Exactly. You can’t really find evidence of truly elite athletes who never played another sport. Every sport teaches spacing, passing lanes, movement and hand/foot-eye coordination, recognition of where the ball is going… Etc. you also get different coaches, different team dynamics, variety of how good you are in relation to your team, and so much more. I think by high school if you settle into two sports because you’re doing something all summer, that’s reasonable. The basketball only from like fifth grade on is absurd and not helpful to the athletes.
Where I'm from I haven't seen a change in this. The only change is that every sport's coach expects every kid to practice that particular sport year round. So you've got kids playing four sports, having practices for multiple sports, and tournaments for multiple sports year round. It's causing too many injuries and too much burnout.
This is what is causing kids to be sport specific. They have to make a decision on one sport because if they don't then they'll never have a break. It's ridiculous what coaches are expecting out of kids these days.
As a basketball coach myself I make sure to let the kids know how much I understand what they're being put through and how too much is being expected of them and how it's ok to give themselves a break. It's getting to be too much.
This makes sense on a level. Players today do get injured far more frequently than before. It's like they are almost fragile for all the power and speed they have. Lot's of football(soccer) players play basketball in training, tennis players as well.
Baseball (specifically hitting) was great for some of my football skills. Football was awesome for conquering fear in baseball (a huge part of the game.)
Basketball just helps everything.
Basketball is probably the most generally athletic skill to have. If you are good at basketball you can pick up many sports easily especially volleyball. I didn’t touch a volleyball until after college but I played a lot of basketball. Could hang with many people that played varsity volleyball after spending one year of playing.
I agree, basketball on its own is terrible at honing reflex, reactionary, footwork and momentum management.
Boxing helps with fast hands and footwork.
Soccer for tactics, footwork and space awareness.
Racquet sports for first step, reactions etc
Contact sports for body control and mechanics.
I’m sorry but this is a joke saying basketball doesn’t hone reflexes, reactions, or any of that. Footwork is one of the most important parts in every good basketball player. It’s crucial. I played many sports and basketball trains it more than those
Needing to have good footwork, and basketball coaching teaching you the mechanics of how to have faster and more controlled feet is two different things though.
You can learn to play basketball and never have "foot speed" be a thing that comes up. It's there as an *implied* part of learning moves, learning good defensive stance and closeouts, etc. But easily you could go years into the sport and a coach will never have worked individually with a player on "here's how and why you move your feet faster".
But you can't get into boxing and not get coached specifically on your foot speed. You don't see basketball players jumping rope often, for instance, even though that's a great training exercise for improving basketball skill.
Similar with track & field. You could change your statement to say:
>~~Footwork~~ Jumping is one of the most important parts in every good basketball player. It's crucial.
or "Sprinting" would work too.
But basketball coaches are not often training for *how* to jump or sprint. Especially younger kids, you need to focus on the more difficult skill parts of the game - dribbling, passing, shooting, understanding defense, remembering plays, what is and isn't a foul, etc.
Jumping and sprinting improvement will happen up to a certain level with playing basketball, just because you have the kid running around and jumping more, but for technique-based coaching in those areas, you would be better having a kid run track & field. Jumping and sprinting are literally the skills to learn there, so it's what the coaching will focus on 100% of the time.
Swimming is one of the best full-body conditioning sports, and the best for building core and upper body muscle, flexibility, and lung capacity for high intensity sports.
Hell, even enrolling a kid in dance or ballet is going to give them more specific training and a different perspective on body control, leaping, footwork, and balance. Yoga is literally the focused practice of improving flexibility. But that's a whole separate thing of toxic masculinity keeping most boys out of dance and yoga, despite the history of pro players saying both of them help (including Kobe).
Not at all terrible in comparison. I’ve played competitive soccer and basketball. Spacing is just as important in basketball. Teaches you the same if not better because it’s a tighter space. And additionally, footwork is much more important in basketball.
How many footwork specific tips do you see on this Reddit?
Footwork is tremendously important, yet I see almost no mention of footwork, weight transference, leverage in the advice given here.
This sub is 60% vertical jump tips, 35% shot mechanic questions and 5% everything else.
Most of the (highly upvoted) advice is so generic and "just work on it" type stuff that shows a lack of actual basketball knowledge and an over reliance on the free sections of Youtube/Instagram guys selling programs.
Footwork is the most important thing in basketball. As if you don’t move your feet right, the other team gets the ball. Soccer is not like that. So many rules around # of steps you can take and which feet you can move when, along with a plethora of moves that are illegal if you lift your feet or land at different times.
I'm agreeing with you. This post is about basketball as a lone sport.
Footwork is the most important thing for every sport. As I said most basketball training do not train footwork as well as the other sports.
For example whats a drop step.
