Free Basketball Drills

These “free basketball drills” are some of my go-to drills and are easy to add into your practice. I’ve used these ball handling drills over the years to sharpen my skills, and got my handles to the point that they impressed guys like Lebron, Wade, Paul George and other NBA stars. So you know they’re legit!

At the bottom of this page I’ll have a full Youtube playlist with all of the drills that you should definitely check out, but I’ll also go into details of the main points of a lot of those drills in writing. However, if you prefer to watch the videos instead you can see them right here on YouTube.

Also, if you REALLY want to take your handles to the next level be sure to grab my free ball handling workout and guide at gethandles.com. The guide has a detailed, in depth look at some quick things you can do to improve your handles and basketball skills instantly, and the basketball drills in the workout will give you immediate improvements in your game.

So, the main drills you should work on to improve your basketball ball handling should focus on:

Fundamental moves such as crossovers, your basic dribble, inside outs, and 1 hand V’s
Finger strength and coordination
Intermediate and advanced moves to challenge yourself such as between the legs, behind the back, shamgods, spin moves and advanced variations and combinations of these moves
Chest and hip movement
Dribbling while on the move

Fundamental Moves Basketball Dribbling Drills

If you don’t have your fundamentals down, then forget about working on anything else. First thing’s first, get your mechanics down and make sure you’re comfortable with your regular dribble, crossovers, inside outs, and 1 hand V’s. I have tutorials for all of these moves on my YouTube channel.

Doing basketball drills on these is as simple as get repetitions of them in while stationary, and then on the move. Try to keep the ball in your hand for as long of a period as possible on each dribble by gripping the basketball with your fingers and pushing it back down. Make sure you’re also in a low stance. These execution points are key if you want to get the most out of these drills.

Finger Strength and Coordination Basketball Drills

Of all of the free basketball drills on this page, this one may be the most overlooked. Your fingers are what control the basketball, so getting them strong and coordinated is very important if you want to control the basketball effectively when passing, shooting, catching, rebounding and dribbling.

Two of my favorite drills for improving finger strength and coordination are finger dribbling and mini finger crossovers, which I call low “Notic” dribbles, named after a crew of streetballers that had some amazing dribbling ability.

To do the finger dribbles, just dribble the ball 20 times with each finger on one hand individually, then dribble the ball 1 by 1 with each finger from thumb to pinky and back to thumb 10 times. You should feel this in your fingers and hands. After that, repeat the drill with the other hand. You can also see how to do it in the video below:

The mini finger crossovers is basically using your fingers only to make super fast, super low crossovers back and forth. The goal is to get the ball so low and moving so fast back and forth in a tight side to side motion that the ball looks like it’s just vibrating or rolling slightly back and forth. Of course you want to actually be dribbling the ball, and the best way to make sure of this is to listen to make sure you can hear the ball bouncing.

Intermediate & Advanced Moves As Basketball Drills

It’s important to challenge yourself and expand your repertoire of moves if you want to become a great ball handler and player, and doing basketball drills that focus on advanced moves are the perfect way to do this.

There are a ton of options for this, and it’s as simple as taking moves such as between the legs, behind the back, shamgods, and spin moves and stringing them together in combinations. You can also do advanced variations of these moves by doing things such as an inside out between the legs dribble, or shamgod between the legs dribble.

By challenging yourself with more advanced variations you are giving yourself more options for moves, and making your basic moves feel a lot easier. That’s going to really boost your confidence with the basketball.

On top of that, basketball drills like this are fun and allow you to be creative and free. This will help you learn to enjoy your training, which is huge to keeping you motivated. An example of a drill like this would be the video below of a Steph Curry Ankle Breaker Combo:

Chest & Hip Movement In Basketball Ball Handling Drills

Getting full chest and hip movement into your ball handling is going to help you become more explosive with your first step, improve your change of direction, and it makes your fakes much more effective. Defenders are usually taught to follow the ball handler’s chest and hips, so by making a habit of moving your chest and hips on your moves, you’ll get a lot more defenders faked out and free up more space for yourself.

Incorporating chest and hip movement can be as easy as focusing on moving them more during your ball handling drills, but you can also emphasise it by touching your your hand on the ground by your opposite foot before changing directions with a crossover. An example would be if you’re dribbling with your left hand, you’d take your right hand and touch the ground in front of your left foot, and then crossover. This will force you to sway your hips and chest, and keep you low.

You can also see an example of what this looks like in my popular Killer Crossover drill tutorial. The drill has been viewed over 1 million times on YouTube, because it works wonders for your handles. You can see it in the video below:

Dribbling While On The Move Free Basketball Drills

Last, but certainly not least, you have to be comfortable dribbling the basketball while on the move. To be effective in games you have to be effective dribbling the basketball and getting somewhere on the court – point blank, period. So you need to practice this if you want to be able to do it in the game.

There are a ton of options for this, and really it just comes down to doing all of the previous tips and drills while on the move. You want to work on doing drills in a variety of moving situations, such as while on the run, changing directions, from a stop to and explosive first step, and from running to stopping. These are all abilities you need to have to be effective in the game.

Below is a drill that will help you work on an advanced dribbling move, that uses some unorthodox chest and hip movement in a hesitation. It’s a move that guys like Steph Curry and Chris Paul have used to fake out defenders and blow by them with ease. Try this free basketball drill and really focus on all of the execution points and you’ll develop a great go-to move.