Needs Analysis

Evaluation of the Sport – Basketball

Basketball is a team sport, played with 10 players on a team with 5 players on a rectangular hard polished wood floor court at any one time. The objective of the game is to shoot a basketball through a horizontally placed basket positioned at either end of the court, to score points. A successful shot in play is worth 2 points, a foul shot is worth 1 point and a successful shot outside the 3-point line is worth 3 points. Basketball players wear high trainers to support their ankles and need good grip so they do not slip on the polished floor and cushioning within the trainers to soften the landing after a jump.

Basketball is a no contact sport and fouls are given when contact occurs. All major muscle groups are used and a combination of unidirectional, multidirectional and rotational motion is seen within basketball.  Players need good speed, agility, hand-speed and coordination.

The game uses both anaerobic and aerobic energy systems, although mainly anaerobic as play can last only up to 30 seconds at a time. During a game, players must be able to sprint, recover and then sprint again in a short period of time. As the ball is nearly always in play, there is very little recovery time available.

Evaluation of the Athlete – Guard

The athlete being assessed is male, 20 years of age, weighs 91 kilograms and is 199cm tall. He plays basketball at a national level at the position of shooting guard. The shooting guard is able to shoot the ball when in play and is also able to consistently shoot from long range. They also have excellent ball handling-skills, including passing and dribbling. The athlete is currently in the start of the off-season training period.

He has been assessed on his movements and the results show that he performed well on basic strength tests but has poor balance mechanics on various drills. He also struggled with agility drills requiring landing from a jump and changes of direction.

The athlete started a resistance training programme two years ago and shows excellent exercise techniques, and his coach suggests his defensive skills would improve if he was stronger in the upper body which is the Primary Training Goal with the Secondary Training Goal being improving his balance mechanics and agility. Improving his defensive skills is vital as one of the roles of a shooting guard is defending the opposing team’s strongest perimeter threat.

Injury Assessment

Our athlete has sustained three lateral ankle sprains to the right ankle in the last 18 months but is currently free of injury. In basketball, ankle injuries are among the most common injuries sustained and are among the most severe (McKay, Goldie, Payne & Oakes, 2001). Ankle injuries also account for more than a quarter of all injuries during a  basketball game and during practice (Hertel, Grossman & Marshall, 2007) and up to 25% of all time lost from competition (Ottaviani, Ashton-Miller, Kothari & Wojtys, 1995). McKay et al. (2001) found that almost half of ankle injuries (45%) occurred during landing, with half of these from landing on another player’s foot and half from landing on the court surface. They also found other mechanisms of injury to the ankle were a sharp twist, or a turn (30%) collisions with other players (10%), falls (5%), sudden stopping (2.5%), tripping (2.5%) and other (5%)