http://coachdribbledrive.com/2010/07/23/swim-move/

I took over a 1-6 team a third into the season, and now we’ve won six of the last eight, are in fourth place of a very competitive 10 team top flight league in Northern Europe – and we could easily miss the eight team playoffs. We win by playing defence, but out of the remaining 11 games five are against the top three, who are all great offensive teams, and most of the rest are away games. In other words I worry a lot right now. Worry about being relegated to the league below. Worry about injuries. Worry about every game, every practice.

Then someone sent me a quote. Someone who knows me really well, who knows this time of year for a basketball coach. It reminded me that just going out there on the court – fighting for every little thing – is more than worth it. I hope it will get you some energy to get you through January too:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes up short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly.
So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

Theodore Roosevelt, “Man in the Arena” Speech given April 23, 1910 26th president of US (1858 – 1919)

With a very young womens team coach Sengers got some upsets playing quick basketball which helped Sengers get elected as an all star coach and runner up for coach of the year. The Under-16 girls did even better as they won the national title.

Here’s coach Sengers account of the 2010-11 season.

Introduction on the teams and the situation.

Before the 2010-11 season I radically changed the way I play with my teams. That season I would train and coach two teams, a girl’s under-16 team and a first division women’s team. It would be my first season as a head coach in the first division after half a season of being an assistant in that same division. The head coach of that team introduced me to the offense that he had from Vance Wallberg after visiting the states to update his knowledge of the game. He took some elements of that offence and implemented it in the offences he wanted to play that season. I decided to get to know as much about the offense as I could and after learning more and more about it I was sure this was the offense for my teams for the 2010-11 season.

The women’s team would have a very young and relatively inexperienced squad at that level of competition since the club decided we would play our own youth players instead of getting a lot of foreign “professional” players as we had the previous seasons.

Luckily for me and the team our best guard – one of the best guards in the country – decided to stay with the team to learn how to lead a team and work on her offensive skills. She would be the engine of the team. As she is a great driving 6 feet guard the offense suited us perfectly since we would find many ways to start it or give her space to drive. She would end up averaging almost 30 points, 7 assists and 5 steals while learning how to lead a very young team. At the end of the season she got a good contract abroad as a starting point guard what had been her ambition all along. She was ready.

We also had some good shooters and another driving guard that would be injured the first half of the season. When she finally got ready to play we were a pretty good team that lacked some defensive power on the inside.

As far as the under 16 girls, that were really more like 13 and 14 year old girls, I wanted them to learn to attack while playing basketball. In my experience too many girls in our club were not automatically looking to score and in that way didn’t develop their scoring abilities quick enough. They would be one dimensional either as scorers or as passing machines, as I would call them. The “passing machines” might have been open to score and never even have known that since they paid no attention to the basket, but just tried to be excessive team players or run the offense as best as they could. Sometimes they would be scared of making mistakes.

I wanted these players to start thinking of how they could score, so whenever somebody would have the ball we would play for her (but of course there would be some exceptions further on in the season when we used special entries).

The goal the club has for these girls is to get ready to play first division women basketball for our club. Playing the same system they would when going to the women’s team while developing their offensive abilities sounded like a great idea and it would turn out to be. At the end of the year some of the under 16 girls helped the women’s team out during the playoffs and could step in without a problem. Also they would practice with the women’s team when we didn’t have enough players due to circumstances. This season 4 of them will play first division.

Pre season

Pre season was all about getting to know the offense so that we could play by the time the season would start. For the under 16 it would be less of a hurry job since whatever we would do in the competition would not really matter. Our real season, the quest for the national championship would start months later.

Teaching the offense turned out to be harder than I thought it would be. It would take up so much time that defensively we would not do much with either team. We would stand around too much and just watch the point guard, would not start low enough, would not go backdoor, would not remember what to do and keep doing the old stuff we were used to. It would take some real conviction on my part and I had to help them push through their old habits. This would take longer than the preseason for both teams. Doing the little things right would turn out to be real tough as well – like getting a positive pass for example.

We would start the season with shooting around 25 threes a game but during the season we shot the three less and less and lost the balance between driving and shooting. Under 16 girls would have to learn to shoot the 3 and so they hardly shot a three in the beginning but in the end most of them where able to shoot the 3 and being able to do so won us the championship game in which we got zoned the last three quarters of the game.

