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what I know about shooting. I see the game in deep trouble because
there are very few great shooters any more, and few people know
how to coach great shooting. Coaches and players everywhere lament
the decline in this master skill. Wonderfully designed plays
are run to perfection, a player is opened up for a 10-15' shot
or a 3, and then the shot is missed. It even happens so often
that coaches and players aren't surprised when the shot is botched.
Failure is kind of expected, but it's still disappointing. Articles
are written about this dilemma, and people are looking for an
answer. It's that time of year again. Basketball fever is affecting people all over the country. Coaches at all levels are getting started on the challenging task of helping their players learn how to play this great game. All this month the NBA teams have been testing their teams against each other in 7-8 preseason games, evaluating rookies and new additions. The season starts Nov. 2nd. The Internet allows us now to read stories
from Newspapers and other media sources around the country that
cover the various teams of the NBA (and some college teams, too).
I've Bookmarked 4-5 sites for each NBA team I'm following, and
daily read accounts of the teams' activities. I found CNN/SI
displays the boxscores of every game, and there's a simple URL
(Internet address) that allows me to call up any game played
and get the stats. For example, the URL for the Indiana home
game on Oct. 19th against Minnesota is: To find a game, replace the date "1999/10/19" with the game date (YYYY/MM/DD), and change the team names from "ind" for the Indiana Pacers and "min" for the Minnesota Timberwolves to whatever teams played. I believe the first name is the home team. For example, for a Laker game at home against Portland, the names would be "lal_por". Most of the names are the first 3 letters of the city or state, except where two teams exist, e.g. "lal" for the Lakers, "lac" for the Clippers. Utah is an exception with "uth" and the Knicks are "nyk." I assume the New Jersey Nets are "njn." Here are other ways to access reports about the various teams: (In each case, change the name of the team, as shown, to the team you wish. In some cases the name is the team name, like pacers, lakers, etc., and sometimes it's a 3 letter abbreviation. They appear to be case-sensitive.) CBS SportsLine You can also get reports on teams from
the local newspaper's Website. For example, The Salt Lake Tribune
covers the jazz: The L.A. Times covers the Lakers: Newsday covers the New York Knicks: The Indianapolis Star/News covers the Pacers: The Detroit Free Press covers the Pistons: To find a city paper for a team you want, say for example the Portland Trail Blazers, go to a Search Engine like Yahoo and type in the Key Words: "+Portland +NBA". You will find a number of hyperlinks and you can choose the one you want. I suppose soon we'll be able to call up video of some games, and eventually any game we want. I was able, for example, to read about
Shaq O'Neal's troubles at the Free Throw Line during this Preseason.
He's having a very difficult time this year, and the Laker's
Coaching Staff is trying to solve the dilemma. Here are his Free
Throw stats for the seven preseason games (excuse any errors
or omissions): I see others having problems, too. As we are aware, this is a prob- lem affecting every level of the game. Even the coaching of the skill is being doubted because the skill is going downhill and coaches rarely seem to make a difference. Last year during the NBA Playoffs, I heard someone on TV (Bob Costas, perhaps) ask Hubie Brown if he believed in "Shot Doctors." Hubie said something like "Not much." He went on to say that most players who work with Shot Doctors experience initial improvement, but then return basically to where they were before. I can understand that point of view. It seems to be the norm for the most of the coaching that's out there. I remember watching Shaq's performance a couple years ago when Magic Johnson was assigned to help him. Magic said one of the things he was working on with Shaq was his "rhythm." In the following weeks, Shaq did perform better, though his mechanics seemed the same. His percentage rose as high as 65% for awhile, but then it faltered and fell back to his normal 50-55%. Shaq has said that he thinks all he needs is, "... to concentrate and take my time." My story is that Shaq needs a major change in his physical technique, in his mechanics. Then the mental, including concentration, will come around. Right now his mind is probably going crazy because of all the failure, and all the talk about his failure. Taking one's time, or working on rhythm or visualization or positive thinking -- working on one's head -- can help only so much. There has to be a solid, simple, repeatable physical motion under that mental stuff or the house of cards will eventually crumble. Let me expand on this in the next section. When I observe the players in question, including Shaq, I can't see the mental interferences, but I can see the physical techniques, and what I see are largely unreliable. First, I see most of these players shooting very flat (which makes the target smaller and success more difficult), and then I see them using mechanics that are complicated or reliant more on smaller upper body muscles and less on the more stable lower body muscles. I call this type of shooting a "guessing" game. It's like they're guessing how many and which muscles to use each time they shoot. The fishbowl of the free throw, especially on national TV, illuminates their failures. Pressure makes the guessing more difficult, with more at stake. Of course the mind goes crazy after awhile with that kind of scenario. And, of course, you could start to think it's "in your head." However, the problem's genesis was physical. It was a shot motion that was variable, complicated so as to be difficult to repeat. In practice when they're relaxed, maybe they can make 75% or more and think their technique is not the problem. But the motion is not able to withstand great pressure. Solve the physical problem by developing a simple, relaxed, repeatable motion that sends the ball high and soft with consistent direction, and the shots will start to drop. When that happens, the mind will notice and stop freaking out so much. In my video I talk about the following progression of self image: First, from all the failure, this conclusion
is reasonable: To start with a new approach to one's mechanics
of shooting, I invite the player to start a self conversation
of "not knowing." It's a true statement, that he or
she doesn't know what's going to happen. The conversation can
just a neutral... ...and as success starts to come with improved
mechanics: ...and with more and more success, ...and finally, when you "know"
you can do it from experience, This will all happen naturally, organically. You don't have to practice it, rehearse it, say it to yourself until you believe it. You don't need a Sports Psychologist to tell you how to do it. The self conversation will naturally develop. If you agree the problem is physical, here's how to address it. The first step would be to find out how you shoot now. Before you make a change of any kind, it's critical to "know" how you shoot in the beginning. That's because you need to experience the changes that are happening or else you may slip back into old patterns of behavior and not know it. An external coach could catch that, of course, but for self coaching, this is very important. If you're a coach, give your team time to observe their shooting in pairs and talk about it. Suggest they suspend judgment for awhile as to how well they shoot. Then ask them some simple, general things about shooting: Where does the power comes from (upper or lower body), what kind of height and spin do they put on the ball, how do they set and release the ball, what happens with the follow through? Ask them how they control distance and direction. Most players will not know - they just hope and pray a lot. And when they admit that they don't, then you've got a starting point! How DO they control the flight of the ball? It will start some powerful realizations, awarenesses and conversations. Then, if you can ask them to explore each of the distinctions of shooting (Set Point, Power, Release, Follow Through, etc.), maybe even offer some suggestions of what might improve their shooting, they'll start to develop all by themselves. The point is that "Awareness is Developmental." Increase their awareness of what they do relative to a goal and they'll grow. If you have time to work with each player, you can speed up the process. I've written a document called "Coaching
Shooting with Large Groups" that can help you do the above
(see section 6 below, "What's New on My Website").
