DETAILED Week of Basketball Skills Training as a Pro Hooper Preparing for the Upcoming Season

DETAILED Week of Basketball Skills Training as a Pro Hooper Preparing for the Upcoming Season

I’m headed out the door. If you don’t know me, I’m a six-year pro basketball player and I’m in the offseason right now. Play overseas, play in a lot of different countries, but uh I want to show you guys a full week of just like my basketball skill workouts. It’s my second week of the summer, and we’re going to really get after it this week in terms of skill work. I just want to take you guys kind of behind the scenes, how I’m trying to improve all the drills, all the stuff I’m working on. Let’s dial this baby up. the essentials. Basketball, basketball bag. We got shoes, tripod, the gun, band in there, and then my camera bag. This is how I document everything for you guys. Let’s get this skill workout in. Here’s the home gym for the summer. Now, the first skill workout of the week is usually the most physically demanding. The day before was a complete rest day, so I should be feeling pretty fresh today. Pilates wrist weights. At most morning skill workouts, we start with some sort of ball handling warm-up. Now, this isn’t going to be game speed. It’s basically getting our handle and feel for the basketball back after taking a day off. These wrist weights add an element of fatigue, and they also force you to control the ball with your fingertips and not your palm. Essentially, repeat every single move variation from half court and back. Crossovers between the leg, behind the back, and between under. After the single moves, we’ll put some dribble combos together. normally one twos and we’re going to again do every variation we can and working out in the morning especially at my age is important for me to not hit the ground running at game speed my joints they got some wear and tear so I have to be conscious of that after we finish the ball handling warm-up we get into some pick and roll passing options we’re just imagining the screen here and all the different options we could potentially have off of pick and roll passers at the highest levels can pass with both hands and they can do it without bringing their other hand to the ball that’s why most of these passes are made with the single hand and directly off the dribble. There’s a misconception that these are flashy or highlight passes, but to be honest, the traditional chess pass is pretty dead at the highest levels unless it’s a kick ahead. Again, I was not expecting the level fatigue these wrist weights added. My forearms were absolutely burning after this. Next, we got into some touch finishing off of an in-n-out. Goal was to make the layin without the ball actually hitting the square. See a lot of hoopers practicing traditional layups, and honestly, in the game, you’re rarely going to get something like that. We finished up these offhand layins. Then we got right back into the pick and roll passing section, but this time with our strong hand. Immediately, I felt the difference between the strength of the passes I can make and the accuracy of the passes I can make with my dominant hand compared to my weak hand. As a playmaking 2, three, I have to be comfortable with all these different passing options out of the pick and roll. Now, are these reps as impactful as game-like reads? Probably not. But in order for me to be even comfortable making these reads in a game, I have to get familiar with the movements and the different passing options. We’ve repeated the finishing section, but now with our dominant hand. Now, J.R.’s never told me this explicitly, but we always start our skill work with our weak hand. It’s almost an unconscious reminder that it’s not weaker. It just needs some extra attention. Man, John with Varity Movement enlightened me to this idea of not speaking to our body in negative connotations. It’s not our weak hand, it’s just our less dominant hand. Speak life into your body by speaking with positive language. Then we got into this 321 handle series. It was three reps of between the legs at the first cone, then two at the second, then one at the third, trying to change our pace after each cone. I apologize for lighting here, but you can still see what’s going on. After each cone, you want to kind of pop out. So maybe at the cone, you’re dribbling fast and then it’s a quick acceleration and then a slow down back into the dribble combo. We also added a counter to the between dribble at the end with a between cross. Now, one of the things I told JR I wanted to work on at the start of this offseason was my handle in tight spaces. As a big guard, I have the tendency to make these big dribble movements. Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it’s good to cover space, but at the same time, I have to be comfortable making moves in really tight spaces, a little bit more twitchy, and a little bit less movement and more kind of change of pace. I’m learning that you don’t need to really cross someone up. Sometimes smaller movements have bigger impacts on the defense than bigger ones. Now, this next drill, we worked on exploding out a contact into our mid-range pull-up. Now, for the sake of the conciseness of the video, I don’t show every rep. I don’t usually show you guys misses and I don’t show every make, but I promise you me and Mitch in these drills, we win a combined 20 for 22 on these mid-range. Now, the second contact drill was all about manipulating the pick and roll defender, being able to hip swivel and get to our spot and elevate. To end the day, we did some burnout finishing, five reps each from each side. The intention of this drill was to have a quick first step even when you’re fatigued. Skill workout was about 70 minutes start to finish and we ended the workout with one set of a minute 30 straight of the jump rope. Great first workout of the week. Smooth little workout. Today was finishing focus. It’s just funny. I don’t know if y’all like this, but when I start working out, all I’m thinking about is like how much better I would be if I master some of these moves. Like, when I think about it, it’s like the one-on-one stuff, like the the little twitchy side steps. I I really don’t have a lot of that in my game. And so, that’s like all I’m thinking about. And I think that’s probably all I’m going to think about the rest of the day is like, bro, if I mastered these little twitchy side steps, I’ll be unguardable, this, that, and the other. And I think that’s why I love hoop, man. There’s like always something you can add to your game. Some people say basketball is like poetry or like a work of art. To me, like it totally is. Like there’s so many endless ways that you can kind of like experiment, be creative. And I think that’s why I like offseason in the summer so much because it’s like you’re not in a role anymore. You’re not required to be this type of player for your team. You get freedom. You get to choose what you want to work on. You get to decide for yourself, you know, how you want to get better. That’s some of the advice I give you young kids is in the summer, man, experiment. Like fall in love with the creative process of making mistakes, of trying new things, cuz that’s the only way you’re going to develop into a new player. Or else if you practice the same things all the all the time, the same moves, yeah, you’ll get those dialed, but your bag and your ability to respond to new situations, new stimulus, it won’t be even available for you to be creative. So then you get stuck in this rut, and next thing you know, you’re in that same role the next season. So, first workout of the week done. It’s now like 10:00 a.m. Going to go home, get some breakfast. I am going to lift today, but you know, this video I want to be focused on all my basketball workouts and training throughout the week. So, not going to show youall that, but I am going to get a shooting workout in later tonight. It’s going to be a little lighter to this morning was all finishing. Tomorrow night, we’ll be shooting. It’s kind of the double day time of the offseason. Still not playing live yet. So, again, all skill work, but man, I’m excited for a good off season and I’m excited to bring you guys along with me. So, let’s keep rolling. Look who it is. The welcome committee. [Music] I don’t think there’s a better feeling than getting your workout done early and drinking the protein shake in your backyard. It’s a good life. Now, the second workout of the day was way less intense. It’s important thing to note, you have to be able to vary the intensity of your workouts if you want to have a consistent summary. If you go hard every time, you are going to burn yourself out. We started with a little pickup work on our mid-range jump shot. Then we did some subtle movement shooting. In the corners, we did these little slides rather than these big drifts to the corner. At the wings, we did a crossover step. At the top of the key, we did a little retreat, one, two, step, or hop. And then to finish, we extended our range and shot some deep threes. [Music] Running a little late this morning, but we have another skills workout with JR this morning. Yesterday was all finishing. Today is going to be all shooting work. Shot got some shots up last night, but again, most of my nighttime shooting workouts are a little less intense. So, this one’s going to be a lot more intense, more running, more more full speed stuff, more game-like scenarios, fill-ups, stuff off the dribble, offball movement, all those good stuff. So, at least I think so. That’s kind of what we talked about yesterday. So, we’ll see. I let him kind of run and structure these morning skill workouts and let him program it. Then, I program around these and these are like the staple of my summer training. 