Dribbling is one of the most important basketball lessons that you should learn for you to be a great basketball player. If you are just starting out in basketball, here are basketball dribbling rules that you need to know:

Walking and dribbling

It’s an offense to walk without dribbling. Basketball experts advise that you shouldn’t take more than a step-and-a-half without dribbling the ball. If you do it, the referee will call traveling which will get your team penalized.

Once you have stopped dribbling, the foot that lands on the court first should serve as the pivot foot and you can’t lift the foot again while you still have the ball.

Double dribble

If you have attended a basketball camp, you must have heard of double dribble. There are two ways in which you can commit this violation: when you stop dribbling and dribble again without passing or shooting the ball, and when you have the ball in both hands when you are in the act of dribbling.

Palming

It’s also known as ‘carrying’ the ball. This is when you place your hand under the hand of the player dribbling the ball. You also commit palming when you place your hand on the side of the ball while it’s still in the act of dribbling. When you commit this offense you result to the referee giving the ball to the opponent.

Tips on how to improve your basketball dribbling skills

Since dribbling is important in basketball, you need to improve your dribbling skills. Here are tips on how to improve the skills:

Keep your head up: it’s common for new players to keep on looking at the ball when they are dribbling. Doing this not only slows you down, you also don’t know where you are going. To dribble the right way you should keep your head up.

The best way of doing it is looking at the hoop or pick out a spot on the wall where you will focus on when you are dribbling.

Use your fingertips: to increase your dribbling accuracy, basketball coaches recommend that you should use your fingertips (instead of palms) to control the ball.

Use angles: you need to be in the right angle for you to make an accurate dribble. For ideal results, you should move your body in straight lines. Whenever you find that you are making a side to side move, you should quickly come back with a direct path towards the basket.

Conclusion

Basketball dribbling is important and you should work hard at ensuring that you master it. To have an easy time you should undertake as many basketball drills as possible.