8 Best Agility Cones for Basketball

Twenty-five discs in mixed colors, a plastic stacking stand, a mesh bag and a folded drill guide, all at the bottom of the price range. The stand holds the discs in a column so the whole set carries in one hand and comes off one at a time as you walk the court.

For a first-time coach or a parent running a Saturday clinic, this is the set we hand over. Twenty-five cones cover three stations or a full zig-zag course, and the colors let you call a target instead of describing one — through the blue gate, touch the red lands with a group of eight-year-olds in a way a description does not.

The discs behave the way flexible plastic should: stand on one and it pops back. Colors stay readable, the whole thing stacks down to something you can throw in a trunk, and the two-year warranty is unusual at this end of the range.

One thing to know before you order: twenty-five is a squad-sized number only if you are running one group at a time. Split a big session into four stations and you will want a second set, which is the argument for buying two of these rather than one bigger kit.

An outdoor court in autumn is where a cheap cone set gets found out: a breeze rolls through and half the grid ends up against the fence. This is the set we take outside, because each disc weighs around 22 grams and the whole stack feels dense in the hand rather than hollow.

The plastic is polypropylene rather than the softer vinyl some sets use, so the discs hold their shape and sit flat on asphalt. Bright orange, twenty-five to the bag, and the bag has a long strap you can sling over a shoulder instead of carrying it by the drawstring.

That weight is what pushes it ahead of the cheaper disc sets for outdoor work. It does not make them immovable — a real gust still shifts one — but an ordinary breeze leaves your lanes where you put them, and that is the difference between a drill that runs and one you keep resetting. Twenty-five is enough for a shooting or footwork circuit without a second trip to the car.

The trade is longevity. These are not the discs to hand a squad that trains five days a week on concrete; the edges scuff and soften with that much contact, and the shape goes before the color does. For a once-or-twice-a-week session, that is a slow decline rather than a problem.

Flat discs are close to invisible in grass — you find them with your feet, not your eyes. Nine-inch cones solve that, and this is the set that ended the argument for us: thirty cones, six colors, each one tall enough to pick out from the far sideline.

For a basketball session that spills out of the gym onto a field, this is what we reach for. The hollow, thin-walled design is what lets a trampled cone fold and stand back up instead of cracking, and six colors split cleanly into stations.

Thirty cones is a workable number for a full-court press drill, and they stack into a column with the bag drawn around them. You are paying a premium for the height, and the bag is a plain drawstring sack rather than a holder, so setup and pickup take longer than they do with a stand.

One more thing worth knowing: at nine inches these are tall enough to be seen over a ball but not so tall that a dribble drill breaks down when a player brushes one. On a hardwood floor we still prefer discs, because a knocked-over cone stops the rep in a way a flat marker does not.

The first thing that happens to any cone on a basketball court is a ball hitting it. These seven-inch cones are molded in low-density polyethylene, soft enough that a hit usually folds one over and lets it spring back rather than sending it skittering across the floor.

Twenty-four cones, six colors, four of each, in a mesh drawstring bag. The mesh earns its place — cones come back from a damp field wet, and a mesh bag lets them dry instead of sitting in a puddle in the trunk.

Seven inches is a good middle height: tall enough to see over a ball, low enough that a player driving past does not clip it. The base is a little over five inches across, and the hollow stack packs down small enough to live in a gym bag permanently.

We rate it as the set for coaches who run stations, because six colors let you move a group from gate to gate without redrawing anything. What keeps it below the top pick is durability — the walls are thin, and a direct hit can crack one rather than fold it. For skills work with kids and lighter sessions that is a fair trade; a squad training daily on concrete will wear through them faster than it wants to.

If your whole kit is a backpack and a ball, twelve cones is the right number, and this is the set we keep coming back to for that job. Seven inches tall, about five across the base, and light enough that a dozen of them add almost nothing to a bag you are already carrying.

There is no bag in the box, and we did not miss one — the cones stack into a column that drops into a side pocket, and a bag for twelve cones is one more thing to lose. The orange is bright, and the soft vinyl folds flat underfoot and stands back up.

Outdoors is where it loses ground. These are light for their size, and a breeze that would not move a weighted disc will walk one across a court, so if your sessions are outside and exposed, plan on anchoring the ones that matter or moving to a heavier set. Indoors, where the floor is flat and the air is still, none of that applies.

The price sits in the middle of the range for a dozen cones, which works out to more per cone than the twenty-five-disc sets — you are paying for a small pack, not a bargain. If you coach a group, that math stops working; if you train alone in a borrowed gym, it is the only number that matters.

Six holes drilled around the base of each cone is the detail that separates this set from every other upright cone here. They take a length of PVC, a dowel or a bungee, which turns a marker into a gate, a hurdle or a slalom post you can build to whatever height a drill needs.

The cones are nine inches tall, molded in soft vinyl, four to each of six colors, and they fold flat and spring back when someone stands on them. Twenty-four to the set, which is a workable number for a circuit but not for a full-court layout.

This is a specialist set, and we rate it for the coach who builds things: gates for a dribble course, low hurdles for a lateral-step circuit, poles for a reaction drill. For plain footwork marking on a gym floor, discs do the same job with less to carry and the holes go unused.

The color split is the other thing to weigh. Four of each color is enough to call out a sequence, not enough to give every station its own color across a big group. Twenty-four cones, six colors, one clear niche — and nothing else here does that job.

Pick one of these discs up and the first thing you notice is how little there is to it — the plastic flexes between your fingers. That thinness is the whole character of the set, and it explains both what it costs and what it does not do.

You get twenty-five discs in five colors, five of each, plus a carry bag and a stacking holder. Five per color is genuinely useful, enough to set a five-gate course and call it out by color, and the holder turns pickup into one sweep instead of a scavenger hunt.

Thin plastic is also why they do not sit as flat as a heavier disc. One that picks up a bend, which these do easily when they are stacked tight in a bag, will rock slightly on a gym floor until it settles. Nothing about that stops a drill; the grid just looks less tidy than it does with a stiffer cone.

At the bottom of the price range, this is the set for a club that wants a lot of markers and does not much care how they look after a season. For a school program, a rec league or a parent buying for a driveway, twenty-five discs and a holder at this price is a sensible buy. For a program that wants the same set to look sharp in year three, spend up.