5 to 6 days a week, 8:30 in the morning every single morning. That’s how I structure my summers skill workwise. Non-negotiable. It’s what I got to do. Here we go. [Music] [Music] We got straight into elbow to elbow floats with a push out dribble at the end. This was our warm-up, so we weren’t going at game speed, but the idea here was to find some sort of flow. As we warmed up, our movements got sharper and our change of direction and pace got quicker. Notice that this move set has a sort of progression. There’s a move and then there’s a counter to the move and then there’s a counter to the counter. The idea is pretty straightforward, but essentially you just want to stack moves on top of each other. So, if you get to that first move and then you see you want an open, you have an option. We like to split up our drills with some free throws, allow us to catch our breath and reset. Then we got into these little bumpoffs. First at the mid-range, then at the three into a dribble pull-up. This movement is pretty tough because you have to change your momentum quickly from going backwards to forward or backwards straight up into your shot. There’s a lot of moving parts here, but this is a highle movement and so we repped it out. Then we got into this handoff shooting series. First it was a pull-up going baseline. Then it was a catch and shoot three to the middle. On this action, it’s all about efficiency of movement, not wasting time with extra steps straight up into your shot and consistent follow through and good balance. finishing pull-up three series and then competing on some catch and shoot threes from five spots. The goal was to see who could make the most in a row. Ton of high quality shots this morning. I felt like I was efficient in my movement and consistent in my follow through. That’s really all you can ask. Those two are the recipe for success. Just got done with a skill workout. Shot felt pretty good. Body feels good. So, I’m going to come back later, get some shots up. Hopefully some one-on-one if I’m feeling good. I’m hoping. The thing is, you do a lot of skill work and you don’t practice any of your moves against contact. It’s like, what’s the game translation? So, I want to get some contact in, feel how to really put the moves into practice. So, hopefully a big one-on-one session tonight. Either going to be one-on-one session or a lot of shooting. Second day in the books. Let’s keep it going. Oh, hi. [Music] Guess where I’m going? Back to the gym. Got to live in the gym. If you love this, she put on some real. I was just thinking about it a little bit right now. I’ve been playing basketball for a really, really long time. Gotten to a level I probably didn’t even think I would ever get to. And I think one of the roots of it is I genuinely enjoy basketball like a huge amount. like you got to kind of be like a like a hoop junkie. I’m obsessed with improving at something and I’m obsessed with what I’m improving at. That’s kind of the recipe you need to have if you want to reach levels that you probably didn’t think you could. Those are two recipes that if I was looking at a young hooper, he’s like, “Hey man, do you think I’m going to make it?” I would say, are you obsessed with getting better? And are like, do you genuinely love basketball? Those two things, that’s a that’s a recipe for success in this game. Back to work. Let’s get this. Let’s get this cuz we did a jersey swap and I didn’t get them. Jersey swap. Short Champions League emblem. White ones might have some dookie stains, but it has lot of wins in there. Look, the the OG. The OG. First Yeah. First drop. What do you call them? The uh excellence in the pursuit. Yeah. Black and white. That’s what I’m talking about. What’s the drop called? Principles. Yes. Dude, he’s so dialed. He’s so dialed. First time wearing them cuz I know I was playing oneon-one. I was just going to cook you all like really. That’s I can break in a new shoe while I’m busting their ass. Like, it’s no problem. He’s only saying that for the camera. The I didn’t even know the camera was. You know the codes. you knew the name of the of the drop. That’s how I know you’re really dialed and I respect it. I I honestly I really appreciate it if I’m being honest. Before we got into live situations today, we started this shooting workout with a balance and movement series. A lot of times I like to incorporate my actual physical warm-up into some sort of shooting reps. So, we did all these different footwork off this float dribble. The competition in this was the first to make three shots. Especially on the days when we’re going to compete in the one-on- ones, I like to make every aspect of that workout competitive and approach every drill accordingly. These next drills I got from my assistant coach in Germany, Bryce Taylor. I think he either got them from Rob Fedor, which is the shooting coach for the Miami Heat, or a little bit from Mike Dunn. The intention behind these drills is to find a consistent balance point and always shoot from a centered feeling. This starts with an efficient transfer of power from the ground up into our shot in the correct sequence. To put it simply, we want the ball to lift first. So, the power that comes from our legs flows through the ball and up into our release. These 360 spins add a rotational element as well as practicing the skill of finding our target. I don’t know if it was because this warm-up was not dynamic enough, but I felt like my body wasn’t warming up to the extent it needed to to get be ready to play live. Nevertheless, it was time to compete cuz the boys were here. We structured the one-on-one so it was like we were playing off a slight relocation. We also added a helpside defender so that if you got by the first line of defense, it wasn’t just going to be an easy layup. We also added a three dribble limit to make it more gamelike. [Music] [Music] Hey. Oh no. Oh Oh [Music] Oh my god. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Applause] To finish the workout, me and my guy Ty did the atypical 50 shot challenge. This is a workout that you should do at least once a week and use it as sort of a barometer to your shooting improvement. In the atypical workout log that I released on my website, there’s a place to track this 50 shot workout as well as a private YouTube video that I run through this whole workout and I show you guys my score I got in this exact workout. All right, listen. I’m not going to shy away from it. I got fried in the workout tonight. My one-on-one bag off the dribble was so incredibly bad. It’s like I forgot how to how to play out of the one-on-one. And young boy Ty, that was the dude in the white tank top. He’s going to be a junior at PointLoma next year. Bro was cooking me like it it was ugly. But hey, sometimes you got to take L’s. Own it. And then tomorrow morning we got a skill workout. That’s a lot of basketball in 3 days. So I think Thursday we’re going to go really light. Uh actually Thursday we’ll probably take off and then we’ll go Friday, Saturday, Sunday in the exact same rhythm we did these last three days and then probably take Monday off. It’s going to mess up the schedule a little bit. That’s I think we went a little too hard in the this one-on-one tonight. Way too many games. It’s cuz I was getting competitive. I was getting cooked. So, let’s keep working. [Music] Another day, another 8:30 a.m. skill workout with my man Jr. We did Monday, Tuesday with him in the morning. Yesterday was light shooting to kind of de lo the body a little bit midweek. Today will be another skill workout. I believe it will be finishing and touch shots as well as handles will be the focus today. It’s 4th of July tomorrow, so I’m going to take that whole day off and relax with family. But if you think about it, one of the biggest aspects of your offseason training has to be its adaptability, right? Cuz every week is not going to be cookie cutter. There’s going to be things that come up and you have to have some things that are non-negotiable. And for me, it’s these 8:30 a.m. skill workouts. And I do them no matter what the schedule is. I’m going to find a way to get in either 4 or 5 8:30 a.m. skill workouts in a week. But if I know I’m not going to do a workout tomorrow probably at all and then the next day, you know, I might be a little tired, some Fourth of July fest festivities, the importance of this workout today is at an all-time high because you want to really push yourself today almost as a as a hedge against potentially missing some some work tomorrow or the next day. But yeah, so like I showed at the start of the video, a rough outline of a perfect week. Every week is not going to be perfect. So some some days will be have to be adapted and tweaked and each time you tweak one of the days it kind of affects the rest of the week. But it’s important to try and be as consistent as possible and as adaptable as possible. And that’s how true consistency over a long period of time happens is being able to bob and weave a little bit when it comes to training and not adhering to a plan for plan’s sake. We don’t want to be so obsessed with our offseason training program that we can’t adjust to life to spending time with family. You know, if our body feels a certain certain way, we have to be smart and we have to be cerebral in our training. Here we go. Another workout. Let’s get it in due time, baby. In due time. So, this workout was supposed to be finishing and ball handling and playmaking, but because of how uncomfortable I felt in the one-on- ones, I told Jr. I wanted to work out of the jab step a lot today. Still, we started with our daily vitamin ball handling warm-up. And again, we have the wrist weights to add the variable of fatigue as well as forcing us to dribble with our fingertips and not our palm. This ball handling workout is kind of like daily vitamins. Take it in the morning. Do it every day. And then don’t really think about it too much. Don’t overthink it. Just do something consistent to get you in the head space to work out at a high level. 