It will show you how to set up and lead an exploration of shooting
that will result in tremendous natural and self-directed learning.
My video does a more thorough job, of course, but this document
can get you started. Let me know how this approach works for
you. As your season starts and you go out for basketball practice, hoping to get chosen on the team, or to play more minutes, or to get more shots, or to score more points, realize that you have to ASK for things in life. It's important to really "GO" for what you want, and asking for coaching is part of that. We all need coaching (also called mentoring) in our lives to excel. Don't be afraid to ask for help. You can live your life passively -- and that's how most people live them -- or you can live it actively. I can say this because I can see how much I lived my life passively. I didn't know what I wanted to do or learn or achieve, and I didn't know to ask. I was lucky in that I was athletic and coordinated and I had sports to fall back on. That's where I shined, but if you had asked me to perform in some other arena, I would have been petrified. My coaching for you is to think about what you want in basketball, and then ask for it, go for it. Ask your coach what s/he feels you need to develop, for example. It might be your dribbling, your shooting, your defense, or your team play, for example. Whatever it is, ask for coaching how to improve in those areas. Ask your parents or an older sibling or an accomplished friend to help you. People LOVE to be asked to help! That will get you started. And when you practice and play, observe where your strengths and weaknesses are find a way to work on the latter. This idea of focusing on what you want to achieve and then asking for help getting it will be useful your entire life. Don't think you have to do it all by yourself! The subject is Mastery, how to "Master" things in our lives. I have a great book to recommend titled "Mastery," by George Leonard. It's in paperback, about $10. Get it and read it and share it with your friends. It's about the process of Mastery, something we all need at every stage of our lives. It describes how society is anti-mastery, with it's quick fix, X frames/second, "buy this and be happy" mentality. You, however, can take another path ... the path of Mastery. It requires that you ask for coaching and get on a path of development. From the book you'll learn to honor and love practice, the daily or weekly things you do to advance your abilities. You'll come to expect and love the plateaus, the times when you don't seem to be making any improvement. And you'll learn to develop staying power for the things you love and wish to learn. Switching paths all the time is not practicing Mastery. My video and my articles on shooting reveal to you a way to master shooting. But to actually achieve that, you'll have to spend a lot of time on a court with a basketball paying attention to what you do and what you want to learn. It's an exciting journey, and the rewards are great, but if you get depressed or bored easily and keep dropping off the path, you'll never master anything. The book will give you some great coaching.
You can probably get it at the Library. Please read it and put
it into practice. And please let me know what you think of it,
how it affects you. Thanks. I wrote a 4th Article on "The Trouble
With Shooting" for the Basketball Highway Website. It's
entitled: It's about my take on 3 very common shooting
instructions that I believe inhibit great shooting. They are: To access it, you can link directly to
it from here, via this URL: (2) COACHING SHOOTING WITH LARGE GROUPS I've been asked to help coaches with a way to coach shooting with teams or large groups where there is little time for individual attention. This document gives you a specific format for taking a large group of "kids" and leading them to making some critical shooting "distinctions" that will help them explore, discover and learn improved shooting. My experience has shown me that we learn like crazy when we know what to focus on and do it with an attitude of exploration, discovery and freedom (plus minimal good/bad "judgment"). To access and print out the document, go
to my Website (http://www.swish22.com) and you'll find a link
near the top. It's about 7 pages long, though you could cut and
paste it into your computer and make it prettier with fewer pages. OTHER AREAS OF THE COUNTRY: I'd love to come to your city to put on Clinics. My rate for 2 days of coaching is $2,000 plus expenses. If we did 4 Clinics of 20 players at a cost of $35/each ($50 to include a video), that would pay for the visit. The Clinics would be 3 1/2 hours each, giving enough time for lots of individual coaching in addition to the powerful group exercises. Call for details. Keep checking my Website at http://www.swish22.com or call or Email me if you'd like more details. I'll update the schedule on my Website when it changes. PRIVATE COACHING: VIDEO ANALYSIS: Go to the Swish Website, find the section about the "Shooting Newsletter," key in your Email address and click on the "JoinList"graphic. An Email will be sent automatically back to you asking that you confirm that you want to be on the List. Reply in the affirmative and you will be added to the list and receive a password. There is no need to save or record the password because ListBot will always quickly Email it back to you when asked. It's needed only to change your Email address or to Unsubscribe. To UNSUBSCRIBE from this Newsletter: If you ever want to Unsubscribe, please
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