Lesson 1: How To Get Basketball Gear

Basketball Gear

Before you ever step foot on to a basketball court you need to know how to get basketball gear that suits you. Today we will go over a list of basketball gear that is available to you and more importantly, how you can blend in when playing basketball as it is a sports where style is heavily scrutinized by long timers. Today I will cover the 3 most crucial areas: shoes, shorts, and accessories. These are the three areas that can really make you look bad if you don't get right, so listen up and make sure to follow these tips when getting buying your basketball gear.

Basketball Shoes:

Basketball shoes are one of the most important pieces of basketball gear that you will own as a basketball player. They not only look great and help you become faster, jump higher, and have more traction, but they are vital to staying healthy playing basketball. If you want to be completely safe, I would recommend getting high-top shoes, which make sure that your ankles aren't prone to sprains and breaks.

The best basketball shoes are usually made by Nike but Adidas, Reebok, And1, and even New Balance make respectable shoes that can get you on the court playing without major worries. Another advice when buying basketball shoes is the weight of the shoes. If you are heavy in size and play positions 4 or 5 (power forward or center), then you should look to buy heavy shoes so as to support your weight. Lighter and quicker players playing positions 1, 2 and 3 (point guard, shooting guard, small forward) will want to get light shoes and possibly low-tops if you are careful not to roll your ankle.

Once you purchase the most important basketball gear (your basketball shoes), you need to use them properly and only wear them indoors if you plan on playing indoors.

Basketball Shorts:

Shorts are also an important piece of basketball gear to own, because if you get it wrong you could instantly give away the fact that you're a total beginner and embarrass yourself in the process. The trend until the late 90's was to have short shorts which was always above knee length. These days however, you will be hard pressed to find anyone wearing basketball shorts above knee length. So make sure to remember this when you go out to buy the shorts - they should be slightly baggy!

Basketball Headband and Wristbands and other accessories:

While it might be tempting to go out and get as many accessories as possible, this is definitely the piece of basketball gear you need to be most careful with. I've seen way too many basketball beginners dressed up in wristbands, leg braces, and other unnecessary accessories that make you look like a horrible pretentious showoff who is obviously new to the game. If you must use them, I would try to limit to one piece of accessory and make sure you try to color match and make it subtle.

That's the basics for these 3 pieces of crucial basketball gear. I covered these 3 parts first because it is easily the 3 areas where beginners make the most mistakes.

So to recap: get a basketball shoe from a reliable brand, get shorts below knee length, and be careful with your use of basketball accessories. That's it for lesson 1, now go out and get this basketball gear so that we can begin talking about actually playing basketball.