THE TROUBLE WITH SHOOTING
By TOM NORDLAND
Author,
“SWISH” Basketball Shooting Video
It is well known that basketball shooting is a deteriorating in this
country. Million dollar athletes in the NBA and star college and
high
school players miss open jumpers with great regularity and often fail
miserably at the free throw line. Shaq O’Neal, the multi-million
dollar L.A. Laker Star, is shooting less than 50% from the free throw
line.
Stories abound about the dilemma. Coaches don’t
know what to do. An
article called “Why can’t Johnny make a jump shot?” in the San
Francisco Chronicle* last year said that the three point percentage
in college
has fallen every year since its inception 10 years previously.
To miss easy
jump shots is so common that it’s not considered out of the ordinary.
Seventy Percent for free throws is considered quite good. Teams
often
shoot only 30-40% for a game, and that includes all the layups and
dunks! Europeans and players from other countries shoot better than
Americans.
As they get their athletic skills up to the level of our athletes,
we’re
going to start losing to them because we can’t shoot the outside shot.
An Olympic medal will not be a sure thing very much longer.
I. WHAT'S THE PROBLEM
What is the problem? What can be done about it?
The article mentioned
above lists 7 reasons for the poor shooting:
• It’s not cool
Swooping dunks are what guys want to achieve. They want to look
like
Dr. J or Michael Jordan. The highlight films on TV are mostly
about
slamming the ball down over an opponent, not about deft passing and
a
smooth outside jumper.
• Wrong guys shooting the ball
It used to be that only the better shooters shot the long outside
shots, the perimeter . shots. Now, because of the 3 point shot,
everyone wants to put them up and be a hero.
• Power game
The game has become a lot more physical. Athleticism at all
levels is
revered at the expense of skills. Speed, quickness and jumping
ability
are favored more than good fundamentals or a great shooting touch.
• The rise of AAU programs
Kids used to learn basketball on the playgrounds, playing for hours,
including lots of time to practice shooting. Now with AAU programs
and
endless structured tournaments, a lot more emphasis is on playing
games
rather than practice.
• Poor technique
Europeans learn to shoot the right way, perhaps from some text book.
They’re encouraged to practice shooting and learn good form.
Americans
often learn it by watching TV and picking up bad habits. Going
for the
3 point shot too early and too often can wreck a shooting style.
• Poor facilities
Another old line is that kids from inner cities don’t shoot
particularly well because they grow up on playgrounds, places where
there are bent
rims without nets, places not conducive to breeding shooters.
To learn
a reliable shot takes repetition and hours of practice. These
days
there are too many kids and too few courts.
• Better defenses
This is certainly one of the major reasons. The in-your-face physical
pressure initiated by Georgetown in the early 80’s probably started
this. Defense is a statement, and it’s tougher than ever to get
an
open jump shot.
These are valid reasons, and they explain some of the problem.
But how
can you explain top players missing open 10-15’ jump shots and, even
more confounding, free throws? The free throw is an easy shot
? 15’ to
the backboard, only 13’ 9” to dead center. There’s no rush.
No one is
“in their face.” It’s not a difficult shot, as evidenced by a
few
non-playing people, some in their 60’s and 70’s, setting records making
thousands in a row.
In this article, first of a series, I’d like to suggest
two more
reasons for the problem and offer some ideas that might help.
• It’s thought it takes a long time to learn
First, I believe it is thought it takes hundreds and hundreds of hours
to learn how to shoot well. You have to develop a great stroke
and
then practice from this spot and that spot and that spot every day.
With
today’s attention spans, kids don’t focus well on anything very long,
and if they think it’s going to take forever to learn something, why
try? Besides it’s more fun to work on your spin moves and jamming.
Shooting practice is looked on like drudgery.
• Coaches don’t know how to coach shooting
And secondly, and most importantly, I feel there is a problem with
the
coaching of shooting. Most coaches were not great shooters themselves,
and it’s difficult to coach something you can’t do yourself well.
What
happens is they coach shooting it by focusing on the so-called
“Fundamentals” of shooting. That way they can’t be faulted for
not
coaching the skill. However, the Fundamentals ? how to hold
the ball,
how to stand, where to look, how to bring the ball up to the Set Point,
and the Release and Follow Through ? are only the beginning, a stepping
off point. But coaching usually stops there, urging the players
to “go
out and practice” and thus, figure out themselves how to put the ball
into the basket consistently. Most never figure it out.
