How To Become A GREAT Shooter - Fix Your Shooting Form

What's up guys?

Coach Ethan here. Today we're going to talk about shooting form and specifically why. Right now is the opportunity you guys should take to fix your shooting form so that down the line you can become a great shooter. At the end of the day, if you don't have great mechanics or great shooting form, you won't be a great shooter. That's just how it is. You might be able to be an okay shooter or a decent shooter, but when it comes to playing at the highest level, being able to get your shot off as quickly as possible and having to compete with other guys who also can shoot, if you don't have great mechanics, you're going to fall behind people and eventually you're going to get to a point where you just can't compete. And as many of you guys know, if you see my other videos, I believe that shooting is the most important skill in basketball. And I don't think there's really even a discussion about it. So today we're going to talk about how to fix your shooting form, what to look for, and then some drills you can do to actually go ahead and implement your new form. So to start off, the first thing I want you guys to do is really be honest with yourself, evaluate yourself and decide if you need to make some corrections in your shooting form.

Alright?

How good of a shooter are you already? Does your shot feel like it's really good? When you compare it to guys in the NBA, does your shot look comparable to theirs? Or do you feel like there's a certain part of it that you feel like isn't quite right, that maybe you can make a little bit better and you just haven't got around to doing it. What you guys should do is take a video of yourself shooting from bunch of different angles. From behind, from the front, from the sides, just so you can see exactly.

What your shot looks like.

You can see exactly how your hand placement is, how the ball looks, how your rotation is all the important things that we're going to talk about in this video. That way you're really going to be able to truly decide and really self evaluate to see if you do need to change your shooting form. Because like I said guys, now is the time to do it. The biggest thing that players have when it comes to reasons for them not changing their form is that they're playing so many games that if they change their form, it's they might get a little bit worse for a little bit while they're building that new form. And that's going to cause them to.

Play worse in games.

And while that's true right now, we're not playing any games, at least for the foreseeable future. So now is the opportunity you guys should take while you have the time to do it and you don't have the pressure of playing in games. Now is the time where you guys should fix that shooting form so that down the line you can become a great shooter. It's all about the late gratification, guys. Putting off feeling good about something now, so you can feel really, really good about it down the line. And that's what we're going to work on today. So we're going to get in to.

What you need to look for in.

Your shooting form and what you can do to fix it.

Let's get into it. So like I said, guys, the first thing I recommend that you do is record your shot from a couple different angles. Now, I recommend you do it from behind and also from the front so you can see exactly what your shot looks like. That way you're not just going to be guessing on what you need to change or how you're supposed to change it. You're going to have concrete evidence that shows what you need to change. Now, some of you guys are going to notice right here if you is that I have a piece of tape along the basketball going right around the center of the ball so I can see the rotation. And the reason that I do this is because it can be hard to tell what your spin looks like. But a lot of the times if you have good rotation on the basketball, good backspin, you at least have the foundations to become a great shooter once you start to get the reps up. But typically, if I see a person who doesn't have good rotation, they might have some side rotation on the basketball, then they're going to be inconsistent. And no matter how many shots they get up, they're never going to be the type of shooter that they want to be. I also recommend, like, what you guys are seeing right here, is that you take some videos in slow motion so you can really see the spin and your form. This is going to allow you to really break down how your shot looks. Also, don't get too caught up in making sure the backspin is exactly in a straight line. As you'll see, the ball is wobbling a little bit, but you can still tell overall that there's good backspin in the basketball. Don't feel like it has to be perfect. Very, very few shooters actually will shoot it perfectly. And that's all right. But you want to make sure that it's consistent. You don't have any weird side spin on the basketball. Between my junior and senior year of high school, I spent the entire offseason with taper on the basketball because I realized that I had a little bit of side spin on the ball that was throwing off my shot a little bit, not allowing me to become a consistent shooter. And because I did that and I really worked on having good backspin, I set myself from being an inconsistent, decent shooter to a very, very consistent shooter the next year just by changing the spin on the basketball. So using the tape, making sure that your spin is good is something you should really look to do. So if you realize that you do have a weird size fit on the basketball, what should you do to fix it? Well, there's no one size fits all answer for this. So you're going to have to recognize what you specifically are doing wrong. We're going to go over a few reasons that that could be happening to you. Let's talk about hand placement. So there's two different types of hand placement that I would teach. The first one is to have your pointer finger and your middle finger split the basketball down the middle. So as you see, the tape is our mark of where the middle is. And this is the way that I personally shoot because I feel like it gives me the most control of the basketball. So the last two fingers that come off the basketball would be your pointer finger and middle finger. So the second type of hand placement would be where your pointer finger is down the middle of the basketball. And this is the way that guys like Kobe and Dirk will shoot the ball. And the reason that this works for guys like that is because now your pointer finger is the last finger off the basketball. So if you get that finger directly into the rim, then it's going to be a straight shot.

