3 Practice Drills to Develop Basketball Fundamentals

One gripe you hear on social media, talk radio, and from various coaching outlets is the following: “The fundamentals of the game are lost!” The question then comes back to this: Why are basketball “fundamentals” lost? And if that truly is the case, what can be done to fix it?

As all coaches (and parents) know, what you emphasize is what you believe in. As coaches, if we do not emphasize the fundamentals then your players will not work on the fundamentals. The next question to this conundrum is what exactly are basketball “fundamentals”?

Fundamentals can be defined as the basics of the game, skills all players need to have to be successful basketball players. I believe the fundamentals center around three skills: shooting, passing, and dribbling. In our practices and drills, we strive to do things to improve our players abilities in these three areas. Below are 3 “fundamental” drills that help to teach these three skills with some fundamental principles.

Drills to Practice Basketball Fundamentals

Drill 1 (2 Foot 2 Hand Drill)

This is a super fundamental drill that will have players working on attacking a defender’s hip, landing on a 2 foot jump stop, and finishing strong through a padded defender.

basketball fundamentals

Drill 2 (4 on 3 Passing)

This drill brings in the lost art of the “pass fake.” In this drill, the  offense’s goal is to complete 10 clean passes without a defensive steal or deflection. The key is each offensive player must keep a foot on either the block or the elbow (whichever they were assigned). This also works on an important part of both offense and defense:communication.

basketball fundamentals

Drill 3 (Perfect Passing)

This is a great drill to make sure our passes are hitting our teammates in stride, it works on our communication, and we can even test how our players do in a little more difficult situation when we randomly changedirections in the middle of the drill.

basketball fundamentals

I hope you enjoyed looking through these three fundamental drills!


Kyle Brasher | Gibson Southern High School
Lady Titans Basketball Coach


Related: Focus on Fundamentals


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