you live with? Are you a
veteran team or a team with a lot of returnees? You even have to look at what you like
to do defensively.
Gather all your plays.
If you are a coach that subscribes to the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) philosophy I
don't want you to be confused by this next statement. I am a member of the KISS
fraternity but I believe in this...
When putting together your playbook, you should have every play that you have ever
considered running. That's right, every play. That does not mean you should you
should run every play or even teach every play, but you should have them available to
you. Your plays should have both drawings and explanations. They should also
include your personnel needs. This is important because there are things that you
might run for a year and then not run them again for another 5 years. In addition,
every time you change a staff member, you should add some of his knowledge to your
book. It is true that this creates an ever-expanding document but keep in mind; most
of it will be for background and reference and not for immediate action.
Once you have your plays, examine your team personnel.
What are their strengths and weaknesses? You must frame that information with the
teams you have to play against. You may want to be a running team. Can you run and
be successful against the teams you are playing against? You may want to be a manto-man defensive team. Can you play man-to-man defense and be successful against
the best teams in your league?
Once you have made those evaluations, go into your playbook and pull out the things
you think are appropriate for your team and your competition. Now you have your
playbook. Does that mean your job is done? No! You now have to decide what you
want to use. Don't be concerned with having too much, that will get worked out in the
end. Make your decisions as to what is the absolute best for your team. Decide what
you think might be the cornerstones for your season (keeping in mind that your
players may prove that it should be something else so you have to be flexible). Decide
what will define your season, what will be secondary offenses and defenses and which
might be backups.
You now have a working framework for your season. Next, you have to play the
game. In your mind, use your experience to try to anticipate what you might see
during the course of the game. Man offenses, zone offenses, defenses, special
situations, end of game situations, out of bounds plays for under the basket, sideline,
mid-court, back-court, press offenses and defenses, foul line situations, short clock,
etc. have to be included. You might have special needs for particular teams, be sure
those are included as well.
This could be a lot of information. It does not mean that everything is given to your
team, but as a coach, you need to have a reference to go to during the season for
adjustment and needed additions. It is very difficult to go outside of your organization
to search for answers to problems while you are in season. Your playbook should
have most of the answers for you.
Chapter 2 - How to Build Your Master Practice
Schedule
Now that you have your playbook, you should construct a master schedule. Very few
things in this world are better off starting at the end and working backward but
creating your master practice schedule is one of those things.
What is a master schedule?
A master schedule is the schedule of what and when you are going to work with your
team over the course of the season. You should include all of your practice days,
game days, days off, days when you can double session, days when you have to go
short, etc. This way you will know at a glance what periods of practice you can use
for teaching, which one you need for game prep, etc.
Begin with the end in mind
When do you put in what offense? What is the best time to put in a new defense? How
long will it take to put it in?
To answer those questions, you first have to have a theoretical picture of what your
team will look like at the end of the year. Of course, nothing is etched in stone and
adjustments will have to be made based on personnel and situations, etc. but you need
a foundation to work from. Once you have that picture work backwards. At the end of
the year, you might want to have 5 offenses and 4 defenses ready to go for the
playoffs. Evaluate which ones are situational, and which ones are the basis of your
season. Decide how long it will take you to put them in. Do you put your offenses and
defenses in as pieces or as a whole? Will one offense or defense serve as a building
block for another one (your man-to-man defense is a building block for your jumpand-run)?
All of that has to be taken into account as you make your schedule. Decide by when
do we want to have what in? Work backwards until you get to the start of your
practice season.
An example
As an example, let's say that by the end of the year you want to have a full court
defense, a half-court trap, a 2-3 zone and a man-to-man. You will save the half court
trap for the playoffs so that goes in last, the 2-3 zone for the league season and the
man-to-man and full-court defense for the start of the season.
So you determine that you want to have your man defense in by the 4th day of
practice and you have 5 components.



Day 1 you work on defending the ball.
Day 2, review day 1 work and introduce strong-side one-pass away defense.
Day 3, review day 1 and 2 work and introduce weakside defense and post
defense.



Day 4, review the first 3 days and add defending screens. It is day 4 and all
components of your man-to-man defense are in. Now you can practice it and
get better at it. The same should be done with your defense. You also want
your full-court defense in by the 6th day of practice. You determine that the
defense has 3 parts. On day 4 of practice you teach trapping the first pass.
Day 5 you review day 4 work and teach rotation to trap the second pass.
Day 6, you review day 5 and add recovery lanes back to the basket. So now on
day 6 you have both your man-to-man and full court defenses installed and
you have time to practice them and get better. If your league season starts on
January 6th and it will take you 2 days to install your 2-3 zone for your league
season, you might want to start to put it in late December to allow yourself
enough time to install it and practice it and continue to practice your man-toman and full court defenses.
