The Greatest Basketball Camp Drill Ever

Today was my second day leading clinics at a school in Kochi, India. Due to torrential downpours, we started inside (above) in a multi-purpose room with no baskets, and the columns. In the first clinic, with middle schoolers, I set up a drill similar to dribble tag or partner tag.Players break up into pairs, and each player has a ball. The objective is to dribble and tag their partner on the knee. As we broke up to start the game, Adi (pictured at right) asked an astute question. Over the two days, I had been encouraging questions, which differs from the school environment in India (from what I have been told). He asked if they should switch partners after they were tagged. I said no, but that it was a good idea.We played the first game in pairs. Then, I decided to see if it worked as Adi suggested. It worked great. I instructed players who tagged their partner to hold the ball over their head so that the other players would know that they were searching for a partner. After being tagged, the player had to find a new partner. It was a series of 1v1 games with constantly switching partners. The children loved it, so I told Adi that I’d name it “Adi’s Drill.”Later, with the high-school players, we played outside in the pouring rain. We played “AdiTag” for 15 minutes in rain that pooled into puddles on the court, and the players were smiling the entire time. When we met with the Vice Principal before leaving, she said that she received a call telling her to look out the window to see how much fun the players were having while playing in the rain.Greatest Camp Drill Ever! This beats “Capture the Basketball” that I invented on the fly in Idaho last summer.By Brian McCormick, PhDDirector of Coaching, Playmakers Basketball Development LeagueAuthor, The 21st Century Basketball Practice