In the last post we left off with a description of Up and Outs, which is a simple drill you can do to get the timing of the lift of your core muscles in sync with the upward lift of the ball and its rotation into a shooting position.   If you do the drill correctly, your hands are always placed correctly on the ball, the shooting elbow is always in, and you are low, knees bent, before you receive the ball for the next shot.

But what about the part when you shoot?   How do you release the energy into the ball so that it does what you want it to do – which is go in the basket?   Great question.

A player can do everything we have discussed to this point correctly, and so much to a shot’s mechanics can go right just about to when the ball is released, then the wheels can fly off the truck if this last part is missing.    Here is what you MUST know.

1)       The ball must be in the power point of your shooting hand when you shoot

2)      Your shooting elbow should NOT flare out, but don’t tuck it in too far to the body.

3)      We strongly recommend shooting from the eyebrow, going up and out at about 50 degrees

4)      You Must generate power from your ONE wrist to provide touch and backspin to the ball

5)      You MUST follow through to the rim – pointing to your target after the ball is released

If you can execute these last five steps, then the Up (ball rotating up to the eyebrow with the hands cocked back, ready to release) and Out (the release angle and follow through) will be complete and correct.    Let’s discuss.

Remember – the final release ultimately should be a ONE handed shot . The off-hand, or balance hand, should be used for just that – to balance the ball in the shooting hand.  DO NOT use the off-hand thumb to add power to the ball.   “Thumbers” as we call them, generate power from the off-hand and this can many times (not all the time) cause misses to the left or right, low backspin, or sidespin.   But as Reggie Miller (a famous thumber) would quickly point out, thumbing the ball does not always mean that you will miss.   He had an ridiculous use of both hands on his shot, but the results spoke for themselves.) Still, so that you learn to effectively bring all that leg power to the right spot and to maximize accuracy, we recommend you learn to release the shot without thumbing.

When you can maintain the ball in the power point of your shooting hand (see previous post titled Part IV.a) then the power you generated from your legs and transferred through the core will be waiting for you to release it through the wrist.  So it’s very important when you practice to get used to how that feels, because if you are not used to it, it will feel very weird at first.

But now that you have the ball at your eyebrow with your elbow in line with the basket, and the off-hand balancing the ball but not thumbing it, the release towards the rim can begin.   With the ball in the power point, you have maximum control and power ready and waiting at your disposal.  Now – all that work to get the ball to the rim is worth it because you have harnessed it to this one point in time.

As your wrist starts to move out towards your target, the goal is to snap the wrist towards the target at an approximately 50 degree angle.  We say approximate because that release arc can change depending on your height or distance to the rim, but generally a 50 degree release will give the ball a chance to enter the basket at 45 degrees, its optimal entry arc.   When you snap the wrist, the off-hand should have left the ball at this point, and the very last finger to touch the ball is the index finger, and it should be pointing straight at the target.  (The front of the rim.)   Pointing anywhere else indicates a shooter with weak wrists.   We know that excellent shooters can generate about 135 spins per minute onto the ball, so if your wrists are too weak to do this, spend time doing some Flicker work against the backboard.   Stand straight up, isolate your wrists high, and just flick the ball up with your wrists, emphasizing the release point to the target.   After awhile you will feel your wrist muscles start to hurt and this should tell you that you are doing the drill correctly.   I credit my college scholarship to this drill, so it is a very good one to do every day.

Ok – that’s it.  Pretty simple right?   Just take a ball, chuck it up there, and in it goes.    What the kinetic shooting series should highlight, if nothing else, is that shooting is an EXTREMELY complex series of movements that require as much timing, coordination, and repetition to become proficient.   Anyone can be a great shooter, but to do so you must be prepared to commit to many repetitions of the correct way to shoot.

In the coming weeks and months we will be leveraging the use of video more on some of our posts so that you will be able to see some of these concepts.   In the meantime, do your best to stay disciplined and focused during your shooting workouts.  Remember, the three point line is not your friend if you don’t have your mechanics right, and the risk that you will learn to shoot incorrectly is very high.   Stay close, stay focused, create little games that keep your attention on the right mechanics, and happy shooting!

Happy New Year – I write this in the middle of a lot of American Football.

Now on to Part III of our Kinetic Energy shooting series.   One of the more difficult parts of the shot to describe in words, but I will do my best to create some mental images to help with the blog post.

