This comprehensive book covers the fundamental skills that every player needs to master in order to play basketball successfully. Written in an easy-to-understand style, the volume provides a thorough description of each skill and technique, and presents helpful coaching points that emphasize common mistakes. It presents several learning drills for each of the skills, which progress from beginner level through to the intermediate and more advanced levels, thus catering for the needs of players of all abilities. Catching and passing the ball, dribbling, shooting, rebounding, individual moves - such as defensive stance and fakes - as well as combination play between two or three players, and team-attacking and team-defence are all addressed in considerable detail. The book also covers: organizing basketball events; developing a basket ball coaching philosophy; coaching evaluation; the most important rules of the game; and the concept of 'total training', which embraces the technical, physical, tactical, psychological, theoretical, biological and artistic building blocks of the modern coaching process. The text is enhanced by information boxes containing Top tips and Rules Checks and fully illustrated in colour diagrams and sequence photographs. AUTHOR: Alexandru Radu is a Romanian basketball coach who has played as a professional in the First Romanion national League and who has gained considerable experience of the game both in the United Kingdom and in his native Romania. He has won several awards as a player and as a coach, and has coached mini-basketball players, juniors, and also seniors at both amateur and professional level. Alexandru is the Head Coach of North Shields Basketball Club and is a Graduate Tutor in Sport Management and Sports Development at Northumbria University in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. SELLING POINTS: • A comprehensive guide to basketball for anyone interested in learning the game and also for advanced players and coaches to further develop their skills and knowledge • Basketball is one of the greatest and most popular sports in the world attracting millions of players of all ages and abilities • Provides a thorough description of each skill and technique and presents several learning drills for each of the skills ILLUSTRATIONS: 320 colour photographs & diagrams *