The science of shooting a basketball

[Keyser Soze]

Apparently when Coach Kerr took over the Warriors he spent a ton of time on the fundamentals of passing. Entire practices were devouted to becoming excellent passes. When, how, where, shooter's pocket - the whole nine yards.

This was rather unusual, but he was convinced that it was the number one thing Golden State needed to improve on to win a championship.

Great passing leads to great shooting.

This was my exact thought when I read the original post. I'd rather hire a passing coach than a shooting coach. Someone has to clean the damn super glue off the basketball.

[asiseeit]

1. Good shooters almost always have good mechanics and practice. If you don't have good mechanics
then a player practices bad mechanics and the resulting muscle memory makes the player a poor shooter,

2. Good shooters normally take good shots where they can properly use their muscle memory / mechanics

3. Good shots normally are a result of good ball movement / passing

4. Confidence - there is nothing like making a few

[OTR Shockfan]

LOL just to stir the pot ,, 2-24 from 3 ,, I think I could do that from 1/2 court,, granted not bein guarded but still. (and I'm old and not very talented) LOL As bad as they shot from 3 in the last game I would of almost prefer CF to jack it up from 40 ft and have everybody else waiting to rebound.

[Dan]

I like the idea of a shooting science coach! Big time shot coaches must exist. How else can you explain Anthony Davis? He couldn't shoot much at all in college iirc. He blocked shots, rebounded, and got some putbacks. Now he scores out to 20 feet. Many nba guys become much better shooters after college.
HCGMs system is complicated. He values "makers" not "takers" but I think players are expected to get extra shots up on their own time. Practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice does. I was never a shooter so I don't know what I'm looking for, but when RB is off his shot looks flat to me. And CF looks like he dips before he shoots which leads to a very slow release. I'm curious to hear what Breakfast thinks of their shots (ZB and MMs too)

Funny you mention Frankamp's shot. If you watch the warmups, he makes almost every shot. Problem is, he has a very slow methodical release, with the dip you cited. In a game, it's a totally different shot. If I were 3G, I'd make them warm up taking shots exactly like they would take in the game. Ron Baker does this, Frankamp does not. They are playing at a very high level and I'm surprised there's not more attention paid to this, but what do I know.

[molly jabali]

I’m someone who is never going to post often. I’m just going to say what I have to say and then I’ll go back into the background.

I want Marshall to hire a shooting coach. If I was the WSU shooting coach then WSU would be 32-1 and ranked number 1 right now.

I’m kidding, but I'm only partially kidding. I’m not looking for a job, and WSU would never hire me, but they could definitely use a shooting coach. I studied the art and science of shooting for more than 10 years.

I just did the math and I realized that I’ve taken more than 5,000,000 basketball shots during my life. The last time I shot I made more than 40 jump-shots in a row, all of them off the backboard, from about 18 feet, from about 10 feet left of the lane. Obviously it’s easier to shoot without a defense.

My dad was a high school basketball head coach. Some of you might have played for him. I’m sure that some of you played against him. He was my main shooting coach.

At various times when I was young I was extremely lucky to share the court with James Carr, Antoine Carr, Aubrey Sherrod, Ricky Ross, Darnell Valentine, Karl Papke, Greg Dreiling, and even Jay Jackson. Five of those guys started for WSU, and those five guys together would make a top-flight team.

I took shooting extremely seriously for years. Part of that study was the mechanics of shooting. That part gets a lot of attention when players are young, but for some reason it’s usually neglected later on. Baseball hitters keep tweaking their entire career. For some reason basketball players seem to settle into complacency and quit tweaking.

I compare it to putting. A professional golfer continues to study putting, even though he already knows how to putt. I’m willing to bet that most great golfers have a putting coach. I’ve only known a few basketball players who studied the science of shooting religiously. Many BB players practice shooting a lot without really studying what it is that they're practicing.

I studied how much to practice shooting, and when to practice, and what to practice. As an example I learned that taking 500 jump shots the night before a game made my shots go in almost automatically during the game.

The automatic part seemed to be extremely important. All of the work and the thinking took place well in advance. I never had to think about shooting during a game. I just let it fly.

I studied a lot of different things, including some bizarre things such as visualization. I took thousands of shots in my mind for every shot that I took against defenders. That sounds wimpy, but it helped turn me into an unconscious shooter.