We would run a lot of simple drills and that would consist of parts of the offense to get it in. Examples are getting to the drop zone, passing to the wing for a drive or a backdoor. Later we would add the post to that and at the end of the season the other forward. Or we would have the PG drive to the basket and have the second guard get behind for a shot. Lot of simple drills like that can be found on several videos on the offense or in coach Olesen’s book. At the end of the preseason the teams would have an idea of the offense and could run it a little. Most successful would be passes to the (relocating) post after a drive. In our competition it is more usual to put the post on the ball side so that different look plus the moving post helped us a lot.

Development of the players

Every practice we would warm-up with some dribbling- and ball handling drills. After that we would shoot. We needed to become better with the ball and so of course it showed at the end of the season.

During the season I must say the girls developed as basketball players. They did not just become better ball handlers but they also read defenses better (there is still some work to do here but the first step has been made). Most of them look to attack first now, and they have become better drivers and they can finish in more ways. Also very important is the aspect of spacing. They have got a better understanding of spacing and how to use it. Better than any other team I have ever coached.

Aspects that need to get better and we did not do well the first season.

• Staying in the offense
• Using the skip pass
• Getting the details in like starting positions, positive passes and throwing passes to the post high and being patient in the corners
• Making use of the backdoor
• Getting to the foul line, finishing with contact and getting the contact
• Shooting the 3

 Development of the offense

At the start of the season we tried to get a fast break in that would fit the offense at the same time. We had a hard time doing that. During the season we did run some kind of break but it was not organized and ended up usually in us just playing an entry into the offense. That is something we will do better this season. I think a big reason why we didn’t get the fast break right is me as a coach not being sure how I wanted it in every situation and not practicing it enough as well as emphasizing it. During the summer I made sure that this season it will be different as now I know how we will run our transition in every possible situation.

Another thing that was really clear for me during the season is that it was easier teaching the offense to the u16 team than it was to the women’s team. That might sound strange since you might expect it to be different due to the women having more experience with the game. The u16 girls just did what they were told and found success earlier. They played in a boys competition but as soon as we played an international tournament versus girls teams all of a sudden they were able to score so easily and found their believe in the system and way of play. They would win the tournament and end up being 24-1 against female teams for the season. Most of those teams started playing zone against us since man to man they simply had too much trouble stopping us. The older and more experienced women always knew another way we could play or pass or… You name it. They were always looking for their old habits to fit into the offense and that slowed our development in playing the offense as a team a lot. Another reason was that many of the team would just stand and watch our point guard. I am however convinced that this season we will be better playing the offense as a team if our guards stay healthy.

What I have learned:

Playing the offense the first season with these two teams was great choice for the teams and me personally. It brought us a lot of fun and success. It got us a lot of compliments of the crowd and even standing ovations after a loss.

For me as a coach it was a challenge since there was a lot on the line in my first season as a head coach and I definitely feel that I took some risks playing the offense since I had no experience with it. There are no regrets at all.

I expected it to take a lot of time before we would be able to play the motion in a good way. I had hoped it would go quicker but it didn’t. There is still some work to be done but we are getting there. Still we were looking to score more and so even though we wouldn’t play it the right way our mindsets did change quicker and we would usually come up with high scoring games which is fun for almost everybody. I decided to change different numbers for our players. So the 1 would be my main point guard. The two would be right next to her. The 3 would be in the right corner ( the 3 side for us) and the 4 in left corner ( 4 side for us), 5 would be our post. The reason is that I wanted it to be easier for them since these numbers is what they are familiar with. Also I would often play with a power forward and she would have to go the left corner anyway. I made it easier for them but harder for me since whenever I read something about the ddm I have to convert positions. Also I came up with different terms for the dropzone and rackzone. The dragzone I do not talk about. I think it made it easier for them.

Putting in a fast break that worked well with the motion was harder than I thought. To me it looked simple but for the team it wasn’t. Due to the fact that we can only practice three times a week we hardly had a chance to work on our defense. We spent our time on fundamentals and offensive tactics.