It works the same way with your offenses. Please keep in mind, the above schedule is
only an example not a recommendation. It may take more or less time to install your
system. By using a master schedule, you will be sure you have enough time to cover
the things you need to cover and not overlook details.
Your master schedule should be readily available. I have seen them presented as an
outline in the front of a play book or as a list on a bulletin board. I have seen them
with actual dates for implementation or numbered just for the order that the coach will
teach things. I used to write mine on an actual calendar so in addition to being able to
see my teaching order; I can see it combined with my practice and game schedule.
Chapter 3 - How to Create Your Practice Plans
Another thing a master practice schedule does is help you to create practice plans. By
looking at your master schedule you can determine how jam-packed your practices
might be. Teaching days are always slower and less dynamic.
I believe that all practice plans should contain the following areas:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Warm-up
Skill development
Offense
Defense
Scrimmage
Notably left out is a conditioning session. I believe in conditioning during the body of
practice. I believe that once you get between the lines and take out the balls, you
should spend all your time getting better. I plan my practice to include basketball
activities that will condition at the same time. If that does not get the players ready,
sprints, suicides, etc. won't either.
Time saving practice tips
The more multipurpose activities you do, the more effective your time will be used. I
do not believe in stretching. As I mentioned previously, once you are between the
lines, it should be ALL basketball!
I use ballhandling drills for stretching and warm-up. Shooting and screening drills are
done during skill development. The offensive and defensive sessions can be for
teaching, playing, or both. I will use either breakdown drills or play as a whole.
I really save a lot of time and cover a lot of ground by running the offensive and
defensive sessions at the same time (offense vs. defense) dependent upon what we are
trying to accomplish that day. One coach watches offense and the other coach watches
defense. If we work 5 on 5 I would use that as a scrimmage session as well. I usually
save my 5 on 5 full court scrimmages to work on game situations.
How to structure practice and keep players attention
Aside from warm-up, it does not matter in what order you do things, as long as you
PRESENT IT PROPERLY. That is the key!
Traditionally, scrimmage periods come last. There is nothing to say, you can't run it
first and then work on what you feel your strengths and weaknesses were for the rest
of practice. I always liked to do shooting drills between different sections of practice.
It fights monotony.
However, the things you feel are most important should be presented FIRST. Present
in the "Laws of Learning" is the "Law of Primacy." The law of primacy says,
"whatever is learned first is learned best." You should not hide your emphasis from
your team. Whatever is important to you should be right up front and your team will
assume your values.
I believe the single biggest enemy of a good practice is attention span. With all the
things that go on in practice and throw in the aspect of fatigue, attention span gets
short and difficult to maintain. For that reason, I think it is important to keep your
sessions short, 5 minutes for individual work and 10 minutes for team work. If you
don't accomplish what you want to in the session, go to something else and then come
back to it.
I also believe that practices should end in an activity that is useful, challenging, team
oriented and allows your team to leave the floor with a sense of accomplishment. I
have never been a fan of conditioning at the end of practice. Part of your job as a
coach is to create an atmosphere where your players want to come to practice. What
they do last is what they will remember most between practices and will shape their
attitude for tomorrows practice.
Sample practice plan
After writing up my practice plan, one of my managers had the job of putting it on an
index card so I could keep it in my pocket.
Below is a sample practice plan.
2:00 Position work
Perimeters
Dribble Penetration
Penetrate and kick
Spot up shots
Posts
Baseline feeds
Spot up passes
Pitch and follow
2:20 5 on 0
Break options
2:30 Dummy offense
Man
2:40 Screendowns
2:45 Fouls
Make 5
2:50 Zippers
2:55 Fouls
Make 5
3:00 4 on 3
3:10 4 on 4
Motion
3:20 5 on 4
5 up series
3:30 Transition Scrimmage Blue to man
3:40 Fouls
Make 5
3:45 Time and score
6&2
4:00 Transition
4:10 Hawks Drill
Corner/Wing
4:20 Princeton
100
4:25 Fouls
+7/-3
Chapter 4 - Developing a Pre-Season Workout
Program
A pre-season workout program should have 3 elements:
1. Improvement
2. Conditioning
3. Relevance to your season
I believe that is the best way to prepare.
Improvement
Improvement comes from working on technique and mental aspects with knowledge
and high repetitions. The objective of this period should be to do whatever you can to
get your players better. Due to the amount of time you have to spend on game
preparation and team issues during the season, there is little time to work on
improvement during the season. There is an old coaching saying that says, "teams are
made from November to March, players are made from April to November." On the
whole, this is true. Players will improve during the season, but that improvement is
usually based on experience. Most players cannot improve their skills in season. That
has to be work done outside of the season. If you are in the preseason, you can't worry
about what your players have or haven't done during the off-season. You have them
now; just concern yourself with this period. Get them high repetitions, now.
