How to measure and track cardiovascular fitness

So for a while I have been lifting for low reps and completely avoiding cardio, but now I realize it’s in my best interest to raise it, right now im playing basketball for about 1.5 hrs a day 4 days a week (sometimes low sometimes high pace) I wanted to know whats the best way to measure my cardio fitness throughout the coming months (I feel like going off of my bball performance isn’t going to be accurate as i’d like),

Should I incorporate a specific cardio workout day?

And at what rate can I expect progress, like if whatever measure of progress (lets say RHR), doesn’t improve in a week should I increase the the difficulty of the workouts?

submitted by /u/californication760
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