II. SOME ADVICE ON HOW TO IMPROVE SHOOTING
First, I want to offer that shooting well is not that
difficult and that
it can be learned in a fraction of the amount of time normally thought!
The truth about most physical actions, in my opinion, is that we
greatly over complicate them. The most efficient, accurate and
powerful
athletic movements are the essence of simplicity, be it golf, tennis,
bowling, Tai Chi or basketball shooting as examples. The basketball
shot has evolved for most players into a throwing motion coming mostly
from
the upper body. Arms, wrists, hands and fingers are employed
to power
and guide the shot, thus creating a flat arch (30° above horizontal
at
best) and a ball flight controlled by small muscles.
Watch yourself or others shoot. Most shots get
only 1-2 feet above the
basket at the highest point. The shots are coming in “hot” and
flat,
around 20-30% above horizontal. How often do you see one that
rises
higher than the top of the backboard. If you do, it’s probably
coming
from the best shooter on the court. Shooting high does two major
things: (1) it creates a larger landing area for the ball, and
(2) it
softens the shot as gravity has more time to slow it down as it rises.
From my research, a shot coming into the basket at a
medium high angle
of ~45° above horizontal has an effective landing area about 60%
larger
than for a shot coming in at ~30°. An even higher 60°
angle shot (the
angle considered most effective by some coaches) has a landing area
more than twice as large than that of a 30° angle shot.
A larger landing
area and a softer shot have to lead to greater success ... why wouldn’t
players want to shoot higher to get these benefits?
The problem is that most players can’t shoot very high
with the muscle
action they use. Arm, wrist, hand and finger actions are horizontal
motions. They create a flat arch. To get higher arch,
the players
must use more body/leg action.
Here’s a suggestion: (This instruction is written
for coaches, but if
you’re a player, do it on yourself.) Have your players jump
up and
down without a ball (with eyes closed, too) and notice what it feels
like.
Ask them what direction the force is. They will answer it’s
“upward.”
They will also notice it’s a strong, stable action. I call that
motion
the UpForce™, but you could call it anything you want ? leg power,
lift, body/leg action, etc. Ask your players then to shoot and
notice if
there is any of that force in their shot. Is any shot power
coming
from the lower body, or is it all (or mostly) from the upper body
“Release”
muscles?
As they start to feel and discriminate more and less
UpForce™, ask them
to tell you what percent of available U/F energy is being used with
each shot (it will vary). By percent, I don’t mean to jump stronger
to get
a higher number. I mean what percent of what’s there is utilized.
A
little down & up free throw action can be used 100%. From
my
perspective, the higher the percent, the greater the chance of the
ball
going in.
You will discover that the more body/leg action in the
shot, the
higher, quicker, the more stable the shot. And there will be
more power and
range. This one distinction, using more body/leg power in the
shot,
can make a huge difference in shooting proficiency.
Try it and let me know what you discover. For
more detailed
instruction, you can purchase my video,“Swish -- A Guide to Great
Basketball Shooting.” For information, endorsements, testimonials,
More articles and ordering information, see my Web Site “www.swish22.com”!
From the site you can link to a page on reviews to see links to several
outstanding reviews of the video.
I’ll give more insights in the next article.
Tom Nordland
Boulder Creek, California
1-888/SWISH-22
Email: Tom@swish22.com
Web site: www.swish22.com
*Article by Bill Reynolds, Providence (R.I.) Journal-Bulletin
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Tom is considered to be one of Minnesota’s all-time
great high school
shooters. About the time he was turning 50, he re-discovered
the
shooting touch he had had so long ago. In the last 11 years
he
perfected his coaching of this revolutionary method, and in 1997 he
created his highly-acclaimed “Swish” shooting video. His coaching
is
universal, applying equally to beginners and top professionals and
every level in between.
He describes this Method being more about the “Flight
of the Ball” and
less about the so-called “Fundamentals” and rules as to where the
feet
should go, how to hold the ball, where the fingers should point, how
to
finish, etc. Tom has received the endorsement of such basketball
notables as Bill Sharman, Boston Celtic legend now a consultant with
the L.A. Lakers and considered one of the greatest shooters of all
time,
and Pete Newell, legendary coach from the University of California,
Berkeley, Gold Medal winning Olympic Head Coach in 1960, and worldwide
ambassador for the Game of Basketball.
You can visit Tom’s website at www.swish22.com for more
information
about his background, his video and his coaching, other articles,
major
endorsements, powerful testimonials, his clinic schedule, to subscribe
to his free monthly Shooting Newsletter, and much more.