by Walter Abrone

Created on: September 10, 2009

When it come down to any competitive sport, there is always a way you can make yourself better in that sport and in the game of basketball there is always a demand to get better. Basketball is a quick pace game always changing year to year, well not the sport itself, but the players. One year you will have a amazing player who dominates every aspect of the game for the year, then the following year he disappears. Most people will say he just had a good year or so on.

The reality of the situation is a decline or increase in ones game has a lot to do with practice. This is often said, but not stressed. Practice goes a lot further than the occasional pick up game at a black top and when your practicing work on areas in your game that you know you struggle with. Maybe you were in a game or on the black top and a player was defending you from using your jump shot really well. Those are the type of things you work at while you practicing, work on freeing up some space to make step back jumpers and sorts.

Besides practice one of the best tips I can give is to always have heart. I will give you an example of three NBA players Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Dominique Wilkins. Well many do not know this, but Wilkins had just as much potential as Bird and Jordan, his last full season with the Atlanta Hawks in eastern conference finals he and Bird had one the best fourth quarter games in BA history with the both of them matching 3 pointer for three pointer. In the end Bird won the battle and went on toe the NBA finals.

Bird didn't have the physical ability of Dominique but he had the heart to over come what he lacked. Physically Wilkins could jump just as high as Jordan and shoot the ball, maybe not as good as Bird, but non the less he could shoot. Now you have Jordan and when you watch his highlight tapes and his legacy, you hear he could do it all. Everyone forgets when Jordan came into the league he wasn't as good of a shooter and he didn't get his team involved as he did later in his career. But you could see every year he got better through practice. He even said in an interview years ago around his second year in the league he begun having doubts about his game, but through the strength of his heart he never gave in and went on to win 6 NBA titles.

You might look at these tips as cheesy, but no player ever became great just because he could jump, shoot or pass. They became great because they had the consistency and heart to do what was needed within the borders of his or her team.

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