Luol Deng Teaches Spin Move

Luol Deng teaches how to spin around the defender correctly, what to pay attention to, and how to finish. He starts by saying: “basketball is a game of reaction.” Have your defender react to your first move to beat him with your counter-move.

1. Have your defender lean to one side.
2. As soon as he leans, spin to the other side.
3. Put the ball away from the defender to protect it.
4. Then, look up towards the basket. See help defenders coming. See you teammates. See if you have a shot for yourself
5. It is not good enough to beat one guy and be happy with it. You have to learn to react to what’s happening next (basketball is still a team game!).
6. Speed is important, but what’s even more important is being smart about it. You have to have your defender lean to one side, then you change speed to beat him.

Sweep Step Basketball Passing Drill

Ganon Baker, one of my favorite teachers of fundamental basketball drills, is showing how to sweep the ball with a step and pass the ball. While this may not be a drill appropriate for very young players, it is the best type of drill because it requires a player to do actions in sequence. Often, you can’t just pass, you have to either fake it first or sweep the ball as in this drill. Once mastered, this will help you reduce significantly the number of turnovers off passes.

McHale Rebounding Drill

This is a useful rebounding drill. Since basketball is very physical environment, especially down low. This drill teaches you to be able to do one thing with one hand while doing something else with you other hand. In this case, you are tipping the ball and touching the net (or rim) at the same time. This drill doesn’t have to be done every day, or even every week. Once in ten days, or once in two weeks should be good enough.

Simple Footwork Practice

Here is a very simple footwork practice. The whole sequence should be completed at least once a week. The important point is to develop footwork first by doing it slowly, then work on speed.

Spot Shooting Practice

This is a basic spot shooting practice. The main point is that it needs to be done game speed, even if you are the only player on the court. This practice does several things for a player: conditioning (if it’s done game speed), footwork, shooting, imagination development (often underestimated basketball skill).

After you make one shot from every position, you can increase it to 2, 3, and more consecutive shots.