Question:  How many minutes on average do you play basketball per day in the summer?

Can we agree that summertime is one of the best times to work on your game?  Great players take advantage of the summer to develop their skills.  Deron Williams is a great example.  Here’s his schedule for a typical summer day when he was in high school:

9:00 – Bike To Gym
9:30 – Work On His Game
12:00 – Pool
6:00 – Hoop With Older Guys
10:00 – Leave Gym

What’s the first thought that comes to mind after seeing his schedule?  That’s a lot of basketball.  It turns out, that’s not uncommon.  The most skilled players in the world dedicate a large amount of their time to improving their game.  And, there are three ways you can play basketball:

1.) By yourself
2.) Pick-Up Ball
3.) Organized Ball

If I asked you to look at that list and think about the past year of your life, what percent of the time did you do each of them?  Which do you think is most important?  I asked Deron and here’s his list of order of importance:

1.) By Yourself
2.) Organized
3.) Pick-Up

I agree.  Let’s compare the top two.

What’s the most amount of shots you’ve ever taken in a game?  Keep your answer in mind.  (For this example, we’ll use 20 shots) How long is a typical summer game in real-time?  About an hour, right?  So, you are getting up around 20 game-like shots per hour.  How long would it take to get up 20 shots by yourself with a rebounder?  A minute or two.  Do you see where I’m going with this?

Which is why Kevin Durant’s Timesheet on how he spent his time with basketball looked like this when he was in high school:

70% – By Himself
15% – Pick-Up
15% – Organized

The best thing you can do if you’re serious about improving your game, is get with a coach who you trust (they need to have a good knowledge of the game) and work with them on building a workout you can do on your own to help you develop as a player.  That way, you can make this summer, the summer you change your game!