Hi y’all. In the spirit of “teach me to throw a softball” (sorry, no link) I bring you “teach me to shoot a basketball!”
I have recently started playing a bit of basketball, just with various folk I bump into, nothing serious as such. Being tall, lanky and mobile I have a quite an advantage over my shorter friends, and also no excuse for sucking like I do. I am actually quite competent at dribelling (sp?), and this combined with my height results in me being picked more often than not. The main trouble comes when I attempt to shoot from a decent distance away. The ball tends to skew upward in a pathetic loop and fall miserably short and/or wide. My current technique is to hold the ball in the right hand (I’m right handed) with the left held nearby for show. I then proceed to draw my forearm back to my eyes with the top of the arm more or less parallel to the ground (probably less come to think of it), and then straighten the arm rapidly. I have never had any real instruction in this matter aside from “look- the idiot doesn’t even…”'s.
Any help in eliminating any flaws (gasp!) in this action would be vastly appreciated, or better still just describe a good action from scratch. Even if you have pretty much no idea, please don’t be afraid to chime in- I’m hardly going to get worse as a result!
Thanks-
I went to college on a full basketball ride but teaching in words rather than actions is difficult. Sounds like you are doing the arm motion right but you said nothing of your legs. Your power should come from your legs. The jump in jump shot is not just for elevation on the release. It also gives you the strength of your shot. Even on an old school “set shot” the knees bend and the force comes from your quads and hamstrings. Always keep your eye on the back of the rim just on the inside of the basket. Oh and the ball should roll off your index and middle finger creating a nice soft back spin. This will give the ball it’s “touch”. As in when it hits the rim it won’t go flying off, It should bounce up softly and give you another chance for it to go in.
This assumes you are not foul-shooting, throwing up a hookshot or are going to catch it low in the post and spin around and shoot. It assumes you have caught the ball facing the basket somewhere around the key. This is a shooting motion you might try:
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Make sure you know where the basket is. You have decided to shoot, not to pass so don’t look at your teammates. Don’t look at your defender (Know where he is) or anything he is saying/doing. You should be paying attention to that hoop - that you now “realize” is the size of a bathtub.
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What are your feet doing? Are they set and pointed toward the hoop?
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Your right hand should be under the ball - and as a tip the wider your fingers are apart the more control you will have over the ball but don’t go crazy trying to spread them. The left hand lightly guides and steadies but doesn’t do much else.
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Jump. At the top of your jump piston the right arm forward and shoot the ball.
Your wrist has snapped forward, your “two-point” fingers have given spin to the ball. Theoretically the ball is gliding toward the basket.
That was very hard to write and I don’t know why. I bet (hope) you get better responses. Funny I never realized how difficult that was to write w/o being able to shoW.
**The ball tends to skew upward in a pathetic loop and fall miserably short and/or wide. **
Given my shoddy attempt, & not seeing your shot, it sounds like a lack of practice (short and wide) and maybe you aren’t putting enough push into it
Good advice above. [disclaimer] I’m no expert and no longer play bball but here are a few tips that have helped me in the past.[/disclaimer]
If you are facing the basket at an angle (ie, more than a couple feet or so from being directly in front of the basket), aim for the top corner of the black square that is painted on the backboard (aim for the left corner if you’re to the left of the basket, and the right if you are to the right of the basket). It was always easier for me to focus on that little corner than on the basket. And if you have a good backspin, it will bounce off the backboard & drop right in.
Now how to improve your backspin (good for improving your free throws as well): lie down on your back with the ball in your right hand, and toss it up as if you’re shooting for a basket, only do it straight up and flicking your wrist with a “snap” to give the ball a good backspin. If it comes straight back down, you’re doing it right. Do it many times a day and your shot will go straighter (theoretically 
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Everyone has different styles mate, compare the awkward stroke of Peja Stojakovic to that of Reggie Miller; both great shooters but different techniques. Find what works well for you and practice and practice. Just make sure it’s fluid and follow-through
Just curious, how tall are you?
You shoot a basketball with your legs and your fingertips. After that, just play around with different styles until you find one that is comfortable. Once you find a comfortable style, it’s just a matter of practicing the same motion over and over again. I’ll walk you through what I do. It’s by no means correct.
- Place the ball around your right hip. Your hand should be around seven inches or so in front of your body.
- Roll the ball back on your fingertips, or point your palm towards the basket and make sure the ball is on your fingers.
- Bend both knees.
- It should now feel like your hand and body is “under” the ball. Your hand should feel like a flipper; it should be behind the ball, and it should feel like it’s at a thirty degree angle or less.
- Push up with your legs and flick your hand forward like a flipper. Umm, yeah, easy for me to say. This is where practice comes in. You have to get a feel for how much leg push to use, and how much wrist flick to use.
Also, keep in mind that shooting off the dribble is a heck of a lot harder than getting a pass and shooting.
