The Shooter's Touch

If you are a coach of a womens or female team, what is the best ‘strategy’ or best way of going to teaching shooting?

Eugene breaks down what he thinks in this latest YouTube clip:

Michael

www.TheShootersTouch.com

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“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” 

     -Wayne Gretzky

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I know this is a blog that I talk 99% of the time about shooting, but sometimes it’s great to discuss about other basketball stories too.

What a great story Jeremy Lin’s success has been these last couple of weeks! Before his first great game against New Jersey, he literally was roadblocked from getting that opportunity to show what he had. In high school, Jeremy was a stand-out for his varsity high school basketball team and won a state championship. He went on getting no athletic scholarship to any Division I NCAA college afterwards. However, he was able to get into Harvard and played great basketball for them. After finally graduating from the Ivy League university, he was signed by the Golden State Warriors as a rookie, and played sparingly in his rookie season. Into his sophomore season, he was (supposedly) released and played a few games with the Rockets before being ”demoted” to the NBDL. New York, thereafter, grabbed him when their point guards were riddled with either injury or poor play. The rest, is history….

I think what I’ve learned from this story is that your development (be it shooting, dribbling, defence, leadership, etc) won’t translate into success, if you don’t get a chance! If you look at it, Jeremy played quite well consistently wherever he played. However, when he got to the NBA, he played much less minutes than previously, and his play became not as important to the team (until now obviously!). Similarly, when trying to improve your shooting technique for the better of your game, give yourself a chance to show what you worked on. By that, I mean begin to build confidence in yourself to take more shots in pick up games, practices and games. Become the overzealous shooter on your team! You should want to take those open shots that the defence gives you! Again, give yourself a chance. Like with shooting, if you feel like you’ve improved on your ball handling capabilities, start handling the ball more in games. Yes, it may seem a bit selfish to handle the ball more or take more shots, but if you don’t take action during those situations, somebody certainly will.

Michael

http://www.theshooterstouch.com

Too many players are missing a great opportunity to add some scoring punch to
their game. With agressiveness and attacking the basket rewards you with a great
chance to add some key points for your team. However, as we all know, players of
all levels (Yes, even professionally) are not making around 85%+ from the line,
which I believe is a must for any serious player to become the best they can be.
There are soo many things coaches are telling there players (from squaring up,
breathe, straight forearm, goose neck wrist, etc..) yet nothing really is
showing in long term improvement. From my experience, most if not
all problems stem from poor and flawed shooting
technique. It’s the technique that create the
roller coaster experience from the free throw line for players and coaches. Here
are some tips for players who want some real improvements in their free throw
percentage which will also improve their shooting technique overall:

1)
Turn your body approximately 45 degrees and align with your shooting eye (If
you’re right handed, you will aim with your right eye). Using your shooting eye
is a great reference because it creates a natural alignment for your body due to
freeing up the shoulder during a one handed motion (Ex. Throwing darts, Shooting
a gun.)
2) Take a few dribbles so you have a deeper connection with the
feeling of the ball (I.e. Is the ball a bit bouncy/light, tough,
heavy).
3) Now for the setting! Set the ball very early in your shot so that
you can fully utilize your leg drive. In order for all your power to be utilized
completely by your legs and NOT from your upper body, develop and consistant
pushing release that is the same force and speed everytime! This is very
important b/c you can ultimately capture a high amount of upforce but as long as
your upper body (wrist, fingers, etc) are involved in powering your shot, your
shot will become much more erratic and less predictable. This is due to the
nature of the physiology of the human body (Lower body being more stable and
slower-firing during power utilization & aiming sports) Remember, your
upper body are like pistols, while your legs/core are like cannons. I don’t know
about you, but I’ll take the more stable and powerful cannons to destroy my
enemies’ fort!
4) With an early setting of the ball to your set point, you
will realize and feel that the power generated by your legs alone may be too
powerful. If this is the case, play around with the amount of leg bend and
power, while keeping the same pushing motion the same.
This is equally important b/c again, we don’t want to change our
release (i.e. the fast firing upper body), but we want to change the amount of
leg drive the body can work with. This can be done by playing around with how
much you bend and how powerfully you use your legs. For me personally, I don’t
bend that much for my free throws, but I set darn early so that I can give my
body a chance to utilize as much of the leg drive I created while minimizing
upper body involvement.
5) Relax! It will take experimentation and lots of
play to figure out what works for you.

Eugene

http://www.theshooterstouch.com

Eugene

I’m sure all of you people are familiar with the Boston Celtics’ trio of Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo (Quartet if I included the beastly Kevin Garnett). Well, in today’s video on YouTube I did an analysis of their shooting mechanics and below are some pros and cons of each of their shots. Please also take a look at the YouTube video here:

Shooting Analysis of Boston Celtics’ Trio

Ray Allen

Pros: Ray has a quick set up to his shot which allows him to shoot in situations that normally wouldn’t allow for a more passive setup. Elevation allows for greater chances to get his shot off during games (And why this is a bad thing as well). Dips the ball to allow for a much longer setting before the ball reaches his set point (This allows for inertia to kick in–which in turn creates better alignment).

