Basketball drills need to be a part of every basketball practice. Drills improve a team’s skills and also help the each individual player to become a better player. Some drills are very difficult to run and ask a lot of the players. Other drills are somewhat easier to perform. Players consider some drills to be fun basketball drills while other drills are considered by players to be too hard and sometimes too boring.

A coach can’t be too concerned with what his/her players think of any of the drills. If there is a purpose for running a drill and the drill is effective then it should be run as often as needed. However, that doesn’t mean that the coach can’t try to at least make some of the drills seem like fun basketball drills.

As every parent of young children knows, little kids can be made to do something just by the parent making it seem like a game. The kid will think it’s fun so they’ll enjoy doing it. Older players aren’t gullible, but the attitude a coach has and the style of practice that’s being run can influence how the players feel.

A is for Attitude

Fun basketball drills are really all about the attitude of the coach and the attitude of the players. If the coach keeps an up-beat attitude and keeps the spirit of the practice positive then players will enjoy doing just about every drill. If the players trust the coach and trust that what they’re doing is making them better then the drills are a lot easier to make fun as well.

That being said, there are a few things that can be done in practice to ensure fun basketball drills.

Make the Drill a Competition

First of all, most players are on the team and they practice and play hard because they want to win. They are competitors. So, to achieve fun basketball drills the coach should make every drill a game. Divide players into two or more teams and let the players battle it out to see who wins each drill. For older kids, the losers can even be made to run extra sprints.

A coach could even make a drill that the entire team can try to win together. A coach can give the players a certain amount of time to reach a goal and if the players reach the goal then they can be let out of practice early or receive come other type of small reward.

Get Player Input

Another way a drill can be made fun is if the coach lets the team have some input on how the drill is run. Obviously the basics of the drill can’t be changed but there can be minor adjustments made. For example, a coach may let the players listen to music while they complete certain drills.

Making basketball drills into fun basketball drills really isn’t about finding drills that the players would like to run. It’s more about taking whatever drills a coach already runs and tweaking them so that the players have fun. There are many ways to make basketball drills fun including changing the overall attitude in practice, making drills into minor competitions, and allowing the players to put their own stamp on a drill.