Basketball Videos - Basketball Training and Basketball Coaching at Better Basketball

The Better Basketball DVDs are the world’s preeminent improvement videos. Packed with extremely detailed yet easy to understand techniques, each video starts with the absolute basics before moving on to more advanced concepts that will vault a serious player to the next level. The Better Basketball instructional videos feature a logical and precise progression of development to ensure your hard work is rewarded with substantial improvement. Our staff spends 8-12 months working on each Better Basketball DVD because we're devoted to the game, and working to achieve perfection with our product. The result is that when highly developed basketball coaching minds watch the Better Basketball videos, they’re blown away by the detailed techniques, the incredible amount of content, and the innovative yet logical learning progression. And yet, when parents and kids who are still learning the game watch the Better Basketball DVDs, they're relieved at how clearly the basketball instruction is explained, and thrilled to discover the ultimate foundation of basketball fundamentals. While you're on betterbasketball.com, we encourage you to read the detailed description of each Better Basketball video. You’ll develop a firm understanding of what’s on the videos, and you’ll get a feel for how the Better Basketball DVDs will help you improve and reach your goals.	The newly released BetterBasketball.Com Online Magazine is the ultimate source for people who absolutely love basketball and want to enhance their hoops IQ. Subscribers will have access to over 500 features a year. These features will cover anything and everything that will lead to improvement: skill development and techniques; drills and workouts; plays, sets, game management theories and practice planning for coaches; strength, speed, quickness, jumping, stretching, and conditioning techniques; nutritional advice; injury prevention and care; rules and refereeing info; sports psychology, and more! Some of the best in their respective fields will contribute their expertise to the Better Basketball Online Magazine: winning coaches from all levels and from all over the world; both current and retired professional players; published PHDs in sports psychology; certified nutritionists and orthopedists; and many others. Plus, members will have access to terrific bonus features. For example, in 2006 we signed a deal with the NCAA that will enable members to break down and study clips of DII and DIII men’s and women’s national championship games! With access to over 500 features a year, this content is invaluable to anyone with a passionate drive to be successful in basketball. The cost: just $59.95 for the year, or $5.95 per month.
When Better Basketball was formed in conjunction with Ferko Films, we searched for the best person to lead the way in compiling the ultimate collection of improvement methods for our basketball videos. We looked for a coach who understood both the youth level and the pro level, and had mastered the most basic skills and the most advanced fundamentals. We sought an individual who truly loved basketball and could teach the game in an entertaining and learnable fashion. The result was that in 1997, we found Rick Torbett. During his stellar playing career and 25+ years in coaching, Coach Torbett studied basketball as an exact science, breaking down techniques to the finest detail. He was the perfect choice to turn our dream into a reality, that dream being to assemble the definitive methods for player improvement. The result is the Better Basketball video series.	Over the past few years, some of the most accomplished current and former players from the NBA and WNBA have joined the Better Basketball team by adding a bonus section of their own techniques to a Better Basketball DVD. However, asking these pros to teach the entire spectrum of basketball instruction on our basketball videos, at the level Better Basketball demands, would take thousands of hours, along with a unique knowledge of the game. Instead, that’s what Coach Torbett and his staff specialize in doing. So we ask our stars to talk only about their expertise - those basketball techniques and basketball training methods that have allowed the pro to rise above the rest. We then share with our clients these secrets, previously known only to the select few, now available to any player, parent, or coach, via the Better Basketball DVD collection.
Better Basketball is the leading source for player improvement, basketball training and winning hoops. We take pride in our award winning methods of player development and have stayed ahead of the curve by being students of the game, constantly studying the best, traveling the globe, and searching for the sport's most successful new trends. We bring the best basketball instruction straight to you, via betterbasketball.com. Better Basketball is the home for people who have experienced that nearly indescribable love of basketball, a love first discovered at a young age when the game is uncontrollably fun... a love which then transforms during our competitive playing years into a passion to win and play at the next level... and a love that finally evolves into a pure desire to help the next generation master the sport, while feeding the urge to compete and remain a part of the basketball universe.	Whether you're a kid, a professional player, or anywhere in between; whether you're a coach of professional all-stars or just teaching basketball fundamentals to our youth; Better Basketball will accelerate your development and quest for improvement. The Better Basketball video series and Online Magazine will help all skill levels because we start with the absolute fundamentals - to ensure anyone can build that essential foundation upon which all other skills are based. But once the core skills are taught, we build to the highest level of detail, peaking with techniques so advanced that the Better Basketball videos are studied by high level players and in elite basketball coaching circles. You supply the heart and the sweat. We supply the hard-core techniques and basketball training methods. The result? You will improve and reach your goals.

