Brett Currah

It’s that time of year when many basketball athletes start saying something along the lines of, “I’m going to do better next year.” With the best intentions they enter the off-season thinking how they learned some gold nuggets from mistakes, trials, and tribulations of the past season and how they “won’t let them happen again.”

Game shots. Game speed. Game spots. High intensity. Quality over Quantity. Have a plan. You’ve heard it before, especially if you’ve attended one of our courses. You know what to do and how to maximize your improvement. But what shouldn’t you bring to the gym when you’re training?

COACHES HAVE FAVORITES!! Of course, they have favorites—their favorites are the players they can trust, on and off the court.

Here are four reasons you may not be getting the playing time you think you deserve.

As a former player and now coach, it’s hard to explain the feeling and atmosphere surrounding tournament time. The opportunity to compete in a game, when all the hours and sweat have come down to that one moment, is nothing short of spectacular. But I have a challenge for you this year: Don’t just watch these moments. Instead, study them.

Creating positive places in your life is often not easy. But it’s something you have to strive to do, even if the only positive place you can create is the space between your ears. That space is the most important. But once you’ve taken care of that space you have to try to make some other places as manageable, as positive, as perfect as possible for yourself. People who have positive places to go to, and established routines to follow, can get so much more accomplished.

From as far back as I can remember sports were my passion. More specifically, basketball was my passion. I loved being a kid and letting my imagination run wild. Day after day I would go out to my driveway and beat the best players in the world in epic one-on-one battles. Those blacktop wins pushed me towards the beginning of basketball obsession. This obsession continued to push me throughout high school and into the early stages of my college career.

It’s almost that time of year again. Players, you have little time remaining to hone your craft this offseason before it’s time to prove how hard you’ve worked to improve yourself—both on and off the court. With that in mind, consider the following “must dos” that you should be focusing on now—if you’re not already—to help ensure your team has an opportunity for a special season.

VIDEO: Watch now as Mano Watsa shows you a creative finish that can be used in the half-court, and in transition, to throw off the timing of a shot blocker.