Hot Shot or No Shot?

This is an area of teaching I may have more questions than answers. I do believe the sooner you establish some form of shooting program in your program the better. You should not have to "rebuild" shooting mechanics in your sophomores. I remember being at a summer tournament a few years ago. I watched a JV team warming up on another court. It was amazing the similarities in shooting mechanics the players shared ...... I was both impressed and convicted, especially after I watched our JV players warming up!

See below some of my questions about players & shooting:

a) Why are consistently poor shooters so unwilling to change?

b) Why, after spending time to correct shooting flaws, do poor shooters

revert back to their old form if the ball doesn't go in after a few attempts?

c) Why is it so difficult to "hold" your follow through?

d) Why is the term "arc" a seemingly foreign concept?

e) Why does the ball ALWAYS find the poorest shooter on the floor during

crunch time? (Sorry, had a game day flash back.)

f) Why is the end product the only concern players/coaches seem to have

about shooting? (Did it go in or not?)

g) Why does everyone think they are a 3 pt. Shooter? (Maybe we need to

change the question to .... Are you a 3 pt. MAKER!)

h) Why do players step on the floor at practice and start "burping" up threes

without warming up?

"Not crazy about his shooting stance."

A number of years ago I was contacted by a former player of ours who was home from college and wanted to know if he could come in and shoot while we were at practice. He was currently playing in college. I said of course he could. When he (the former player) got on the floor the first thing he did was start shooting one handed shots we called "rim flips". (I stole this drill from Jay Wright the head coach at Villanova). It is a shooting sequence we had used in our program. (See illustration above. This is not the former player in the pictures.) Slowly he worked his way out from the rim and eventually began shooting 3's. He didn't know it, but he made his former coach's day!

Some points to consider when teaching shooting:

a) The ball should be balanced in the shooting hand. (See first illustration.).

MANY shooters allow their off hand to be a distraction. I frequently did

this in camps to make the point. Have shooters take the ball up as they

are going to shoot then gently knock their off hand away. More often than

not the ball will fall out because it is not being balanced in the shooting

hand. To gain the feel of balancing the ball in one hand we used one hand

rim flips.

b) When the ball is released the elbow of the shooting arm should be about

at eye level.

c) Release the ball up not out. If a player releases the ball in front of his

elbow the arc of the shot is almost always too low.

d) Pointer finger and thumb should form a 45 degree angle on the ball NOT a

90 degree angle.

e) Hold your follow through until the ball hits the target.

f) If you are consistently releasing the ball in front of your elbow, you are

outside your shooting range.

g) Off the ball be shot ready ...... Butt down, hands up!

h) If the shooter refuses to change poor mechanics and demonstrates it

with poor statistics ...... when do you limit their shot selections?

i) I heard Bob Knight make this comment: "Everyone worries about

destroying a shooter's confidence. What about my confidence in his

shooting?"

j) Consider implementing a shooting warm up sequence. For example:

Start with one hand rim flips, Mikans, Reverse Mikans, Put Backs, Short

jumpers THEN move out to your comfort shooting distances.

k) Shooting drills in practice: Are they game like? Are they executed at

game speed? Are they executed correctly? If the shooting is off a pass,

is the pass a game-like pass?

l) Fight for your feet. Ball in the air. Feet in the air.

m) The key to happiness is a short memory. Good shooters have short

memories. They hunt the next shot and forget the previous shot.