Rebounding, which is not about being tall

Height matters less than people think

Parents of smaller kids often write rebounding off entirely, and they should not. At junior level almost nobody jumps well, so rebounds aren't won in the air. They're won by whoever is standing in the right place when the ball comes down, and standing in the right place is available to anybody.

The best junior rebounders I've coached were frequently not the tallest players on the team. They were the ones who moved the instant the shot went up, while everyone else was still watching to see whether it went in.

Where the ball actually goes

This is the piece almost no junior knows. Missed shots don't drop straight down under the ring. Most of them come off long, meaning they travel past the ring to the opposite side from where the shot was taken. A shot from the right wing tends to come off to the left.

Simply telling a child this changes their rebounding immediately. Instead of standing under the ring waiting, they start moving to the opposite side as the shot goes up, and they get to balls that used to bounce past them. It's the single highest return thing you can say about rebounding.

Boxing out

Boxing out means getting your body between your opponent and the ring so they can't get to the ball. As the shot goes up, the player turns, makes contact with their backside and their back, and holds that position with a wide base and arms out.

The bit juniors get wrong is watching the ball instead of finding the person. The instinct is to track the flight, and while they're doing that their opponent simply runs around them. The correct order is find the body first, make contact, then look for the ball. Contact before flight, every time.

It's also the least rewarded skill in junior basketball, because a good box out usually means a teammate gets the rebound and nobody notices who created it. Worth telling your child that, so they don't conclude it's pointless.

Practising it at home

You can practise the whole thing without a ring. Stand behind your child. On a call, they turn, make contact with you and hold you off for three seconds while you try to get past them on either side. That's the entire movement and it takes up no space at all.

If you do have a ring, throw the ball at the ring deliberately from different angles and have them call out which side it will come off before it lands. Getting them predicting rather than reacting is the goal, and calling it out loud makes the prediction visible to both of you.

Effort, and why coaches watch it

Rebounding is one of the few things in basketball that's almost pure willingness. There's no technique barrier to speak of and no talent requirement. A player who chases every miss is making a choice, and it's a choice a coach can see from the sideline within about two minutes.

That's why it matters so much at tryouts. When a coach is deciding between two players of similar ability, the one who went after loose balls and contested rebounds gets picked, because that behaviour is the closest thing to a guarantee of effort for the rest of the season.

It's also worth telling your child that rebounding is the easiest way to contribute on a bad day. Shooting deserts everyone occasionally, and a player whose whole value is scoring has nothing left when the shots stop falling. Chasing rebounds is always available, regardless of form.