If I had a chance to do it again I would not have worried about the break and have them play offense 5 on 0 more. What really worked for the younger kids was playing 5-0 every entry we had going into the motion. We would play an entry and let that flow into the motion then kick it out and start the next entry. That way they would be playing a 5 minute offense and all the outside players will end up on every spot.

I will need to find more ways as a coach to make them do the little things the right way. I will demand more of them next season. Being way more comfortable with the offense will make it a lot easier as well. The team and I were learning the offense at the same time even though I would always be ahead of course.

Good luck with your team.

Bart Sengers

Eurosped Twente Tubbergen

http://www.eurospedtwente.nl/

I use the drill all the time with my 16′s and under boys team. In fact, this is the only drill we’ve used to practice the moves and reads of theBreak Down Zone.

The line on the right performs ball handling moves in a zig zag line to half court. Any ball handling and/or dribbling moves can be used. We currently use basic moves like the cross-over, behind the back and so on.

The left side line performs dynamic stretching. This form of stretching prepares the body for physical exertion and sports performance. In the past it was the practice to undertake static stretching before exercise. Dynamic stretching increases range of movement, blood and oxygen flow to soft tissues prior to exertion. Increasingly coaches and sports trainers are aware of the role in dynamic stretching in improving performance and reducing the risk of injury.

In fact, many studies show that static stretches actually have a detrimental effect on explosive movements and strength output. There are two types of flexibility receptors, a static receptor, which measures magnitude and a dynamic receptor, which measure speed and magnitude. As one would expect, dynamic activities that require movement, such as running , jumping, or kicking use the dynamic receptor to limit flexibility. Therefore, a dynamic stretch that stresses the dynamic receptor is more beneficial when preparing for a warm-up when performing a dynamic activity.

Dribble Drive Break down Zone Reads

As both players reach mid court the drill now becomes pure Dribble Drive, as the players perform their reads in the break down zone zone.

Note: Most of the options end in a layup – make sure you take advantage of this opportunity to work on the different finishes you want the players to use. You may have a coach put pressure on the finishes.

Lane Drive – O4 drags behind

The first option is to have O1 drive to the rack. O4 must read this and drag behind.

O4 rebounds the ball, then the players switch lines.

O1 Middle Drive – O4 kicks back, then drags behind

The second option is to have O1 drive middle. O4 prepares for the kick-back the drags behind.

Kick-back

Now O1 drives middle again, but this time he kicks back to O4 who racks it. O1 then drags behind.

Note: You may have O4 hit O1 on the drag to make sure the players are aware of the option.

Pass & Cut – Lane Drive

O1 now passes to O4, and as per the pass-then-cut-rule O1 cuts to the T.

O1 then reads O4′s drive. If O4 lane drives O1 cuts under the hoop and out the other side.

Pass & Cut – Middle Drive

This time on O1′s pass to O4, O4 drives middle.

O1 then makes the read, and either T-cuts or cuts under the hoop and out the other side.

414 Entry

Now O1 initiates the 414 with the back-dribble, and you can go through all the options of this entry in the drill.

For more details on the 414 entry see the Dribble Drive Offense book.

Open Read

O1 has the ball on this one. He may choose any read and O4 has to make the right read.

This option makes the kids think for themselves. As a coach you must be aware of which options are not run – these are the options you need to work on more.

Alley Oop

We finish off with the Alley Oop/tip off the backboard. The kids love this, and they get to work on their timing and rebounding.

Created with Basketball Playbook from Jes-Soft

I’ll be happy to share game film of my Under 16′s team from Northern Europe.I’ve only coached them for a couple of months but they’ve already made great strides with the Dribble Drive. An article will be up soonish – I currently coach 4-6 games a week between the pro mens team and the Under16 varsity and junior varsity, so time is super limited.

Find the offer on the right.

Find the offer on the right.

Advanced Dribble-Drive Offense: Zone & Transition Game, $119.99

100 Drills and Sets for Implementing the Dribble Drive Offense, $79.99

Walberg also released a defensive DVD set at the same time:

Vance Walberg: Half-Court Pressure Defensive System, 79.99

I don’t personally use Walberg’s defensive sets, so I’ll leave the defensive DVD out of the review.

See the reviews below.

