If you’ve watched most Asian league basketball playoffs or games, you must’ve seen top players like Delvin Goh, Zhong-Han Wong, and Jeremy Lin win games by shuffling, leaping, and blocking scores from opponents during a game–while keeping their eyes up, and not on the ball.
If you replay these games–slowly, so you can catch every second of their movements, you would see the skills and focus that went into this amazing play. First, the player would track his teammates’ and also his opponents’ locations on the basketball court. Then, he considers the different options, figures out his opponent’s strategy, comes up with an effective defense strategy, and runs it–and all this gameplay happens in a few seconds while moving around the court.
Essentially, your hand-eye coordination plays an important role in how good your stats are on the basketball court.
Curious about how to improve yours? Let’s find out!
Importance in Basketball
In the game of basketball, your hand-eye coordination skill is essential. With great coordination, you would be able to respond to other players and the ball’s movement while making accurate shoots, scores, and passes.
Basketball is a game where good hand-eye coordination is essential. Making accurate passes and shoots requires the ability to respond swiftly to the movement of the ball and other players. In practicing hand-eye coordination drills, you are not only improving your vision response but also improving your range of motion while increasing your flexibility–all beneficial to you as a basketball player.
How Does Basketball Help with Coordination?
Basketball is a fast-paced sport, which means to excel in it, you have to practice your hand-eye or foot coordination constantly. You also need to learn how to move fast while playing so you can evade your opponent, jump, and change directions when necessary.
No matter how good your eyesight is, it won’t hurt to perfect your visual and hand-foot skills to boost your performance. Here are some visual skills you need as a basketball player:
- Learning to focus and track the basketball’s movement in case your opponent loses it after a rebound.
- Ability to determine the basketball’s distance from the basket and you. This will tell you how long it will take you to reach the ball and score.
- Peripheral vision focus that allows you to see what’s happening around you while still keeping an eye on the ball.
- Ability to shift focus between the ball and your opponent during the game.
- Learning dynamic visual accuracy to help you account for important details of swiftly moving objects. For instance, the color of the opponent or your teammate’s jersey running towards you should prompt a different and faster response from you.
Hand-Eye Drills and Exercises
To improve your hand-eye coordination skills, you need to constantly and consistently practice various basketball drills to help with your vision focus and shooting accuracy. Some of these drills include:
Ball Toss and Catch Drills:
These drills are a good way to work on your foundations especially if you are a beginner. To perform this drill, stand with your feet apart and throw the ball above your head. Then let the ball hit the floor and catch it once it bounces off the floor. You can also try tossing and catching the ball around your leg, body, or head. Try to be as fast as possible and keep your head up.
Multi-Tasking Drills
These drills save time as you don’t have to reset on each drill. Performing different drills might waste time and will not help you achieve much during practice. Some of the drills involved in this drill include backup dribble, behind the back, crossover, figure eight between the legs, and inside-out dribble.
Ensure to practice these drills with your family or a friend for better evaluation and training speed. Apart from training with your friend or family member, you can also train with a professional.
At Scholar Basketball Academy, we offer the best training with seasoned coaches to help you improve your game. Check out our SBA programs, and fill out the forms to get a headstart on improving your hand-eye coordination.