How To Shoot (Teaching Shooting) a Basketball Correctly Pro Shot Shooting System

The skill of shooting is arguably the most important part of basketball.  To win, you have to be able to put the ball in the basket.

Watching LeBron James, Giannis Antentenkompa and other high flyers is fun, but guys like Steph Curry and Klay Thompson have changed the game with the way that they shoot the ball.

Learning how to teach shooting and learning the proper way to shoot is as important as any other aspect of the game.  

YouTube is littered with 'how to' shooting videos.  Pro Shot Shooting System is a well-researched approach to learning how to shoot and for teaching how to shoot.  I have a few of the basic videos below to help get you started on how to shoot the right way, according to their system, and a systematic approach to teaching shooting for coaches and trainers.

These 1st 3 videos give you a good starting point: 

1 - Your shooting stance
2 - Your shooting rhythm
3 - Your follow through
4 - Your eyes on the follow through

The Turn (Your Stance)

This video breaks down your stance and where your feet should point when you shoot.  He says we should stand with our lead foot pointing to the basket with the other trailing in a staggered stance, like a boxer.  In other words, a players hips and shoulders are turned.

 

The Dip

This video talks about the rhythm that you have to have to shoot.  You create it by doing a small dip of the ball before you shoot.  Off the dribble, rhythm is created by the dribble itself, but off the pass and catch, the rhythm needs to be created by the shooter by dipping the ball lower than the catch before quickly rising the ball into the shooting motion to have a more comfort and power.

The Finger Follow Through

This video talks about the follow through release.  I have always been a two finger shooter.  I was taught that the ball should roll off your index and middle finger last to guide the ball to the basket:

The Pro Shot System teaches shooting off your index finger.  You will be able to consistently lock in on your target because your index finger is your straightest and strongest finger.  It will allow balance and support grip in the middle of the ball, and is ultimately the easiest way to lock in on your target and shoot straight every time.

The Offhand

The offhand is the glue to shooting and guides the ball to the target while balancing the shooter's upper body and release.  Three things that your offhand need to do are: 1) Stay narrow to the release and follow through 2) Elbow is raised and points away 3) Offhand shoulder is back and un-involved in the shot.  These 3 things keep the offhand aligned, relaxed and helps balance the shooter throughout the shooting process.

Your Eyes

The video below talks about what your eyes should do on the release.  I was always taught to keep your eyes on the basket, but this video teaches to watch the ball so that you can correct misses.  This is a checkpoint to make sure that you are shooting in line with the rim.  Feedback is a must, so glance up to follow the release and the flight of the ball.

The A.R.T. of Teaching Shooting
A tool for coaches, players and parents to help guide you through the shooting system.

A - Accuracy.  Fixing left and right misses.
R - Rhythm.  Get power and get rid of stiffness.  Be a fluid shooter.

T - Transitions.  Addressing individual needs like speed, balance, and fluidity and putting it all together.

The 3 Shooting Secrets of GREAT Shooters

The video below just outlines and gives examples of the 3 main points to their system:

1) The Sway
2) The Dip
3) The Turn

2 Things

Often, actions lead and emotions follow.  That's why when you smile at someone, it makes you feel happier than when you frown.

Grow your teams culture or be a better teammate by finding small but meaningful actions that will bring your team and teammates together and improved the emotional well-being of the team.

One systematic way to do that is called '2 good things.' 

All you have to do is say 2 positive or encouraging or motivating things per minute.  

Now, it's just like any new system - it won't run on it's own.  It needs to be clearly taught and communicated and modelled and there needs to be consistent re-teaching, follow through and feedback to make it a sustained part of your team's culture.  

But once it is, it the new level of communication and connectedness could be a game changer.

Brandon Day: Our youth sports culture is broken

The following article is from the Time Herald and can be found in its entirety here.

Editors Note: Brandon Day has become a legendary wrestling coach in the Blue Water Area, leading Richmond to several state championships. This is his first guest column for the Times Herald.  

After 17 years coaching at the high school level, I am not a big fan of the youth sports culture in America today.

