Teach Skills, Not Just Systems

A common oversight among coaches, particularly at the developmental level, is that they spend too much time learning "plays" and not enough time learning how to play. Teams do need to have organized offenses and plays (we have tons!), but it is far more important to be able to execute the fundamentals of movement, ball-handling, dribbling, passing, and shooting than it is to know how to run through a particular offense. Teach your players the fundamentals of the game, as well as the concept of "relative motion." Help the player to understand his or her place on the court and the position of the other players relative to his or her position. A player with this understanding will know how to create proper spacing, move to get open, pass angles, play good on ball defense, and give good team defensive help.