Start practicing very close to the basket, like three feet away. Shoot from an angle and use the backboard at first. Be sure to get the backspin using tips from earlier posts. You can probably start flat-footed, then after you are comfortable, start jumping a little to get the release timing down. Once you have a shot from three feet, back up to four feet and stay there until you get it down. Then six feet.
I used free throws to “perfect” (hah!) my shot. Right foot forward, pointed about twenty degrees left of the basket. Left foot back, probably 70 deg left of the basket. I held the ball in my right hand, just below my line of sight to the basket, forearm almost vertical, upper arm almost horizontal, elbow pointed in the direction of the basket. Wrist cocked back, so the ball rested in my palm.
When shooting, I basically straightened my legs and my arm at the same time, impacting that backspin with a wrist flick motion. When you release, follow through so that your arm is straight, wrist is bend forward, and your arm is still pointed in the direction of the basket.
One thing no one has yet mentioned is the arc of your set/jump shot.
OM Waterfall, do you have a “flat” shot? One that basically makes a beeline for the rim, with little arc?
If so, you’ll want to correct that. The ball should travel in a graceful rainbow to the basket. Even for folks who already have somewhat of a consistent arc to their shots, concentrating even more on lift and arc can help prevent shots from clanging off the front or back of the rim and improve their shooting percentage. In my experience, most all good shooters have almost an exaggerated arc to their shots. Larry Bird’s set shot was the text book example of arc (if not of shooting style – going behind the head is not for everyone).
Uncle Bill’s advice below about starting in close, then working your way out, is rock-solid and will get you results in short order.
Another great point I missed commenting on above – pay attention to the vertical line of your forearm. You want to shoot with your elbow as close to vertical as is comfortable. When your forearm drifts too far from vertical, and your elbow is splayed outward and not pointed at the basket … well, ugly things happen to your shot.
Your forearm doesn’t have to be exactly at 90 degrees vertical. It’s an ideal you aim for as you find your comfort zone. You’ll see good shooters with their forearm off of vertical a bit – but not by much.
I see lots of good suggestions here. I would add:
Everybody and I do mean everybody can shoot. What your teammates want is for you to score. I have coached hundreds of kids that could shoot. Unfortunately, not as many scorers as shooters.
The difference between a good shooter and an excellent shooter is about 200 shots a day. Practice is required. Practicing with proper form is essential. All great shooters work on form. My best shooters would walk out of the locker room, grab a ball, and immediately get inside the lane about two or three feet from the basket, and start “grooving” their shot.
Steps to grooving the shot - starting with hand position, if you are right handed, start with the ball resting in the palm of your right hand, with you hand extended, palm up, arm out. Let the ball sit up just slightly on your finger tips. There should be a ever so slight space between your palm and your basketball. Fingertips, but again, only slightly. Now rotate so that you are holding the ball in front of your shoulder and in front of your cheek / eye brow. Some people teach this differently but we use this approach. We want our kids to “find their shot pocket” This is necessary in order to groove your shot. So, the ball should be resting in your right hand and at this point, keep your left hand out of the action. It is very easy to add the left hand later. Your shot should come from your right hand only. Thumbs…both of them are evil. Don’t let them affect the flight of the ball. 95% of your shot comes from your index finger and your middle finger. Shooting is lifting…not throwing. This can’t be over emphasized. The first thing you need to do at this point is focus on a lifting action. Lift, lift, lift, and extend your arm upward. You should release the ball only after the elbow has passed your eyebrow. This type of action makes you lift. Finish with your fingers inside the middle of the basket… or act like you are trying to finish with your fingers inside the basket. You should be loose. There should be a slight and I do mean slight bounce of your hand after the follow thru.
We have our kids start every practice with about three to five minutes of form shooting. They are very close to the basket, using one hand only, and holding follow thru until the ball drops through the net and bounces twice. This makes them exagerate follow through. Finish, or follow through is essential to good shooting. If you get the finish / follow through you want… that is correct, you will make lots and lots of baskets.
Other things to remember
Balance
Eye the Basket
Elbow under the ball… a very common and sickening mistake is to get that shooting elbow wide to the right of the ball. Poor form when this happens.
Follow Through (BEEF)
As you practice your shot you should know that if you consistently miss right or left of the basket, your form is screwed up. (Usually). If you are missing long or short, you may be misjudging the distance. We would rather work with kids missing long or short. It is much easier to correct this problem.
The progression we go through in the off season: Grooving the shot:
Form shoot at the backboard. Yep. The backboard. We do this for one reason. We want the ball to hit the backboard on descent. If it hits on the way up, you are not shooting. You are throwing. Remember, shooting is lifting.
Move to the side of the backboard. Now shoot and have the ball hit the side of the backboard on descent. This makes the shooter have better alignment, since the side of the backboard is only about an inch and a half wide. Alignment is huge.