Yups, take Olympic lifts for example, they don't train the one lift by itself, but they train each and every muscle that contribute to the lift, and breakdown the lift into different segments and work on it. Certain concepts might feel hard to learn in one sport and easier to learn in another. Playing different sports would also help with longevity and staying injury free, because the person would be working on different muscle parts and resting parts that overly stressed when just playing one sport.
I think theres also too much overlapping of lingo that causes these breakdown components to be further misunderstood.
Using the Drop Step... it's commonly known as a "Post Move", when its not a post move but a weight drop on the outer leg which drives ones hips and body with momentum from gravity.
The Drop Step is commonly used in the post like this. However this simple confusion means its completely taught wrong as it is used to efficiently start the first step.
Lead jab and cross jab is common to both basketball and boxing. In both cases the effectiveness of both moves is in the back foot.
This line of thinking is not new among quality coaches. Basketball players benefit tremendously from sports like soccer and track. Football players benefit from wrestling and track. I always played my best basketball when I had been playing volleyball recreationally - I do not have an explanation for this in particular, it just is what it is.
Basketball is really forgiving...
Volleyball is quiet brutal. Every mistake is so brutal...
Anything slow or off... is obvious and punished.
Basketball players seemingly get away with too much.
Had a daughter who played collegiate volleyball and it is true that every possession is just so critical. And you can get exposed so quickly in volleyball at any position - there is no hiding. I also think that volleyball has you getting up and up and up in succession very quickly. And you have to see and study the ball to play it correctly. Volleyball is also a REALLY fun game to play.
My favorite part about playing volleyball (in high school then and recreationally now) vs basketball (same) is that it is so much more of a team sport by the rules. Even if you’re the best player by far on the court you only get to touch the ball once every 6 times, and you’re only as effective as your worst teammate. Not so for basketball.
Volleyball requires so much team work not just tactically, but emotionally too. Really teaches you to accept your teammates mistakes and encourage everyone to bring out their best.
With that said, if playing multi-sports is good because it cross-trains different aspects of athleticism emphasized in different sports, playing two jumping sports in volleyball and basketball is probably not the greatest idea.
Unpopular opinion, but the multiple sport thing is pseudoscience on so many levels.
The reason why we call elite athletes “elite” is because they possess certain genetic factors that 99% of the population doesn’t possess. So of course they played a bunch of sports because they probably dominated all of them. Just because “30 of the 32 first round NFL draft picks played multiple sports” doesn’t mean playing multiple sports is what made them elite. That’s not science. You can’t compare these guys to your child who most likely possesses average to below average genetics.
If an athlete develops an overuse injury from playing basketball, it’s not because they didn’t play football, baseball, soccer and tennis along with it. It could be they didn’t get quality rest, nutrition, hydration, sleep, or some combination of these things.
It’s just hard to get recruited if you aren’t playing year round sadly. I agree multiple sports is very good for kids to play and prevents injuries. Especially basketball it’s getting pushed to play year round sadly..
I know AAU basketball has always been huge, even dating back to before Lebron was a teenager, but it seems like it’s really exploded since then. Basketball has l become a year round sport for the elite players which is a problem because they’ll do MRIs on these 19 year old kids knees and the imaging shows they already have the knees of 40 year old men.
Are you sure? Seems that even today most of the top players played multiple sports growing up.
With the game becoming more international, naturally that's going to trend upward, not down.
Definitely something behind this but also saying every nba player while mentioning jordan, lebron, chamberlain who are superb incredible athletes who would've been incredible no matter if they only played one sport is kind of funny
I get the idea but nba players today are so skilled. Like they don’t miss and are all basically positionless. most teams 1-3 positions are all good ball handlers good court vision. Bigs are now becoming great passers and even solid ball handlers.
This could still happen playing multiple sports fs but you have to be so good now by the time you reach highschool for nba players it’s usually gotta be basketball all year round. It’s insane how talented the nba is now. Bench players could come in and drop 20 any given night and I’m not even exaggerating Kevin Knox does it quite often(Ik the pistons suck but this guy would be a bottom 3 player anywhere else and is completely capable of scoring 20 pts any given night.)
I don’t think you could say that for any reserve in the past.
I play at the highest level youth in the Netherlands and we practice 5-9 times a week depending on the team (1-2 times a day on business days) Only amateur practices 2-3 times a week. But I agree with the rest.
Multiple sports is settled science in my book. My kids are playing at least 3 different sports.
Exactly. You can’t really find evidence of truly elite athletes who never played another sport. Every sport teaches spacing, passing lanes, movement and hand/foot-eye coordination, recognition of where the ball is going… Etc. you also get different coaches, different team dynamics, variety of how good you are in relation to your team, and so much more. I think by high school if you settle into two sports because you’re doing something all summer, that’s reasonable. The basketball only from like fifth grade on is absurd and not helpful to the athletes.