A quick detour to get us started takes us to the movie Bravehart, where Mel Gibson (Playing William Wallace) has assembled his rag-tag army to fight the mighty British army.  It looks on paper like they have no chance to win.  Charging at them full-speed are about 300 thundering heavy horses saddled with heavily armored and armed men, and behind them another 5,000 soldiers on foot.   Mel’s men see this massive charge surging at them and aren’t doing anything – they look terrified as the ground shakes and the horses speed towards them.  In fact, Mel keeps yelling to his men in his fake Scottish accent to “Hoooold….Hoooold…..Hooooooold”   Finally at the last minute, right before the horses run through his line, he yells “NOW!”  , and the Scottish army picks up these huge long spears, plant one end of them in the ground in and point the other pointy side right at the oncoming charge.   The horses can’t stop in time, the British realize they are in deep trouble as the horses run into their spears, and cutting right to the end, the Scots pick up a much needed upset victory.

Fast forward 700 years to this blog post.   What is the point?  I’ll come back to the movie later on,  but in shooting, there is a very similar mental discipline with great shooters – they know how to be patient with the ball as they transfer the energy from their legs (using both legs with power distributed equally) into their core muscles (buttocks, stomach, back) and up to their wrists.   This patience allows the leg power to easily create momentum into the ball as the player raises the ball to the release point at the wrists.   The problem with many shooters is that they are not patient with this energy transfer, which requires precise timing that MUST be sequential.   This specific sequence is as follows:

1) Legs power up and with equally distributed power

2) Core muscles tighten and the core and shoulders start to move up off the ground

3) The ball, which starts in the holster (not the shoulder, chin, or anywhere above the stomach), now starts to move up in sequence with the core

4) The shoulders raise the ball and allow the wrist to “rotate” into a release position just above the shoulders as the player starts to leave the floor, and

5) Player releases the ball.

The difficult part of this sequence is that all of those steps must occur in as little as .6 to .8 seconds for an accurate, fast shooter.    That is fast.  And it’s easy to see why it presents a problem for young shooters.

A common flaw we see is that shooters will raise the ball too early, reversing steps 2 and 3 above, before the energy is transferred into their core.  Many times players will start the ball at the shoulders instead of the holster, which we immediately will correct. There is very little chance for energy transfer to occur if the ball starts above the mid-section.   But even when players start in the holster, they raise the ball up above the core muscles too early in the shot.  We call this problem “Leading with the Ball,” when instead we want the player to “Power the Ball up with the Legs.” This flaw is a sinister one.  It’s very difficult for players to spot, and even more difficult to correct once it has become habit.     But the obvious signs of “Leading with the Ball” are that you get a seemingly physically strong player struggling to find any range, arc or backspin on the shot.

So what happens to a player when they shoot out of sequence?   First, the ball finds itself up too high and waiting for energy.  When the ball waits for energy, it has lost momentum, and now the player has to find a second burst of energy into the ball to restart momentum.  The problem is that all of that power from the legs is now gone – and the only remaining source of power is the shoulder or what you may see has a “hitch” in a players shot.   A hitch looks like there are two shots in one.  The player starts up, the ball hesitates somewhere, and then you see some sort of pike at the waist or ugly looking release with little arc and backspin.  The player has literally tried to find power from sources not capable of getting the ball to the rim.    Ugliness ensues, no one is happy, and both the player and coach get frustrated.

Fixing the problem is tough – but here is the lesson to be learned by a famous Scottsman waiting to be trampled by 300 armored heavy horse:    Fight the temptation to act too soon.  Timing is everything.  Remember the words (in a Scottish accent if you can)  “Hooold” –  Hooold!”

The player has to learn how to keep the ball in sync with the core muscles as the shooting energy flows up to the shoulders and wrist.  Mental patience is the key to this success.  And by far the best way we have found to teach this patience is with a heavy medicine ball.   As with all shooting mechanics training, limit the player to remain within 5 to 10 feet (1.75 -3.25 meters) of the basket using at least a 5lb (10kg) ball. Be sure to enforce that the player starts each shot with the ball in the “holster”, and allow the weight of the ball to require the player to power it up to the basket with their legs and core.  The goal is to train the player to propel the ball to the basket with the leg/core muscle combination while still enforcing a proper release/follow through. What the player will immediately recognize is that they cannot “Lead with the Ball” because it feels like shooting a ball made of lead.  The player can no longer raise the ball too early, and as we have seen at our facility, the mind will start to recognize what you want it to do and will start to learn the new method.    Have the player repeat this exercise in sets of 20 at this distance, then repeat it again at 8 feet, and then 10 feet.

Diligently continue this process for a couple of weeks, and both you and the player will be amazed at the results: a transformation of an inefficient, range-limited shooter into a smooth, effortless shooter with confidence.   Unless of course the release mechanics need work – which we will cover in Part IV.

In any case – teaching energy transfer requires discipline and patience.   And every time you want to give up or you see the player wanting to revert back to their old habits – just picture 300 heavy horse charging at you, (or a 6’5 long-armed defender) and stick to the program.   Shooting confidently and accurately at long-range is one of the most satisfying parts of this game.  It’s well worth the wait, and your shooting career depends on it.

Next up, the final addition to the shooting series:   Release