Think of a sliding patio door. It moves in a groove. That is how your shot should be… moving like its on a track or groove.
TMI but good luck.
Square up to the basket.
Roll the shot off the fingers as stated above.
Don’t forget follow-through. Your hand after the shot should look like it’s following the ball through the hoop; sort of a goose neck look.
Don’t anticipate your next move after shooting; it can throw off your concentration while in the act.
There’s a lot of good information on here already, but I can’t help myself. I’m going to try to add a little that I haven’t seen. Most of it will overlap though.
Before the shot, square your feet and your shoulders to the rim. Most people are comfortable with the right foot slightly in front of the left. Make sure you’ve got a decent grip on the ball, spin it if you like a certain alignment of the laces. The shot starts in the legs. Bend your knees. This:
is right on. The left hand is only there to guide the ball, not shoot it, so it should just barely touch the side of the ball. Don’t touch the ball with your palm at any point in the shot- you want fingertip control. In one motion from this position- knees bent, feet shoulder-width apart, ball cocked in the right hand- explode straight up, extend the right arm at about a 45 degree angle , and shoot the ball by flicking your wrist. Your shooting elbow should start directly under the ball and stay there, otherwise the rotation of the ball is screwed up.
You want to release the ball at the top of the jump, to avoid wasting motion and double-clutching, which doesn’t work. The last things to touch the ball should be the index and middle fingers. During the shot, you want to look at the front of the rim, and try to nudge the ball right over that spot. And do it softly.
On the release, you can’t flick your wrist hard enough or hold it like that long enough. The more you flick the wrist, the more fingertip control you get over the shot, and the more backspin you apply, which means a softer landing for the shot. Another important thing which I don’t think anybody has mentioned- always land on the same spot you left from. It sounds simple, but so many people drift to the left or right, or fade away when they shoot, and it affects the trajectory. Jump straight up and land straight down. People love to say “Follow your shot.” Don’t do it. I’m in the minority on that, I guess, but it’s a bad habit to get into to start sprinting towards the rim after the release. I say you should expect the ball to go in, so why bother following?
That’s the basic jumper. The mechanics don’t change from under the basket to a 25-footer off the dribble. What might change is the amount of knee bend and the force of the jump, but other than that you should shoot every jump shot the exact same way. Of course, game shooting is a little bit different because you don’t get to take your time and collect yourself, but once the shot begins it should be the same. It sounds complicated, but if you really think about it, all those instructions are just stuff not to do. It’s really pretty simple- bend knees, jump, release ball, follow through. Do that every time and there’s nothing to it; your muscle memory will eventually “learn” how to adapt to different distances and angles, and it will be second nature to shoot accordingly.
Thanks a lot everyone, that really hit the spot. I think my main problem was the positioning of the feet/legs, which I originally had completely front on, as if the hoop was a urinal. Please don’t tell me that was right after all! (Come to think of it I cant see anyone describing that analogy as “right” but anyhow)
I am now using Uncle Bill’s 20, 70 method. The other thing I still have trouble with is the amount of knee bend. It only gets really chronic when I have stacks of time to prepare- I just seem to keep on bending back.
BTW, green_bladder I am 190cm (6’3 I think).
My shots look like a very negative parabola which is serving me quite well so far, and almost eliminates the need for backspin which is handy because I can’t really seem to get any with the fingertips only grip. Anyway thanks a lot people, my shots now look respectable enough that someone usually bothers to marks me, even if they aren’t all that accurate just yet!
There are alot of drills you can also do to help with form/arc/etc.
Try laying on your back, with a basketball…move the ball into your shooting motion and “shoot” it straight up. It should come right back down into your face(catch it, obviously)…keep repeating…this will help train the muscles to automatically go right into the correct form. If the ball is flying off to the left or the right, and you have to keep crawling around to retrieve it, you know your form is off.
Try getting a basketball painted like the old ABA balls (red/white/blue panels)…this will help you see your rotation better…at the gym I play at, they have one of these balls, and when my shot isn’t feeling right I’ll grab it, just so I can see exactly what my rotation is doing.
If your shot is flat, have a buddy “guard” you while holding up a broom. Have him stand a couple of feet away, and shoot over the broom.
At first, work on getting your feet square to the basket…eventually, you will worry more about your shoulders…I don’t care how my feet are set, as long as I can elevate and get my shoulders square, I can shoot.
Also, the advice about starting short is good. WORK on free throws…once you can sit at 15 feet and knock down set shots, it’s not much harder to move back to the 20’ 3 point line and knock down jumpers…all your power should be coming from your legs.
One thing I did in college which made a big difference was distance shooting…once you can comfortably shoot from 20’…move back to 25’…then 30 or 35…you will have to use perfect form, getting all the power from your legs, but once you are accurate from 30’ moving back to the college 3 pt line seems like a free throw. I can’t shoot like I did back then, but I can still sit 30’ and knock down shots pretty reliably.