I don’t think we are developing better athletes and/or people in our current system. We have developed a culture that will not serve our student-athletes well as they grow into adulthood. We have organizations and private coaches that are making a profit filling parents’ heads full of false information and dreams of scholarships rather than focusing on the development of the athletes, regardless of their skill levels.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but not every kid can be a college scholarship athlete and that is OK. We need to take pride in coaching and/or raising the child that is the sixth man, the back-up, or the utility guy on the baseball team. Those kids are extremely valuable to their teams, schools, and communities. I prefer the way things used to be before the elite youth travel sports culture developed.

I was fortunate enough to grow up in a small, blue-collar town that was filled with kids and families that loved sports. The typical summer day was not spent riding in a car to our elite club practice to work out with kids from all over the state. 

Our day was much more beneficial for the kids in our community, and it had a positive impact on our community and school for years to come. Rather than getting in the car, we would get on the phone. No, not like today’s youth to check their Facebook, Snapchat or Instagram. We had Nick Collins’ wall-mounted, tan-colored phone. 

Nick and Neil Collins’ father, Don, operated the local roller rink and helped run Imlay City Little League Baseball.  Nick and Neil had access to every phone number of any kid who played in Little League. If a kid didn’t play Little League at the time, Jeff Stryker was sure to have his or her number. Jeff’s dad, Jerry, was a mailman, and he was one of the coaches.

They knew everyone. They hit the phone hard on those summer days and weekends that we didn’t have school. It was great. By 9 a.m., we usually had enough kids assembled in the lot behind the roller rink to play football, baseball, basketball, or whatever games we made up. 

We didn’t exclude girls, either. Some of us may not admit it, but all of us at one point were beaten by Milli Martinez. The thing we enjoyed best was that it was just us, no parents, no coaches, and no officials. It wasn’t perfect; we fought, we argued, and we may have even thrown a few kicks and punches. 

We loved to compete. No one ever ran home and complained. The games were too much fun, and if someone left and or complained, he or she may not have received a return phone call. It wasn’t perfect, but we learned how to deal with failure, settle our differences and admit when we were wrong for the betterment of the group. We had no one to make excuses for us, and there was no one to blame for our failures. It was athletics and competition in its finest form.

We loved athletics. We weren’t burned out from constantly competing for meaningless trophies at a young age. Our parents weren’t trying to force us into everything to keep up with the neighbors; they just wanted us out of the house.

We weren’t talking about scholarship offers in the sixth grade; we didn’t have any pressure on us, other than we loved to win, and being tough was a good thing. Our parents set us up to succeed. 

We participated in athletics because we loved to be around our friends and compete.  That being said, many of the kids that participated in the games behind the rink went on to help their high school teams have success, some became college athletes, coaches and a couple of them were blessed with the God-given ability to become professional athletes. 

More importantly, the environment that was created and the lessons learned behind that roller rink helped all of us become successful adults.  

Lessons learned

When I first started coaching and helped develop our current youth system at Richmond, many people questioned our methods because we put an emphasis on instruction, practice, and relationship development over competition. Our goal back then, and still to this day, was to develop each athlete fundamentally so that when his or her body finally grew, the athlete would be fundamentally sound and be ready to compete at the highest level. 

We took pride in saving our parent's registration fees and gas money rather than just pushing them to compete too early for little reward. We are honest with our parents and try to promote an environment that eliminates selfishness and focuses on doing what is best for the group. 

The “me-first mentality” is way too prevalent in athletics and society today. We wanted to retain as many kids as possible because oftentimes the kid who was great in third grade isn’t so great in 11th grade. And the kid who struggled in third grade has already been All-State twice before entering his senior season. 

We knew we had to value and develop all kids. This system has served us well. It isn’t always perfect, and we have lost some kids through the cracks, but for the most part, our system has allowed us to help some kids do some pretty amazing things.

Correctable errors 

As a teacher and coach, there is nothing more depressing than seeing that kid who was once a great youth or middle school-level athlete walk around the halls of your school and no longer competes because he or she can’t deal with potential failure because of the pressure they were put under as a 12-year-old. 

We also see the kids who are afraid to come back out because they struggled as a youth but have now grown and could contribute to helping their school, community, and friends have success. We need to keep our kids involved.