The Advanced Dribble-Drive Offense: Zone & Transition Game

The Advanced Dribble-Drive Offense: Zone & Transition Game set contains three DVDs, and the contents, according to Canpionship Productions, are:

• New Innovations since Coach Walberg’s original Dribble-Drive presentations
• How to attack a Zone with the Dribble Drive and some of Coach Walberg’s favorite zone plays
• See how to build and drill your players into effectively using the Transition Game into the Dribble-Drive attack
• Over 6 hours of detailed teaching points and techniques to improve the whole offensive attack

There are some interesting things on this set for the Dribble Drive vs. man-to-man defense, as Walberg greatly expands the transition game and explains his Dribble Drive Offense in greater detail. With him for the whole DVD he’s got a mix of players who are mostly unfamiliar with the Dribble Drive, which is great, as they tend to make the same mistakes your own players will.

The transition game part is particularly good, explaining in detail how to make the transition offense work for you. Coach Walberg goes over everything from how to inbound the ball, where to have your wings look for the ball, and what your options are depending on which part of the court your point guard takes the ball up. This transition game is an integral part of the Dribble Drive, and it has the added advantage that it eliminates the need for spending time on teaching a separate fast break system.

Another interesting part fo this DVD set is a long section on how Walberg has his teams rebound. His philosophy is very aggressive, and it incorporates ways to get easy shots for your best shooters right out of the offensive rebound. It’s probably not for everyone, but just seeing it made me question my own rebounding strategy.

Another interesting thing coach Walberg spends some time on is how to make the offense a 1-guard front offense. This isn’t so much new, but it’s explained a lot better than on the original DVD set, and it works really well.

Walberg also adds the Special gap – the S-gap – to the offense. Personally I’m having difficulties making this work, possibly because we always take away middle penetration, but I’ve heard from other coaches that it works great for them, especially if defenses aren’t too disciplined. I’ll leave the jury out on the S-gap.

As far as adding things to the Dribble Drive man offense this is about it. Although there are actually lots of things to add (see below for the 100 Drills and Sets for Implementing the Dribble Drive Offense DVD set review), Walberg doesn’t expand much on the things he showed on his first DVD set, as far as man-to-man defense goes on this set.

However, the Walberg Zone offense is truly brilliant, in my opinion, and Walberg spends a lot of time on how to attack zones. He takes two separate sets and combines them into a cohesive offense, and spends a lot of time on the little details. Everything is well explained, and Walberg offers some true insight into how to make the zone offense work. The one thing I’d love to hear more about is how to attack different zones with the offense, but most experienced coaches would be able to work this out for themselves. I’ve written a short Zone Offense eBook which details this offense along with some zone plays I’ve used myself, which fit right into Walbergs offense.

Walberg ends up talking about sopme of the questions he’s had about the offense over the years, and showing some game video, showing his concepts in game situations. This will clear up some issues for a lot of coaches, and is a good source of inspiration, although it doesn’t reach the level of he transition and zone offense parts.

All in all the zone offense, the rebounding and the fast break is well worth the price of the DVD set, and there’s a bit more on there too. However, for people looking for true insight into the man-to-man Dribble Drive Attack I actually think the Drills and Sets DVD set is better.

100 Drills and Sets for Implementing the Dribble Drive Offense

The 100 Drills and Sets for Implementing the Dribble Drive Offense DVD set contains:

• Get individual Dribble Drive skill development drills for the guards, wings, and posts
• Get an insiders look at the team breakdown drills used to build and teach the dribble drive action
• See the different series of plays and action from the rack from the Drop, Drag & Rack zones.

For pure Dribble Drive value the companion DVD set 100 Drills & Sets for Implementing the Dribble Drive Offense is actually of better value than the Advanced set.

The 2-disc set isn’t very well named, as there are nowhere near 100 drills and no traditional 5-man sets on the DVDs. There are, however, some good post drills, and a few perimeter drills teaching 2 and 3-man reads of the offense, but only if you count the reads on the 3-man drills are there anywheere near 100 drills/sets/reads/variations to pick up.