This whole subject might sound like mumbo-jumbo, but shooting has been a problem at WSU for years. I could be wrong, but my attitude is that if Tekele Cotton had spent a few years with a first-rate shooting coach then he would have been a first-round draft pick with a current contract in the NBA. My judgment of him was that he had the hand-eye and muscular coordination to be a good shooter, but for whatever reason he never developed what he had.

Baker is widely considered to be WSU’s best shooter, but in 13 games this year he shot between .200 and .385 from the field. He’s been consistently inconsistent all four years. I’m not saying that he’s a bad shooter. I’m saying that there are reasons for his inconsistency, and those flaws could be addressed and corrected by a great shooting coach.

The shooting problems go across the board to the whole team. Something is obviously wrong with the shooting systems when Frankamp is knocked off course. The main thing that he’s usually great at isn’t a reliable strength right now. That’s not a fluke. It’s definitely correctable.

All of the top 25 teams, except Texas, have a higher shooting percentage than WSU. The majority of the top 25 teams have a significantly better shooting percentage than WSU.
In WSU’s losses they typically shot 35% or below. The only exception to that was Seton Hall, but even in that game the shooting was below average.

Of course a team will occasionally have an off game. Of course defenses can have something to do with poor shooting. That doesn’t explain why every other good team shoots for a higher percentage than WSU.

Marshall values toughness, but only on defense. Toughness on offense means getting the damn ball through the damn hole no matter what the opponent is doing. Nobody can make every open shot, but no quality team should miss as many open shots as WSU does game after game.

Poor shooting costs games. Poor shooting damaged this season. It’s not some mysterious thing that can’t be helped. Shooting can be improved and it should be improved. If Marshall adds shooting science as one of his top priorities to study and teach then WSU has a much better chance of playing games in April.

I tend to agree with a lot of this, but two reflections come to mind...
1.Technique IS huge, but not as big as confidence, even if technique is quirky
2. I'm chuckling a little at how analytical the board has become since an overtime loss:)

[Ricardo del Rio]

No one got my Ron Burgundy joke??? Dang it...I suck again.

I am late to the Ron B. discussion. I remember well how he used to stagger around, when catching a high pop fly in the second base area.

Pop flies were an adventure for Ron.

[ShockdaWorld]

I tend to agree with a lot of this, but two reflections come to mind...
1.Technique IS huge, but not as big as confidence, even if technique is quirky
2. I'm chuckling a little at how analytical the board has become since an overtime loss:)

I think the analytical board is more a result of 2-24 from 3 than the overtime result that it caused.

[ShockTalk]

I tend to agree with a lot of this, but two reflections come to mind...
1.Technique IS huge, but not as big as confidence, even if technique is quirky
2. I'm chuckling a little at how analytical the board has become since an overtime loss:)

Not really over one loss. In other threads since the loss, I have pointed out that Brown and Wessel have been not only inconsistent from 3, but not shooting it well all season. McDuffie has been in a 3 pt shooting funk for some time.

Let's look at the last 10 games from 3:

5 games where we shot poorly - 6-27,5-17,6-19, 6-27, 2-24 for 25-114 or 21.9% and an average of 22.8 3pt shots per game.

5 games where we shot well - 9-21, 6-15, 7-18, 7-17, 8-18 for 37-89 or 41.5% and an average of 17.8 3pt shots per game. However, in the 2nd and 3rd games listed, our 1st half stats were 3-10 and 3-11 (higher pace of # of shots), second half 3-5 and 4-7 (much lower pace). Also, in the 5th game listed, we were 5-15 (which isn't bad) until Ron made the last three 3s late in the game and we were 3-7 in the 1st half and 3-11 in the 2nd before Ron's flurry. It would appear that when we don't settle for 3s, we shoot better from 3.

Wessel for the season shot the 2nd most 3s and is 28-102, 26.9%, and shot only 27 shots inside the arc (or 79.1% were from 3).

Brown for the season shot the 5th most 3s and is 24-80, 30.0%, and 53.3% of his shots were from 3. Zack shot 64.3% inside the arc.

McDuffie for the season shot the 6th most 3s and is 21-68, 30.9% and only 37.6% were from 3. However, he was only 5-25, 20.0%, over his last 14 games and 2-16, 12.5%, over his last 8 games. Before these last 14 games, he shot 37.2% from 3. He's shot 50.4% from 2.