As parents and coaches, we need to tweak our thought process and ask ourselves, are we really getting our kids ready to compete and have success at the high school level or are we chasing meaningless trophies and trying to fulfill some void we think we had as youngsters. 

We need to make sure our kids understand in sports and life, it’s not how you start but rather how you finish.

How To Combat Mental Barriers

On the road to success, there are many roadblocks.  But, many of those roadblocks are in our minds.  They include doubt and fears and limitations that we put on ourselves.  To combat those internal feelings, Jon Gordon says that we should:

"We need to talk to ourselves much more often than we listen to ourselves."

We have to make sure that we have a 'growth mindset' that will help us overcome obstacles, real and mental, and that will help us deal with, learn from, and grow from mistakes.

Kevin Eastman uses these 4 words to combat these roadblocks and to get to greatness:

- Trust

- Belief

- Resolve

- Preparation

I think it all starts with the preparation.  The more prepared that you are going into a situation, the more you can trust yourself, the more you can believe in yourself, and the better prepared you are to bounce back from inevitable setbacks.  Prepare yourself the best you can going in, and you will have a different level of trust and belief in yourself.

We have to trust ourselves and our abilities.  We have what we need within us, we have to create and plan and be willing to work to bring it out of us.  Trust comes in the preparation.  The better prepared you are, the more trust that you can naturally put in yourself.

We have to believe in ourselves and our abilities.  We have it all within us, and you have had success on some level before.  Recall moments where you have had success, and use that success to increase your belief in yourself and your abilities.

Finally, setbacks and failures are just a part of the game and a part of life.  You can't avoid it.  But what you can control is how you bounce back from those setbacks.  Learn from your setbacks, grow from your setbacks, and you will be better because of your setbacks.

The Power of If

'IF' you want to be successful, you have to have a plan, create goals, and then you have to work for your goals.  You have to have an action plan for your goals.  Creating a plan and having goals without action will just lead to disappointment and frustration.

Using the word ‘IF’ when creating goals can create the action for you.  ‘IF’ is the work that is required to achieve your goals.

-  If I want to make varsity, I will have to _________________, _________________, and _________________.

- If I want to be all-district, I will have to _________________, _________________, and _________________.

-  If I want to get a college scholarship, I will have to _________________, _________________, and _________________.

- If I want to become a better coach, I will have to _________________, _________________, and _________________.

- If I want to create better relationships with my students and/or players, I will have to _________________, _________________, and _________________.

- If I want to increase my student test scores, I will have to _________________, _________________, and _________________.

- If I want to move from being a teacher to an administrator, I will have to _________________, _________________, and _________________.

- If I want to become a transformational leader, I will have to _________________, _________________, and _________________.

On the road to success, there are many roadblocks.  But, many of those roadblocks are in our minds.  They include doubt and fears and limitations that we put on ourselves.  To combat those internal feelings, Jon Gordon says that we should:

"We need to talk to ourselves much more often than we listen to ourselves."

We have to make sure that we have a 'growth mindset' that will help us overcome obstacles, real and mental, and that will help us deal with, learn from, and grow from mistakes.

Kevin Eastman uses these 4 words to combat these roadblocks and to get to greatness:

- Trust

- Belief

- Resolve

- Preparation

I think it all starts with the preparation.  The more prepared that you are going into a situation, the more you can trust yourself, the more you can believe in yourself, and the better prepared you are to bounce back from inevitable setbacks.  Prepare yourself the best you can going in, and you will have a different level of trust and belief in yourself.

We have to trust ourselves and our abilities.  We have what we need within us, we have to create and plan and be willing to work to bring it out of us.  Trust comes in the preparation.  The better prepared you are, the more trust that you can naturally put in yourself.

We have to believe in ourselves and our abilities.  We have it all within us, and you have had success on some level before.  Recall moments where you have had success, and use that success to increase your belief in yourself and your abilities.

Finally, setbacks and failures are just a part of the game and a part of life.  You can't avoid it.  But what you can control is how you bounce back from those setbacks.  Learn from your setbacks, grow from your setbacks, and you will be better because of your setbacks.