Team Drills for Offensive Skill Development

When coaching high school basketball, it's often the norm to train your players in limited facilities or with a significantly outnumbered coaching staff. Even in the face of this adversity, Don Showalter shows you how you can emphasize the skill development of your players with the use of drills that are designed to maximize repetitions for your entire team.

Coach Showalter demonstrates drills he uses with the USA National U16 and U17 teams that will establish the fundamentals needed for players to succeed in any offensive system. These drills will help you improve the pivoting, passing, dribbling, screening, and shooting skills of your players.

Footwork Drills

Footwork-based drills consist of a warm-up series as well as the "Line Drill" series. Both aim to develop a sturdy base below the waist in order to ensure balance and to create space from a defender.

Coach Showalter illustrates a full-court warm-up that legendary UCLA coach John Wooden used at every practice to emphasize footwork skills that are essential for basketball movements. Your players will improve their ability to jump stop under control, pivot in multiple directions, get open with the v-cut, pull up into a jump shot with balance, secure the ball on a rebound, and tip the ball in with both hands.

To maximize the repetitions your players receive in practice, Coach Showalter has developed a series of 15 "Line Drills" that help players improve their skills in numerous areas of the game. These drills will help your players learn how to use their pivot to find a passing angle for a post feed, make strong passes with their weak hand, and improve their ball handling. Three of these drills also teach players how to set and use on-ball and off-ball screens.

Shooting Drills

Coach Showalter shows you how he develops his team's shooting technique and footwork through the Oiler Shooting Series, Box Drills and the 30 Second Drills. These exercises incorporate shooting from distance as well as finishing at the rim to the overall theme of establishing correct footwork.

Using the Oiler Drill, your players will learn how to pull up into their shots under control from six different spots on the floor. At each location, Coach Showalter demonstrates how you can incorporate pivots, cuts, fakes, and dribbles to vary the types of shots your players work on. Additionally, the Box Drills will teach your players to use seven effective scoring moves from the high post.

Six 30 second drills will get your players to compete in practice and drive their improvement to new levels. These drills are fantastic for developing your post players or enhancing the ability of any of your players to be explosive and finish at the rim. The Superman variation of this drill series will train your athletes to aggressively chase down rebounds outside of their immediate area.

You will also see how all of these concepts can be incorporated together with the Cut Throat drill, which was developed by former NBA coach Dick Motta. This scrimmage format will help you emphasize the offensive concepts you seek to improve while your players apply their developing skills into game-like competition.

USA Basketball Developmental Coach Don Showalter continues to build upon his reputation as a coach that excels in fundamental skill development. Players of all ages will learn to build a proper fundamental base upon which their skills can thrive.

92 minutes (+ 9 bonus minutes). 2016.