- Practice the Basics Regularly: The foundation of basketball skills lies in mastering the basics. Carve out some time to practice dribbling, passing, and layups/shooting. Work on your ball-handling skills, making sure that you can control the ball with both hands well. This will make you a more versatile and skilled player and help you during games. Without learning these basic skills, you cannot play a successful game of basketball, you will always be losing the ball, missing your shots, and making bad passes to your teammates. I have learned this hard way.
2. Improve Your Shooting Technique: Shooting is a fundamental aspect of basketball. Focus on getting a consistent shooting form. Pay attention to the way you shoot, your stance, grip, and follow-through. Practice shooting from different spots on the court, mid-range, under-basket, even 3 point line (I’m still working on that). Practicing from different spots will make you a better player as you can make a basket in any situation, anywhere on the court.
3. Get fitter: Basketball is a physically demanding sport, you need strength, speed, and endurance. Start adding strength training (going to the gym) and cardio workouts to your routine to improve your strength, speed, endurance and agility in games. I personally like to go for 3 km runs as much as I can, its only 20 minutes (normally) and I like to go the gym twice a week (one day upper body another day lower body)
4. Study the Game: Understanding the game’s strategies and tactics is essential for improvement. Watch basketball games, whether at the professional or college level, to learn about different playing styles, offensive and defensive strategies, and how teams execute plays. This knowledge will help you make better decisions on the court. I have supported the golden state warriors my whole life, and especially when I was younger I watched all the games which really helped me get an understanding of the game. Now that I live in Singapore its harder to watch NBA games (I still watch the highlights), so I make sure to watch the basketball games that happen within my leagues (for example the age group above me) to help me improve.
5. Play Regularly and Compete: The more you play, the better you become. Play regular matches, whether it’s random games with friends or organized league games. Competition helps you use the skills you’ve practiced and adapt to different game situations. Playing against people of different skill levels will challenge you to improve and change your playing style. Ever since I moved to Singapore I have been playing for a club which consistently has league matches which allows me to practice my skills and help me improve as a player.
These 5 tips helped me personally improve as a basketball player, I of course have so much more to improve on but this was definitely a start.