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Building Better Youth Basketball

By Rick Torbett, Lead Instructor at Better Basketball

What’s happening to American basketball? There was a time when the only thing that Americans had to do to win internationally was show up with some good college players. Now, we can’t win with our professionals. Our opponents on the international scene are quoted as saying, "The Americans are good, but it’s not a big deal to beat them anymore."

When compared to the rest of the world, we are progressing at a slower rate. Does the problem stem from organization? If you answered, "What organization?", then you have answered my point. The American system is a mish-mash of organizations.

Let’s list a few: Middle schools, high schools, colleges, youth leagues, AAU, recreation leagues, and summer camps. Is there any way for a young player to begin at age 8, 9, or 10 and remain in the same organization and be taught progressively, skill upon skill, principle upon principle, layer after layer? Almost without exception across the country, the answer is no.

How many future stars were discouraged because they gave up too soon? We’ll never know. As an example, AAU is organized by age groups and gives the appearance of moving a kid along in the game. And there are a handful of AAU organizations that try to provide a system for development. But on the whole AAU is organized of individually coached teams whose purpose is to give the best kids in their age level a chance to play, win, and gain exposure; NOT to build a foundation of skills.

Another example would be a high school coach who has the chance to develop players from age 14 to 18. But how can he or she have a hand in the development from age 10 to 14. By age 14 a player might well have had 8 or 10 different coaches, all teaching something different and some teaching nothing at all!

Many of today’s youth coaches are mothers and fathers who simply want to help, but, God Bless them, they don’t know what to teach! Does America have any criteria that a coach must pass in order to teach the game?

If I threw 100 kids into a room and said to fight until only 10 were standing, I could enter those 10 as my "Top Fighting Team" and I could call myself their coach. That does not mean that they know the best way to fight nor does it mean that I have taught them anything about fighting! America has 260+ million people. Some of the countries that are competing and beating us have 10 or 20 million. Does our basketball system simply throw the players against the wall to see which ones stick and which ones don’t?

Instead of our current mish-mash, what if we decided to do something like this? Pretend that I have an organization that includes kids from age 8 to 18 with coaches at each age level. I write a curriculum for building the players, layer by layer. This curriculum details the skill sets that must be taught and mastered at each age, along with the best ways for the coaches to teach and drill these skills. Under age 14, the teams will run no plays and there will be no positions. Defense is man-to-man, there’s no zones. Defenders learn how to stay in a stance, move in a stance, the basics of help defense, and how to rebound. ALL players would learn how to handle the ball, run the floor, go one-on-one, team spacing and rotation, penetrate and pitch to their open teammate, etc. No screens of any kind are allowed. A violation of any of the above during games results in technical fouls. And to coach in this organization, you must pass an exam on the curriculum and demonstrate how to run a practice.

Why no plays, no screens, no post players, etc? For starters, it’s a mistake to teach too much at one time. And second, if the only way that a kid under age 14 can score is to run the floor, go one-on-one, pitch to an open teammate, etc., ALL BY PRINCIPLE, then that kid gets very, very good at those skills. They HAVE to, because it’s the only way they can score.

Ages 14-16 would begin to add ball-screens, screens away from the ball, and EVERYONE would learn how to play in the post. This would allow for the introduction of 4 out 1 in and 3 out 2 in offensive sets (instead of only a 5 out set). Players would learn how the entire team slides and rotates on dribble penetration regardless of the offensive set. (If you want to see how this works, check out Chapter 5 on my new video SCORING WITHOUT THE BALL. Look for it on www.betterbasketball.com.) Defense would be taught how to defend the post and how to help and rotate. And zones would be introduced at the age 16 level.

Age 17+: For a coach at this level, ANYTHING you decide to add offensively will work because you have a whole team of players that know how to handle the ball, run the floor, shoot, pass and move, penetrate and pitch, and ALL by principle. Your time in the gym does not have to be wasted with two-dozen man-to-man plays, a dozen zone plays, and ten out of bounds plays. Plays were invented to force non-players to move as if they know how to play. If you have players that know how to play, you won’t need plays. You can now use your time in the gym more effectively, such as how to effectively attack a specific zone. And we know that defense wins championships. With so little time needed for offense, how far could you take your team defensively if you could spend 75% of your practice time on defense?

The coaches in the organization would be working together with their eyes on the big picture: producing players that understand the game and have the skills to execute that understanding, and therefore players that raise the level of American basketball to something we can all be proud of.

By the way, do you think this system is impossible? Guess what, they’re already doing it in Europe!

Editor's Note: This article by Rick Torbett was originally published as a special feature in the all-new, Better Basketball Online Magazine. Please click here to view the Online Magazine's daily features, including downloadable video instruction on all aspects of basketball improvement.