If there’s one question I get asked several times, all the time really, it’s this: Where should I practice basketball?

That tricky question of SA for several reasons which I will come later in the article. For now, I’ll just say that its something that should be spoken because it is very important to your development as a basketball. So I’ll answer this question today in this article.

Where you practice is very important for many reasons. First, you play better when you practice the most. They call this “Court House Advantage”,and it is something very very true.

The other reason this is so very important are slightly more sinister. I know a guy who used to practice for hours a day to three indicators in its backyard. Support here, he could get anything under the sun with his eyes closed and with one hand tied behind his back (really, I’ve seen it done many times!). But when he arrived at school, he couldn’t a hit anything. Why was that? You wouldn’t expect to see that dramatic a difference between two locations, but this guy barely made the team when it came time to try as freshmen.

What happened? His court backyard was screwy. His basket was between a half and a full inch over the top it should have been and basketball he used was filled with too much air. These two simple things, things that could happen to literally anyone, were thrown off his game when he finally set foot on a real floor gymnastics.

So when you practice is extremely important. We see this all the time. Down at the park or the courtyard of a small gap on city street that you could absolutely dominate. But if things are off, the rim is too high or two short (and often do) you develop bad habits unbreakable and you reinforce the bad habits the longer you practice in such circumstances.

So what can you do about it? Well, the best thing to do is practice as much as possible on the court where your team will play during the season. Usually it is a gymnastics school or college. Many schools offer “Open Gym” when you can get in there and shoot around to your hearts content. I suggest you do this as much as possible, as long as possible. If this isn’t available, be sure to measure your current home or park with a tape measure to ensure the rim is ten feet tall. Be sure also to check the distance to the foul line and the distance to the line of three points. They often get painted over carelessly, or not at all.

Developing bad habits is a terrible thing to do, and its a real shame when you put in hours of practical work only to find that your practice is actually detrimental because you played a wrong place.