How to Improve Your Basketball Skills in 30 Days with Proven Techniques
When I first decided to seriously improve my basketball skills within a 30-day timeframe, I approached it much like a baseball hitter studying pitch patterns. The concept of "Ambush Hitting" from baseball video games particularly resonated with me - that idea of anticipating where the ball would come and positioning yourself accordingly. While the game mechanic ultimately proved somewhat superfluous in virtual baseball, I discovered its basketball equivalent became the cornerstone of my transformation. See, in basketball, we have our own version of "sitting on certain pitches" - reading defensive schemes and anticipating plays before they develop.
My journey began with brutally honest self-assessment. I filmed my pickup games and discovered my shooting percentage from beyond the arc was a dismal 28% - numbers don't lie. What surprised me more was realizing I'd been practicing wrong for years. Like that Ambush Hitting mechanic where focusing on one area diminishes another, I'd been so fixated on my three-point shooting that my defensive footwork had suffered. The key insight came when I recognized that basketball improvement isn't about equal attention to everything, but strategic prioritization. I decided to structure my 30 days into three 10-day phases, each focusing on different skill clusters while maintaining others.
The first ten days were purely about fundamental reconstruction. I spent 90 minutes daily on shooting mechanics alone, breaking down my form into micro-components. Elbow alignment, wrist snap, follow-through - each element got individual attention. What surprised me was how much improvement came from simple adjustments. Just correcting my shooting pocket position increased my shooting percentage by 9% in the first week. The real breakthrough came when I applied that "anticipation" concept from Ambush Hitting to rebounding. By studying shot trajectories and focusing on likely rebound zones, I increased my defensive rebounds from 3 to 7 per game.
Ball handling consumed days 11-20, and here's where personal preference really shaped my approach. Unlike many coaches who emphasize fancy crossovers, I focused on practical moves that worked for my playing style. I developed what I call "situation drills" - simulating actual game scenarios rather than mindless dribbling. For 45 minutes daily, I'd practice navigating screens, handling double teams, and making decisions under fatigue. The results were dramatic - my turnover rate dropped from 4.2 to 1.8 per game. What made the difference was treating each practice repetition like those "guess the pitch" moments, learning to read defensive positioning the way hitters read pitchers.
The final ten days integrated everything into game-simulation scenarios. This is where the 30-day transformation truly crystallized. I created high-pressure situations - shooting while exhausted, making passes with defenders in my face, executing plays when down by 5 with one minute left. My conditioning improved dramatically too; I shaved 2 seconds off my lane agility test and increased my vertical by 3 inches. The most satisfying moment came during my final assessment game when I instinctively read a pick-and-roll, anticipated the pass, and got a steal that led to a game-winning fast break. That moment of perfect anticipation felt exactly what Ambush Hitting promised but rarely delivered - that sweet spot where preparation meets intuition.
Looking back, the single biggest factor wasn't any specific drill but the mindset shift. Like recognizing that Ambush Hitting's theoretical advantage doesn't always translate to practical benefit, I learned that basketball improvement comes from identifying what actually works versus what sounds good in theory. The 30-day framework forced efficiency and prioritization. I discovered that spending 65% of my practice time on my three weakest areas yielded far better results than balanced training. My shooting percentage climbed to 41%, assists doubled, and perhaps most importantly, my basketball IQ transformed completely. The program worked so well that I've continued its core principles, adapting them each offseason. Basketball improvement, it turns out, isn't about magic formulas but systematic, intelligent practice with a clear focus - and sometimes, that means learning from unexpected places, even from video game mechanics that ultimately didn't work in their original context.
We are shifting fundamentally from historically being a take, make and dispose organisation to an avoid, reduce, reuse, and recycle organisation whilst regenerating to reduce our environmental impact. We see significant potential in this space for our operations and for our industry, not only to reduce waste and improve resource use efficiency, but to transform our view of the finite resources in our care.
Looking to the Future
By 2022, we will establish a pilot for circularity at our Goonoo feedlot that builds on our current initiatives in water, manure and local sourcing. We will extend these initiatives to reach our full circularity potential at Goonoo feedlot and then draw on this pilot to light a pathway to integrating circularity across our supply chain.
The quality of our product and ongoing health of our business is intrinsically linked to healthy and functioning ecosystems. We recognise our potential to play our part in reversing the decline in biodiversity, building soil health and protecting key ecosystems in our care. This theme extends on the core initiatives and practices already embedded in our business including our sustainable stocking strategy and our long-standing best practice Rangelands Management program, to a more a holistic approach to our landscape.
We are the custodians of a significant natural asset that extends across 6.4 million hectares in some of the most remote parts of Australia. Building a strong foundation of condition assessment will be fundamental to mapping out a successful pathway to improving the health of the landscape and to drive growth in the value of our Natural Capital.
Our Commitment
We will work with Accounting for Nature to develop a scientifically robust and certifiable framework to measure and report on the condition of natural capital, including biodiversity, across AACo’s assets by 2023. We will apply that framework to baseline priority assets by 2024.
Looking to the Future
By 2030 we will improve landscape and soil health by increasing the percentage of our estate achieving greater than 50% persistent groundcover with regional targets of:
– Savannah and Tropics – 90% of land achieving >50% cover
– Sub-tropics – 80% of land achieving >50% perennial cover
– Grasslands – 80% of land achieving >50% cover
– Desert country – 60% of land achieving >50% cover