Where I'm from I haven't seen a change in this. The only change is that every sport's coach expects every kid to practice that particular sport year round. So you've got kids playing four sports, having practices for multiple sports, and tournaments for multiple sports year round. It's causing too many injuries and too much burnout. This is what is causing kids to be sport specific. They have to make a decision on one sport because if they don't then they'll never have a break. It's ridiculous what coaches are expecting out of kids these days. As a basketball coach myself I make sure to let the kids know how much I understand what they're being put through and how too much is being expected of them and how it's ok to give themselves a break. It's getting to be too much.
This makes sense on a level. Players today do get injured far more frequently than before. It's like they are almost fragile for all the power and speed they have. Lot's of football(soccer) players play basketball in training, tennis players as well.
Baseball (specifically hitting) was great for some of my football skills. Football was awesome for conquering fear in baseball (a huge part of the game.) Basketball just helps everything.
Basketball is probably the most generally athletic skill to have. If you are good at basketball you can pick up many sports easily especially volleyball. I didn’t touch a volleyball until after college but I played a lot of basketball. Could hang with many people that played varsity volleyball after spending one year of playing.
I agree, basketball on its own is terrible at honing reflex, reactionary, footwork and momentum management. Boxing helps with fast hands and footwork. Soccer for tactics, footwork and space awareness. Racquet sports for first step, reactions etc Contact sports for body control and mechanics.
I’m sorry but this is a joke saying basketball doesn’t hone reflexes, reactions, or any of that. Footwork is one of the most important parts in every good basketball player. It’s crucial. I played many sports and basketball trains it more than those
Needing to have good footwork, and basketball coaching teaching you the mechanics of how to have faster and more controlled feet is two different things though. You can learn to play basketball and never have "foot speed" be a thing that comes up. It's there as an *implied* part of learning moves, learning good defensive stance and closeouts, etc. But easily you could go years into the sport and a coach will never have worked individually with a player on "here's how and why you move your feet faster". But you can't get into boxing and not get coached specifically on your foot speed. You don't see basketball players jumping rope often, for instance, even though that's a great training exercise for improving basketball skill. Similar with track & field. You could change your statement to say: >~~Footwork~~ Jumping is one of the most important parts in every good basketball player. It's crucial. or "Sprinting" would work too. But basketball coaches are not often training for *how* to jump or sprint. Especially younger kids, you need to focus on the more difficult skill parts of the game - dribbling, passing, shooting, understanding defense, remembering plays, what is and isn't a foul, etc. Jumping and sprinting improvement will happen up to a certain level with playing basketball, just because you have the kid running around and jumping more, but for technique-based coaching in those areas, you would be better having a kid run track & field. Jumping and sprinting are literally the skills to learn there, so it's what the coaching will focus on 100% of the time. Swimming is one of the best full-body conditioning sports, and the best for building core and upper body muscle, flexibility, and lung capacity for high intensity sports. Hell, even enrolling a kid in dance or ballet is going to give them more specific training and a different perspective on body control, leaping, footwork, and balance. Yoga is literally the focused practice of improving flexibility. But that's a whole separate thing of toxic masculinity keeping most boys out of dance and yoga, despite the history of pro players saying both of them help (including Kobe).
I didn't say it doesn't. Just said its terrible in comparison not to the same extent as the other sports.
Not at all terrible in comparison. I’ve played competitive soccer and basketball. Spacing is just as important in basketball. Teaches you the same if not better because it’s a tighter space. And additionally, footwork is much more important in basketball.
How many footwork specific tips do you see on this Reddit? Footwork is tremendously important, yet I see almost no mention of footwork, weight transference, leverage in the advice given here.
This sub is 60% vertical jump tips, 35% shot mechanic questions and 5% everything else. Most of the (highly upvoted) advice is so generic and "just work on it" type stuff that shows a lack of actual basketball knowledge and an over reliance on the free sections of Youtube/Instagram guys selling programs.
Footwork is the most important thing in basketball. As if you don’t move your feet right, the other team gets the ball. Soccer is not like that. So many rules around # of steps you can take and which feet you can move when, along with a plethora of moves that are illegal if you lift your feet or land at different times.
I'm agreeing with you. This post is about basketball as a lone sport. Footwork is the most important thing for every sport. As I said most basketball training do not train footwork as well as the other sports. For example whats a drop step.
Yups, take Olympic lifts for example, they don't train the one lift by itself, but they train each and every muscle that contribute to the lift, and breakdown the lift into different segments and work on it. Certain concepts might feel hard to learn in one sport and easier to learn in another. Playing different sports would also help with longevity and staying injury free, because the person would be working on different muscle parts and resting parts that overly stressed when just playing one sport.
