The problem with two-ball dribbling drills

For the last year, many people have made a big deal about Stephen Curry's pregame dribbling drills and attributed his dribbling acumen to these drills. These drills are neither hard nor complex, and every month or so, a video goes viral of a 6 or 8-year-old performing similar drills. Here is the latest 6-year-old dribbling phenom featured on ESPN this week:

Now, I like two-ball drills, and they can motivate players to practice because it is easy to see improvement. There is a time and place to practice them. However, these drills do not show anything more than the player's familiarity with the drills, rhythm, and coordination. Rhythm and coordination are important to basketball success, and they are a reason that I use two-ball drills with young players. Unfortunately, we too often confuse success in the drills with actual dribbling skill as required in a game.

Today, I worked with a player, and we used some two-ball drills. The drills were more of a distraction than anything, as my purpose was to rehab the player from a nagging injury. The rehab was based primarily on walking and running, and I added some basketball drills to make it less boring, as the primary goal was increasing the length of time (endurance) rather than intensity, technique, or anything else.

The player is a college point guard and probably deserved to be all-league last season. She had multiple games with 8+ assists and had games of 20+ points and 10+ assists. By any measure, she is a competent, and probably a very good, dribbler in basketball games at a reasonably high level of competition playing a schedule that included several nationally-ranked teams.

When we started, I told her to do the two-ball drills that she does usually, as I know that she likes to do two-ball drills on her own before practice and games, like Curry. However, like Curry, she typically does these drills in a stationary position, and I asked her to walk while doing these drills, as walking was the primary purpose. Because of her experience with the drills, she quickly transitioned from stationary to walking and walking backwards with few mistakes. It was not difficult. These were the beginning two-ball drills:

After these drills, I introduced a few drills that she had never tried previously. She struggled initially. These were simple drills, and drills that I demonstrated competently although I have not touched a basketball since October and do not consider myself to be an expert dribbler.

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Simple drills (although more complex than Curry's warmup because they include movement). I expect a college point guard to be able to do these drills without too much difficulty.

Her first attempts were messy, and she made mistakes. She struggled. However, after one or two trips to half-court and back, she could do the drills.

Now, did her dribbling ability improve between the first repetition and the third repetition? No. This is the learning effect. Regardless of one's skill, it takes a few repetitions to learn something new. In this case, she did not need to learn to dribble; she has demonstrated dribbling proficiency, and her success or failure in an unopposed two-ball drill would not change her proven success in games. Instead, she simply had to learn the timing, rhythm, and coordination of the specific drill. That's what she learned by doing the drill. She learned a specific pattern that is useful only in the singular drill.

This is the problem with two-ball drills. For beginners, they have some value because beginners need to learn to manipulate the ball and develop their rhythm and coordination. For younger players, the two-ball drills can have a motivational value. However, for most players, these drills teach a pattern. Once the pattern is mastered, there is no more learning by repeating the drills over and over.

Is repeating the pattern the reason that Curry is an adept dribbler? No. Instead, the rhythm and the pattern likely have a positive benefit in terms of routine and relaxation. As a pregame routine, there is a mental and emotional benefit that the drills may provide. But, in terms of learning and improving, two-ball drills teach a specific pattern that is useful for the specific drill and has limited, if any, transfer beyond the drill.

Are expert dribblers good at the two-ball drills? Generally, yes. Are the two-ball drills responsible for their expert dribbling? No. Two-ball drills primarily teach a pattern, which is why proficiency in the drills is based more on exposure than skill. Truthfully, when non-beginners struggle with these drills, it is due more often to lack of coordination or rhythm than to poor dribbling skill. The limiting factor is the ability to repeat the pattern, not the ability to dribble.

By Brian McCormick, PhDDirector of Coaching, Playmakers Basketball Development LeagueAuthor, The 21st Century Basketball Practice and Fake Fundamentals