On the first DVD of the set are individual drills. For the guard and forward positions this is good, without being great. You’ll pick up a few things, but I didn’t pick up a lot of new drills. The post drills are better, and I like the drills, and how Walberg stresses the concept of the jump-jump (jumping to shoot and immediately re-jumping for the rebound/tip-in). After watching this DVD I was a bit disappointed, and actually put off watching the second DVD.

However, the drills and the reads on the second DVD have been some of the most inspirational things I’ve seen while researching my newest book, and I think other experienced Dribble Drive coaches will feel the same. In the 3-man drills Walberg goes over all the little cuts and reads which really makes the offense click.

He covers the details of things like the double drag, the pick & roll, the 414 entry, the Quick, Dive, Drop 5, Wheel and X-cut. Just be aware that for coaches who are just starting out with the Dribble Drive getting much out of these drills and reads might be difficult. Walberg presumes that you understand the offense pretty well while talking about these things, as he doesn’t show them in a 5-man setting. Instead he casually drops the information into the reads drills, and you’ll have to be pretty on-the-ball to get it all the first time you watch it.

For me it has been the best DVD of any Dribble Drive DVD set I’ve seen, but if you’re not already familiar with the offense it could be very confusing not seeing the concepts in a 5-man setting. I had to call coach Walberg to clear up a few things after seeing the DVD, but for experienced Dribble Drive coaches I’d definitely recommend it.

Conclusion

Overall the DVD sets are worth their price. I only have a few points of criticism.

Firstly the DVDs are not recorded in wide screen format. I think this format is the standard now and in some places it would be very usefull (say, so you’re able to see all the players on the court). I’m not sure why you’d use the old format, and it’s just a curious thing to do it this way. No biggie though.

Secondly Walberg maybe knows the offense too well. Sometimes he can’t see the forrest for trees, and presumes that the viewer knows the offense as well as he does. For experienced Dribble Drive coaches this isn’t a problem, but for novices it might be a problem. In fact, even for coaches who knows the offense pretty well it’s not that easy – I spent ten months making sense of how to fit all parts and sources of info – including these DVD’s – on the Dribble Drive into a cohesive book…

Overall I’d recommend buying both sets, and I give them each a 9/10 rating.

The DVD’s are available here:

Advanced Dribble-Drive Offense: Zone & Transition Game, $119.99

100 Drills and Sets for Implementing the Dribble Drive Offense, $79.99

The book now has 200 pages and has been completely rewritten. I’ve taken out chapters on the Dribble Drive Zone Offense and the Complimentary High Post offense, and instead I’ve gotten to the bottom of the Dribble Drive, and all the little details of the offense.

I talked to Vance Walberg this week and that finally settled the last few issues of X’s and O’s, and now I’m ready to publish. I really think this book covers everything there is to know about the Dribble Drive.

There really is no comparison to the first book. This one is 100% better (and 100% longer). Look for the new chapters on fundamentals, the break down zone, passing and cutting, the pick & roll, the S-gap, switching and sagging defences, post play, including how to play with two post players, and an added 45 pages of drills.

Get the e-book (Paypal download, $21.99 $19.99)

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Get the Paperback ($22.99)

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Sample (PDF)

Unfortunately I’m having internet connection problems, causing each YouTube upload to take in the region of 3-5 hours, so the updates will come as I’m able to upload the videos. As I’m uploading this there is one video to follow in the set, I will update the post when it’s on YouTube.

Note: For this post it might be worth pointing out that Ryan is a leftie, thus all the work with his right hand.

Here’s the background for the posts:

At the moment I’ve got quite an interesting opportunity, in that one of my former players (as an assstant coach) is back home for the holidays – and the San Antonio Spurs’ D-League team (the Torros) have sent a coach home with him so he can continue his recovery form double shoulder surgery.

The player is Ryan Richards, who was drafted by the Spurs in the second round of the 2010 draft. Since then Ryan have been injured, but the Spurs see enough talent in the 6’10” 7’0” [update: Ryan pointed out he's grown to 7'0'' with shoes!] British sharp shooter that they have stayed with him, and continue his development.

For the last three days I’ve recorded his individual basketball workouts, and I thought I’d share it, even if it doesn’t have anything to do with the dribble drive directly.

Note: The videos are unedited, and the language is sometimes rather PG. If you don’t approve I suggest you turn off the sound or don’t watch

Many more videos after the break