Words we share

Terms

The two questions

Waar? from X10: Where to — and where not to. Stop, drive, dribble, pass, shoot, contact, step.
Wanneer? from X10: When to — and when not to. Release, follow through, stop, shoot, pass, cut.

Philosophy & club language

Every day better than yesterday from X8: Our motto: a little better every day.
Next Best Action (NBA) from X10: Always think: what is the best next action right now?

Space & shot

De vloer is lava from X10: An answer to Where: don't stop or stand still in the midrange. Shooting is fine if it is a good shot.
Goed schot from U12: Caught in balance, powered from the legs, finished long, inside your range, not contested. Otherwise: keep going to the smiley, pass, or reset.
Range from U12: An answer to Where: the furthest distance from which you make it consistently with good form.
Spacing from U12: Players spread out so space appears.
Gaps from U12: Open lanes between defenders to drive into.
1-tegen-0,9 from U12: After a drive you are one-on-one but with a small advantage in time or space. Then you go to the basket. Without that advantage a shot is a throw.

Stops, fakes & first step

Goede stop from X10: Jump stop or stride stop on every catch and finish.
4 threat from U12: Catch in balance, ready to shoot, drive, dribble or pass.
Shot fake from U12: Fake shot out of the stop — the defender has to buy it.
Jab step from U12: Short test step, open or cross, to make the defender choose.
First step from U12: The first step past the defender, one motion out of the stop.
Ball rip from X14: Rip the ball fast high-to-low or low-to-high.

The framework

Laag: A level, not an age. 0 aware · 1 control · 2 shape your own movement · 3 shape others. Age is only a hint.
Tijd en ruimte: The main skill: shaping time and space, of yourself, the ball, your teammates and your opponents.
Fundament: Something that transfers to the game: on demand, with a goal, under pressure, contact and little time, and you know when and when not. A chest pass or plain lay-up is a form, not yet a fundamental.
Ontdekken en benutten: Room to try and moments to use what works. When and how a technical limit comes is the coach's decision, and the coach explains why.
Aanleren · leren · competitie: How you coach a block. Teaching: short, precise, at most 10 minutes. Learning: variation, questions, choice. Competition: intensity, a score, few stops. An activity is not one of the three by nature.

Game & decisions

De tweede cut from U12: The first cut after a pass almost never works: it comes from one pass away. The second cut, from two passes away, is the real threat.
Aanvallen is niet egoïstisch from X10: Going to the rim and making space for a good shot is not selfish. Passing the ball on without a reason or goal is.
Voordeel from X10: Offence: create, notice, punish. Defence: foresee, don't give, recover.

Body & contact

Contact from X10: Make it legally, hold it and release it when you want, on both sides of the ball. From the start, step by step: from falling safely to using contact for balance and space.
Balans begint in je oren from X10: A balance game is always a good start to a session. Who can fall safely dares to go.

Principles

Where?

The first of the two questions. Every action on the floor is a place decision, and every decision has its opposite: not doing it is just as much a choice. Teach players to ask the question before the action, not after.

When?

The second question. The same action in the same place is right or wrong depending on the moment. Timing is not a detail of the technique — it is half the decision.

Running without the ball

The purest team action there is. A player who sprints to the corner knowing the ball is not coming has understood the game. It is tactical (spacing), physical (conditioning) and mental (team-first) all at once — which is why it does not belong to one dimension. We score it in all three.

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Run to the corner — even when you will not get the ball. You drag a defender with you and open the drive for someone else.
Cutting is not decoration. Every pass is followed by a movement.
Standing still is the most expensive error in youth basketball: it costs two players at once — you, and the one with the ball.
At U12 this was our entire spacing goal: everyone runs, always, also without reward.
Measure it. How often per possession does a player run to a corner? Count it one session per period.
Name it out loud. What you name happens more often — especially the work nobody else notices.

