the MAIN things to look for:

1. Do they know what skill/parameter you need to work on? If they don't know, do they know how to figure these things out?

2. Do they know the optimal way to work on that skill/parameter?

3. Are they good at prioritizing things and do they have systems for prioritizing what to work on?

the long story

I was recently asked by my freshmen players and parents, if they should hire a private trainer? I figured I would put this post together.

So, first and foremost, we have to understand the reason why we want to hire a private trainer?  Usually, the answer is “to make me better at basketball.”

GET BETTER AT WHICH PARAMETER (ie. Dribbling, Shooting, Drop-Step, Speed, etc.)?

If you want your trainer to improve your game, then the first question you must ask is: “does the trainer know what I need to get better at?

If you ask them, what will they tell you? Will they give you a specific answer? Or a generic answer like “get better at shooting and dribbling.” The more specific and detailed that a trainer can get, the more you’ll know that you’re touching on something special.  A very specific trainer understands that if we can be deliberate, and purposeful with our practice, we will get results much more quickly.

Secondly, does the trainer want to talk to team coaches, or parents to try to get a picture of what strengths/weakness will arise? does your trainer ask for the information from the coaches? There's no one that knows your players better than the team coach that has just coached them for 15, 20,30 games and has seen them in 30-40 practices. They know the tendencies of the players.

SWOT Analysis?

Does the trainer assess the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for your next year of playing? If you walk a player through that together and get answers from the player or the parents essentially get a gather as much information about the players possible before getting into the training?

Or is the trainer experience enough to where they have an assessment created for someone their age? For example, high school freshman. I have an assessment for things to look for from a dribbling perspective.

HOW WILL YOU GET BETTER AT THAT PARAMETER?

Secondly, it is very important to know how so doing what so now that you know what to get better at, do you know how to get better at that thing? It is just as important because going out and dribbling. For example, I dribbled a tennis ball around my neighborhood because I saw Steve Nash doing it in a magazine. Then I learned that it was a waste of time. It actually didn't transfer to my game.

So how is the trainer proposing that you work on certain parameters? In other words, the drills that are being used are extremely important, because they should be able to transfer to the game.

Does your trainer have a plan of how he's going to improve your parameters and skills?

Does the trainer measure progress? How do they measure progress?

Is there going to be competition in the training or is it going to on-air (1v0) or is it going to be small group training?

In terms of competition, it could be on-air but you can still make it competitive where you play against a clock or play against a previous record of yours.  For example, yesterday I made 9 out of 20 3 pointers, Today, I'm going to try to beat it and hit 10! That’s still competitive and elicits confidence once the goal is achieved.

Is there a decision-making portion during training? Knowing when to use a skill is almost as important as knowing how to perform the skill

Although possible, it’s much more difficult to perform 1v0 training and perform decision-making. Although I’ve seen it in pieces like Basketball Decision Training, it’s not very prevalent in the game quite yet. 

EXPERIENCE OF THE TRAINER

Is the trainer good at prioritizing? What are they going to do first in practice that is most important to your game? Are they familiar with the 80/20 rule? Or other prioritization techniques?  In short, 20% of the parameters that you work on, will bring 80% of value of you on the court AND 20% of the drills that you do, will result in giving you the outcomes that you want.  For example, although a drastic example, 6’10” post-player and I work on ball-handling for 30 minutes of my workout, then that could be argued as a waste of time.

Is the trainer good at prioritizing? Do they know what deliberate/purposeful practice is?

IS VIDEO USED THROUGHOUT TRAINING?

Do they take video or do they watch video? This one's super important because video doesn't lie.  You can analyze tape so that's super important. And you can't argue that it's one of the best teachers you can break things down. You can do things in slow motion. You see a lot of things in film that you end up missing in a workout themselves.

WHO SHOULD OPT-OUT OF PRIVATE TRAINING?

If you or your son/daughter know:

1)    what parameters to work on

2)    the specific drills that will optimize to on-court improvement (the how).

3)    how to prioritize things

YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW

There are soooo many facets to the game that even I continue to learn a ton every year. The physical, the skills, the mental, the strategic, decision-making, etc. There may be experiences that the trainer has that no one else can speak to and can teach you about facets of the game that you never even knew that existed. 

Hopefully this was useful, and feel free to reach out with any questions.