10 minutes every day over a long period of time adds up. Started the workout with these hip swivels in the same foot, same hand layups. Then stacked on top of the hip swivel with a change of direction move. This time a crossover. This was supposed to be same foot, same hand layup. I messed it up. I still don’t like that a lot of my moves are really big. Being a big guard, I need to be comfortable with smaller, twitchier movements. In continuing to stack on the hip swivel start, we got into first a hei and then a step back. Again, I’m a big fan of this training concept called move stacking. After the step back, we went into a cross into another step back. And now we repeat it on the other side. Now I know J.R. looks a little funny with the foam roller, but he’s trying to add variables. Maybe the cross needs to be lower. Maybe the finish needs to be higher off the glass. He’s just adding things for us to react to. A quick tip on the hip swivel heavy. You need to really sell your attack foot so it really looks like you’re going to drive. After this hip swivel series, we were really warmed up and it was time to get into the jab step flow. Now, whenever you catch the ball in basketball, that’s when you’re the most dangerous. You can do everything. You can shoot, you can drive, you can pass. The big intention for this series was that we really sold each fake. Make the defender react to every different move. The other big emphasis was to do every fake with pace. Change the height, change the speed, be unpredictable. A lot of people waste their jab step attacking opportunities by playing too fast, but it’s a great time to be creative. There’s so many different options and so many different things that you can get to. Now, we repeat the same series on the left side, but again, keeping our pivot foot as the left because that’s kind of what you expect to do the most as a right-hand player. Every workout I do in this video of a week of basketball training as a pro hooper will be listed out in an easy to read PDF. You can get it for free. The link is in the description of this video. My goal with this stuff is to give you guys a inside look at my systems and how I get better and give you usable, easy resources. We finished with some jab step deep threes and then a conditioning finisher where we touch the backboard and try and get quick off the ground in our second jump. Of course, as we end all workouts with JR, a minute 30 of jump rope, just working up foot speed and a little bit of conditioning. Man, today’s workout was one of those days where I felt like I couldn’t feel where the ball was going. I didn’t know why I was missing on some shots or like why I was making it. Super frustrating. Did a lot of jab work stuff today. I talked with JR and said I felt uncomfortable in the jab work ones that we did a few days earlier and so we tried to kind of just rep out some different options out of the jab. It’s really interesting when you work on stuff one. These are repetition reps or trying to get that muscle memory. It’s just basically skill building without like a variable stimulus. So like one type things. It can sometimes be difficult to transfer those skills over to decision-m live play and stuff like this. Like, okay, maybe you have you can do these things, but can you make the decisions quick enough? Can you read the defense? Can you react to contacts? Stuff like this. And so, at this point in the summer, I’m just going for repetitions, just getting my game kind of crisp in that one-on-one. Do I think that’s going to make exponential leaps and jumps in my game? Probably not. I think those moments of growth happen when you connect the the volume repetitions with the stimulus environments with the constraints with the the different decisions and and and the more live game like scenarios open gyms smallsided twoon two threeon-ree one-on- ones with constraints stuff like this that constraintled approach to training that’s when I think the uh growth and the development like skyrockets when those two things meet at the right moment that’s what I’m planning to do in phase three, which is the quality work phase of the off seasonason, which is coming up. It’s coming up in about half, you know, a week, a week or so, a little less than a week. When that happens, I think we’re going to hit the ground running. We’re going to make some big strides in uh our game. So, today was a good one. Didn’t play great, but uh sorry, didn’t shoot the ball great, but a lot of good work, focused, detail oriented. So, good work today. Again, here’s the week breakdown of this phase of the off season, the buildup phase. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday are more or less these previous three training days repeated. And then there’s a complete rest day on Sunday. All these workout PDFs will be linked in the description. So, if you want those, go check them out. They’ll have all the workouts, how to kind of schedule your week. It’ll be pretty comprehensive. So, a lot of value in there. Well, anyways, I hope this was helpful to give you some insight on how I ramp up my offseason and give you some ways that you can kind of add some of these drills, some of these concepts to your own offseason plan. So, yeah, as always, get uncomfortable and live atypical. Cheers. [Music] Wish I can make it easier. [Music]

Here is a full week of pro basketball skills training as I prepare for another season of overseas basketball. I give you guys a detailed look at all my basketball workouts and my rationale behind each drill. This week we had some intense 1v1 matchups, lots of skill development and shooting. Hope this helps you guys better plan out your offseason!

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