As a note, FVV is just the opposite. He's shot 41.2% from 3, but on 38.1% from 2.

Make what you will of the data.

[WSUwatcher]

[QUOTE=swiltar71;640144]I like the idea of a shooting science coach! Big time shot coaches must exist. How else can you explain Anthony Davis? He couldn't shoot much at all in college iirc. He blocked shots, rebounded, and got some putbacks. Now he scores out to 20 feet. Many nba guys become much better shooters after college.
QUOTE]

Xavier McDaniel is another who greatly increased his range after college; nowadays a notable example is Kawhi Leonard, who has the benefit with the Spurs of their notable shooting guru Chip Engelland (who, by the way, also used to work with Steve Kerr during his San Antonio days -- and all NBA fans know what kind of a shooter Kerr was). Here's a bit of Engelland discussing his craft:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMXF1M14ZhI).

So yes, WSU may indeed have someone who helps the guys with shooting, but "someone who helps with shooting" and an actual shooting coach are two very different things. Having one who really knows his stuff and can get results would be a huge get for WSU, and a classic case of the little guys with the $5 million budget finding a creative way to get better impact and bang for their bucks than the Power5 big name programs do who spend millions more.

I know there's a limit on how many assistants can work actively with the team, and that consultants like Chris Jans (in his current role) can't actively coach the players. But if you can have a strength coach who focuses on a particular sport the way football programs do (or WSU with Rosenboom), why not a shooting coach focused specifically on basketball?

[choida]

Skip and Stephen A just discussed how shooting can be taught at next level... This kind of makes me think that a shooting coach is ideal for some of our players, and couldn't hurt, even pros have them

[shockmonster]

I don't know much about "Shooting Science" but most coaches have some background in "shooting a basketball" and some are probably better than others and all staffs have probably someone who is more in charge of it. I'm sure that every staff is different. If you take football, you have position specialties like Receivers, Tight Ends, Offensive Line, etc. Then you have Special Teams and sometimes the pros have another coach who teaches kicking. But the Pros have unlimited position coaches and unlimited funds. I'm not sure that any or very many universities have a "shooting coach" who all they do is teach shooting.

We've all heard the acronym "BEEF" for shooting. But a shooting guru may be special to some schools. At this juncture, I must admit that I haven't heard about this specialty except on this fine medium. For those who don't know the acronym,
B=Balance
E=Eye
E=Elbow
F=Follow Through

[shockmonster]

[QUOTE=WSUwatcher;640460]

Xavier McDaniel is another who greatly increased his range after college;

I'll only speak to the things that I know a little about. X improved his shooting a lot while in college and before he went pro. His freshman year, he had a very limited range but by his Senior year, he had improved it out to the college 3 point line (fairly new back then). He went into the gym and shot a lot of practice shots and improved his shooting everyday. A lot of players like X and Anthony Davis just don't realize how important it is to "do the work" in high school. They have the talent to do enough without the grueling hours of practice it takes. Most great shooters haven't had a "shooting guru" in their past. Most have shot 100 3 pointers a day on their own. Some talented high school players don't put in the hard work until they are mature enough to listen to a coach and put in the practice.

I'm not putting down the thought that a lot of shooting is "science and mental". But more of it is practice and toughness. If our team needs a "guru", I hope that we can find one.

[kochHead]

Funny you mention Frankamp's shot. If you watch the warmups, he makes almost every shot. Problem is, he has a very slow methodical release, with the dip you cited. In a game, it's a totally different shot. If I were 3G, I'd make them warm up taking shots exactly like they would take in the game. Ron Baker does this, Frankamp does not. They are playing at a very high level and I'm surprised there's not more attention paid to this, but what do I know.

The dip is a natural and efficient part of the shooting process, if done right it will not slow down your shot. All the best shooters do it. Honestly, I have always shot better when I just took a few days off and stopped thinking about shooting better. Fresh legs, rhythm, and a clear head are usually the best recipe for shooting success IMO.

[OregonShocker]

Skip and Stephen A just discussed how shooting can be taught at next level... This kind of makes me think that a shooting coach is ideal for some of our players, and couldn't hurt, even pros have them

Yeah...name me one "next level" team either has coached.

[Kung Wu]

There is nothing but money preventing players from seeking outside assistance. A shooting coach could work with individuals outside of the WSU framework if they have the money to pay for the extra training.