Cons: Shoots on the top of his jump (0% of his power coming from his leg drive). To compensate for the lack of power he: Snaps his wrist ferociously and use his left hand to create forward drive towards the rim. As well, he is square to the rim which further limits his power production and his alignment will start to shift to his shooting side (right side) b/c we naturally turn our bodies in one-handed aiming sports (Think boxing or darts). Therefore, he doesn’t have a consistant reference to aim with. Oh no…

Paul Pierce

Pros: Paul is using about 65-70% leg drive (in the video) which is somewhat decent for mid range shots, but still not ideal during farther range shots. He is definitely open and it is clear he is aligning with his shooting eye.

Cons:He flips his wrist during the release which creates a variable and a flatter trajectory towards the rim. He is open, but I still feel he should open up a bit more to create a more natural stance for less variables. Paul also has a tendency to short arm a bit which means he is not creating a consistant release, which will inevitably lead to more upper body variables! Needs to work on locking and extending his elbow fully.

Rajon Rondo

Pros: None (I’m serious)

Cons: Where do I begin with this one…Rajon is in the obsolete squared stance which limits power production. He also short arms the heck out of his shots which creates an unpridictable flight to the rim and and is using approx. 50-60% leg drive. As well, he is aligning with his shoulder which is a poor reference b/c we naturally can’t predict an alignment on our shoulders but more effectively if it were the shooting eye. Shooting off the shoulder also creates an environment for slinging the ball b/c nothing is behind the shoulder. Rajon needs to first develop a consistant pushing release and turn his body more. Then work with playing around with varying amounts of leg drive.

Eugene

A pushing release is a release where the elbow is completely extended in the follow through and the wrist and hand muscles are completely relaxed and inactive during the release (indicated by the shooting hand naturally flopping a few times afterwards). Its origins began from coach Tom Nordland of the Swish Method, if you were perhaps interested. Nordland was a pure genius. The pushing release has way too many benefits and advantages to even dismiss:

1.       Higher arc

2.       More consistent, simple and predictable

This is because it means the very power-sensitive wrist and hand muscles are not used. In fact, most misses come from using these muscles. Imagine playing Call of Duty on a very sensitive aiming control. Then, switch to a weaker (and better) sensitive aiming control. That’s how it will feel like when switching to a pushing release; more consistent, simple and predictable.

3.       More power

Learning to adopt a pushing release for all shots means that shots will be more consistent, but will reduce power coming from the release because the wrist and hand muscles therefore cannot supply power. Enter: leg drive! This enables you to power your shots with your leg drive, which supplies much more power and stability.

Learning to do adopt this kind of release will make your shooting very easy.

Michael

What do all three of these shooters have in common?

They all tend to shoot from most, if not all, of their leg drive (or UpForce; termed by Tom Nordland).

Let’s review: leg drive is the power that a player gets from the bending action of their legs. When you come up from your jump or bend from your free throw shot, that is leg drive being produced.

If you can take advantage of shooting from it, I promise you that your shooting percentage will soar, especially for three pointers (and won’t take you forever to accomplish)! Imagine if you taught your entire team to learn this skill: you will easily have a team that is worthy have winning most games because of open shots becoming too simple and easy to pass up!

Leg drive IS  probably your missing link to becoming that pure shooter. This is because the muscles from your legs are much less sensitive to power than your upper body muscles (ie: wrist and hand muscles and shooting shoulder). What I mean is that given the same amount of force generated by these two different muscles groups (upper body and lower body), your body, naturally and instinctively, will aim and fire much more accurately, effectively and easier with the force generated by the lower body muscles.

Our daily activies used by these muscles prove this point! Our hands were built for grasping, drawing, writing and holding. Our fingers are very mobile and agile, as we can point and move them in flexion, extension and circumduction patterns. They are mainly fast twich muscles that can react and move quickly. No human can ever write all the letters of the alphabet effectively if they do not have fast twitch, sensitive mucles fibers in their hand and wrist muscles.

However, our legs are quite the opposite. They are strong, robust and powerful. They are built to help us jump, run and move! They are naturally slow twitch muscles compared to our upper body muscles. They are much more suited to power our jumpshots.

This is clearly something not taught by all shooting coaches. Telling your players, “get your legs into your shots” isn’t the same! And I can tell this skill of shooting from all of your leg drive works because those three consistent shooters shooting on this post are doing exactly that! They may or may not be aware of it, and thus telling revealing this benefit to the public, but it’s there for us to see.

We really dive into this subject deeper in our EBook and Video Manual DVD. We teach you how to learn to shoot from it, and all of it to maximize its benefits. You can purchase that HERE.

Here’s a sample clip of from our Pure Shooting Video Manual DVD of us explaining and demonstrating how to learn to use leg drive!

Cheers,

Michael

http://www.theshooterstouch.com