Conditioning
Conditioning should come through your improvement program. I used to be a coach
who sent players out to run a mile (or 5). Over time I came to realize that that time
was being counter productive. You can only work with them for a certain period of
time. To spend any of that time on non-basketball issues is not wise. If you can,
construct your workouts so that they condition as well as improve. Your team will be
headed for a great season.
If you want your players to run, give them a ball and have them ballhandle at the same
time. Defensive drills are great conditioners. Shooting drills should be high intensity
and feature a lot of movement. You can do fastbreak drills full court or full court
shooting drills. If you are in a situation where your league or governing organization
does not allow you to use balls and run actual drills with your players, use
simulations. We used to use conditioning and agility drills that looked suspiciously
like what our defense was going to look like except we did not have any balls in play.
The result was that when practice started, our players were in great shape and our
entire defensive system had been taught. All we had to do was add offense and it was
a quick transition to live play. It also allowed us to spend more time working on
offensive aspects due to the fact that our defense was installed in the pre-season.
Relevance
The more relevance your pre-season program has to your season the more effective it
will be. Even if you can't use a ball due to association rules, the program you put your
team through in the pre-season can mimic what you will do during the playing season.
Take the opportunity to teach your drills, philosophy, offense, defense, etc. One of the
keys to coaching is consistency. If you can be consistent from pre-season to practice
season to game season your team will respond positively.
Chapter 5 - Time Management Tips: How Do You
Find Time To Teach Everything?
The 2 keys to time management are planning and simplicity.
The "5 Ps," prior planning prevents poor performance, have always been applied to
players. That is why we practice. It should also be applied to coaches. Do you have a
plan when you go to practice? You would be surprised at how many coaches say "no."
Your master schedule will help you through your daily planning. I also believe your
practice schedule should be made directly after the prior practice ends. I used to work
on my schedule before practice but too many times something pops up and you are
hurried in your preparation or are forced to wing it.
Planning after the previous practice allows for 2 things. It gives you enough time to
do your practice plan with the thought and conviction that your team deserves. It also
forces you to evaluate the practice that was just completed. Take time to check it
against your master schedule. Are you on schedule? Will you have to make
adjustments? How close are you to where your want to be?
For maximum efficiency, work on multiple things at the same time.
Using multi purpose drills will help with finding time. Takes pieces of your offense
and turn them into shooting drills. Each time you practice your shooting you are also
practicing your offense. Use fast break drills for conditioning instead of running
sprints. Do live, game-like drills where you can emphasize both the offensive and
defensive aspects of the drill. This will save you time.
You can only be good at 2 or 3 things.
Simplicity is the most important aspect of everything you do. You must realize that,
as a coach, you cannot control everything. Make decisions as to what you feel is really
important and spend your time on those things. If you don't have enough time to
coach those areas, you have too many areas and are too complex. Coaching is not a
test or an exhibition of what you know. It is a position that gives guidance. One of the
biggest challenges is taking all the things you know and paring them down to small
nuggets of knowledge that you can impart to your team. We all must resist the urge to
show everyone everything we know. I know that I have a problem with that. If left to
my own devices, I would have 300 plays and practices would be 17 hours long.
Over time, I have done a better job of determining what is important and effective and
what isn't. I learned I would rather be really good at 2 or 3 things than try to prove
how smart I am and be average to poor at 20 things.
When it comes to time management the question might not be, "How can I fit all this
stuff into the time I have?" It might be, "I have this much time, what can I do with it?"
Chapter 6 - Getting Your Players Off To A Good
Start and Excited For The New Season
Getting your players off to a good start and excited for the season starts with your
attitude as a coach. Players are like lie detectors, they can tell when you are not telling
the truth. If you are not excited, if you are not looking forward to the season, they will
know. You must prepare yourself first, and then prepare your team.
Communicate with your players. Don't keep secrets from them. Get them the game
schedule early; let them see what they are working for. By the way, I have always
been a believer in sharing the daily practice plan with my team. I have found that
knowledge is empowering. If you empower your team, they will follow you
everywhere.
Be sure that they know the purpose for each drill and how it will help them be better
players. If players think you are just in the gym beating them up they will not respond.
Try to define their roles early and let them grow into them. Be inclusionary, spend
time with your lesser players. That will motivate them to be better players and they
will help you during the tough days of the season.
Research and use team-building activities. This will be different with each team
because it will be specific to the personality of each team. Spend time with your
players off the court and that will open the door to them spending time with each
other.
Find out from your players what their expectations are. Keep in mind that once the
season starts, they have to meet your expectations. This will help guide you during the
season.
You may own the team during the season. Give players ownership of their team in the
preseason. Let them run workouts; see what type of leadership comes out of it. Let
them problem solve and watch how high they set the bar. You can always adjust it.
Most importantly, the preseason is the time you set the tone for your year. It might be
the only time players feel comfortable approaching you. They are under no pressure,
their self-esteem does not rise and fall with wins and losses. Use the time wisely.