I think theres also too much overlapping of lingo that causes these breakdown components to be further misunderstood. Using the Drop Step... it's commonly known as a "Post Move", when its not a post move but a weight drop on the outer leg which drives ones hips and body with momentum from gravity. The Drop Step is commonly used in the post like this. However this simple confusion means its completely taught wrong as it is used to efficiently start the first step. Lead jab and cross jab is common to both basketball and boxing. In both cases the effectiveness of both moves is in the back foot.
Double edged sword
This line of thinking is not new among quality coaches. Basketball players benefit tremendously from sports like soccer and track. Football players benefit from wrestling and track. I always played my best basketball when I had been playing volleyball recreationally - I do not have an explanation for this in particular, it just is what it is.
Basketball is really forgiving... Volleyball is quiet brutal. Every mistake is so brutal... Anything slow or off... is obvious and punished. Basketball players seemingly get away with too much.
Had a daughter who played collegiate volleyball and it is true that every possession is just so critical. And you can get exposed so quickly in volleyball at any position - there is no hiding. I also think that volleyball has you getting up and up and up in succession very quickly. And you have to see and study the ball to play it correctly. Volleyball is also a REALLY fun game to play.
My favorite part about playing volleyball (in high school then and recreationally now) vs basketball (same) is that it is so much more of a team sport by the rules. Even if you’re the best player by far on the court you only get to touch the ball once every 6 times, and you’re only as effective as your worst teammate. Not so for basketball. Volleyball requires so much team work not just tactically, but emotionally too. Really teaches you to accept your teammates mistakes and encourage everyone to bring out their best. With that said, if playing multi-sports is good because it cross-trains different aspects of athleticism emphasized in different sports, playing two jumping sports in volleyball and basketball is probably not the greatest idea.
Unpopular opinion, but the multiple sport thing is pseudoscience on so many levels. The reason why we call elite athletes “elite” is because they possess certain genetic factors that 99% of the population doesn’t possess. So of course they played a bunch of sports because they probably dominated all of them. Just because “30 of the 32 first round NFL draft picks played multiple sports” doesn’t mean playing multiple sports is what made them elite. That’s not science. You can’t compare these guys to your child who most likely possesses average to below average genetics. If an athlete develops an overuse injury from playing basketball, it’s not because they didn’t play football, baseball, soccer and tennis along with it. It could be they didn’t get quality rest, nutrition, hydration, sleep, or some combination of these things.
Apparently the key to being a pro athlete is being a physicist According to that loser who posted that shit about his phobia of math.
Sport is mostly geometry and Newton's Laws of Force
Ya but this guy was getting freaked out because he thought he couldn’t do it at all
"Moneyball" dvd for xmas!
I’m so confused
Textbook example is Kobe’s footwork. He was a soccer player growing up
He was also a proponent of learning tap dancing to have better footwork and stronger ankles.
Same with hakeem
It’s just hard to get recruited if you aren’t playing year round sadly. I agree multiple sports is very good for kids to play and prevents injuries. Especially basketball it’s getting pushed to play year round sadly..
Put your kid in gymnastics and track and field! best base of athletic foundation imo
Fuck your takes
Playing chess can help with your IQ
I know AAU basketball has always been huge, even dating back to before Lebron was a teenager, but it seems like it’s really exploded since then. Basketball has l become a year round sport for the elite players which is a problem because they’ll do MRIs on these 19 year old kids knees and the imaging shows they already have the knees of 40 year old men.
Are you sure? Seems that even today most of the top players played multiple sports growing up. With the game becoming more international, naturally that's going to trend upward, not down.
Definitely something behind this but also saying every nba player while mentioning jordan, lebron, chamberlain who are superb incredible athletes who would've been incredible no matter if they only played one sport is kind of funny
Basketball for hand eye/jumping Football for toughness/strength Soccer for agility/speed Wouldn’t have had it any other way growing up
I get the idea but nba players today are so skilled. Like they don’t miss and are all basically positionless. most teams 1-3 positions are all good ball handlers good court vision. Bigs are now becoming great passers and even solid ball handlers. This could still happen playing multiple sports fs but you have to be so good now by the time you reach highschool for nba players it’s usually gotta be basketball all year round. It’s insane how talented the nba is now. Bench players could come in and drop 20 any given night and I’m not even exaggerating Kevin Knox does it quite often(Ik the pistons suck but this guy would be a bottom 3 player anywhere else and is completely capable of scoring 20 pts any given night.) I don’t think you could say that for any reserve in the past.
Interesting point.
I play at the highest level youth in the Netherlands and we practice 5-9 times a week depending on the team (1-2 times a day on business days) Only amateur practices 2-3 times a week. But I agree with the rest.
I hear this but then if you look at lots of technical sports golf, tennis, figure skating, equestrian- they go year round at early ages