Dribbling in Basketball

Series Summary

In December of 1891, A Canadian by the name of James Naismith, a physical education student and instructor at a local YMCA, was looking for a way to stay fit during the long winter months. Needing to stay indoors, Naismith nailed a peach basket to a ten foot elevated track in the gymnasium and basketball was born. At first the basket retained its bottom, meaning the ball had to be retrieved after every basket, but soon improvements were made and an iron rim and cloth net replaced the wooden peach basket. Basketball continued to evolve over the next century and rose out of obscurity into one of the most popular sports in the world.

In this free video series, our expert Travis Corpening will tell you all you need to know about dribbling in basketball. He'll teach you the basics of dribbling, the squeeze drill, the tip drill, the figure 8 drill, the backboard tip drill, the reverse figure 8 drill, and the ankle, wrist, and head drill. He'll also tell you about the crossover dribble drill, the in and out dribble drill, running dribble drills, and the between the legs dribbling drill. Finally, Travis will go over some drills to work on your dribbling skills for the left and right hands.

Video Transcript

"One thing if you look at basketball nowadays; one thing that you absolutely have to know going up against a good defense is how to handle the ball and when you're talking about ball handling, it's extremely important because you'll have anything from getting the ball stolen to making any kind of turnovers. It actually can help you with your jump shot and shooting the ball. So when you're talking about ball handling, some of the greater ball handlers you'll have are usually point guards and ball handling can keep everything in line when you're coming down the court and it helps you actually to keep focus on what your team is doing. So we're going to talk about this a little later. So whenever you're handling the ball, you always want to get to the point; now when you're first starting out, you probably won't be able to do this. I remember the first time I started. You want to keep your head up the court. You don't want to look down at the ball because when you're looking down at the ball, you can't see what's going on around you. So when you're handling the ball, you definitely want to get to the point where you can look up and survey the court and make decisions. When you get to that point, then you will be an excellent point guard and you'll be right on your way to becoming a good handler."