Two answers we lock down

Everything in this plan is an answer to Where or When. These two we fix club-wide, in every age group, because they are the ones most often got wrong.

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Where not to stop: the floor is lava. Don't stop or stand still in the midrange, with or without the ball. No dead dribble there, and no parking there without the ball. Space outside, or keep going to the smiley and the rim. Shooting from the midrange is fine if it is a good shot. Coaching language: don't stop in the lava.
A good shot, not a hopeful throw. Caught in balance, powered from the legs and hips, finished long (reach as high as you can, joints open, hold the follow-through), inside your range and not contested. If one is missing, keep going: to the smiley, a pass, or a reset. Throwing the ball at the rim and hoping is not an option.
Where not to shoot from — outside your range. Your range is the furthest distance from which you shoot with correct technique without forcing it, and still make it consistently.
Setting your range: start at 1 m, step back half a metre at a time. The limit is where the form breaks or you drop below 4 of 10. Write that distance down.
Range is personal and it moves. Re-measure every period, and certainly after a growth spurt.
Range grows through strength and technique — not by trying further.

Starting points

Basketball is a foot sport

More a foot sport than a hand sport. Almost everything that goes wrong with the ball begins at the feet. Footwork is not a part of training - it is the layer underneath every other part.

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Landing and deceleration before everything. Who cannot stop cannot choose.
Lateral movement and mirroring: follow the attacker without crossing your feet.
Angles are footwork. The angle of a drive, of a closeout, of the body when you receive a pass.
Joint awareness: knowing what ankle, knee and hip are doing, and being able to use them deliberately.
Hip mobility is not an extra. Without the hip, the back or the knee does the work.
Knowing how to fall belongs here. Fall, roll, get up - safely and without hesitation.

18 of the 20 minutes

If everyone plays equal minutes, a player holds the ball roughly one twentieth of the time. That is two minutes with the ball and eighteen without. Yet we often train as if it were the other way round. Off-ball play is not an add-on - it is by far the largest part of the game.

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Run to the corner even when the ball is not coming. You take a defender with you.
See the floor. Head up, with and without the ball, until it feels comfortable.
Knowing who is where and where the empty space is - that is a trainable skill.
Rebounding is a habit, not the tall player's job. Everyone goes.
Paint touch, smiley stop, kick-out, ball reversal: learn to see strongside and weakside.
Off-ball belongs with the first things we teach, not the last.

Catching

The most underestimated and undertrained skill in basketball. A poor catch makes every following decision worse, no matter how good the player is. We train it as a main subject, not as a warm-up filler.

From 1-on-0 to 5-on-5

Everything is built in the same order, offense and defense alike. First without an opponent, then with, then with more players, then short-handed. Skip a rung and you are training something the player cannot yet carry.

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1-on-0, 1-on-1, 2-on-1, 2-on-2, 3-on-2, 3-on-3 - and onward.
1-on-1 is the biggest part of the game. From a young age, including mismatches.
Playing short-handed trains decisions faster than playing with an advantage. 4-on-5 belongs here.
No fancy moves. Fakes and fundamentals: hesitation, pocket dribble, different first steps, different timing, different angles.
Ball protection on the dribble and after the gather - between the legs, behind the back, in-and-out, spin - as protection, not as show.
Screens come only once timing and spacing are there. The screen itself is the easy part.

The fun formula

Fun is not an atmosphere, it is a design. These six dials decide whether a session is enjoyable, and you can set every one of them in advance. If a session drags, look at which dial is off.

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Balance between new and familiar - something recognisable, something that does not work yet.
Competition - a score, an opponent, something to win.
Challenge - just above the current level, not far above it.
Always active - no lines, no waiting.
As many ball touches per player as possible.
As much scoring built into it as possible.

How we coach

How you explain decides how much sticks. We take things out of the player's own body and put them outside it - reference points on the floor, on the rim, on an opponent. What you can point to outside yourself, you can remember.