And a lot of guys find that their rotation and their control is a.

Lot better like this. Now, I used to actually shoot like this, but when I transitioned to a two finger approach, I just got more control in the ball. My rotation improved. So what you need to do is.

You need to evaluate for yourself, try.

To try these out, see which one works better for you, and then make your decision. The second thing that you should try out to fix your rotation would be to change where you start your shot from. Now, for me personally, I used to start my shot a little bit more towards the middle of my body, similar to how Kevin Durant does. And while that's not necessarily Wrong if it works well for you. For some people it just doesn't work well with their mechanics. And it was like that for me. So what I did is I moved my shot start a little bit more towards the outside, towards my right hip. And for me personally, that really helps my shot to have better rotation. Now don't feel like what I do is what you have to do because I know players who don't shoot the way I do who have great rotation to see what works best for you. At the end of the day, it's all about getting the best result, not necessarily worrying about having the same mechanics as anybody else. To really cement in our good rotation.

We'Re going to go through some form.

Shooting, but with a little bit of a twist to it. So we're first going to do one hand form shooting. But as you see right here, I'm putting my arms straight out the then bring it into my shot, then I'm going up with it. This is going to allow us to keep the ball straight and to really make sure that we have the ball exactly where we want it to be. And also make sure that when you have the tape on the basketball that you have it so that you can tell what the rotation is going to be. So as you see, I have the tape lined up so it's going to be straight. And I know for sure whether or not I have good rotation when I shoot it Next. What we're going to do is we're going to move into two hands, but it's only going to be adding that guide hand. So essentially you're going to start off the same as that one hand form shooting. You're going to and then when you get into that shot ready position, you're going to bring your guide hand to the side of the basketball and then go into the shot. So really the only difference here is that you're just bringing that guide hand to the basketball. This is going to make sure we don't allow that guide hand to affect the basketball. And if you feel like your guide hand is what's affecting the basketball, this is a good drill to help you break that habit. In my opinion, the two most important parts of shooting are the rotation on the basketball and the arc that you have in your shot. Having one of these two things messed up can ruin your shot.

So.

So we just talked about rotation, the importance of it and how you can tell what your rotation looks like. And it's really simple when it comes to arc. The cue that I use for players is that you Want to keep your elbow above your eye. So when you finish and you're holding your follow through, your elbow should be above your eye level. That's going to let you know that you actually are going to get enough arc on your shot. If you realize that you have a lot of back rim misses and a lot of misses that might go in and out and a lot that might hit front rim. And this is another reason why it's important for us to record our shot so, so you can really tell for sure. And if you struggle with bad arc, we're going to go through a few drills right here that you can do to start cementing in your better arc. The first drill is going to be our straight up in the air shooting. Really getting to exaggerate that arc. And this is going to make sure you finish with that elbow above the eye. And this is one of my favorite drills. This also allows you to check your rotation too. So you're working on your rotation and your arc at the same time. The second drill will be line shooting. So all you're going to do is you're going to pick a line on the ground and you're going to stand with your dominant foot on that line. And now all you're going to do is shoot the basketball straight up in the air. And the goal is for it to land on the line. Okay. This is going to make sure you're shooting the ball straight again. You're going to have to get arc on it. Finish with that elbow above the eye and you're going to see your rotation when you shoot it as well. Now here are a couple drills to put everything together. One of my favorite drills is backboard shooting. All you're going to do is you're going to stand right in front of the backboard and you're going to shoot the basketball. And the goal is for it to hit the backboard so that it bounces right back to you. This is going to force you to shoot the ball straight and become more accurate with your shooting. The next drill is slow motion form shooting. Now what this is going to do is it's going to sort of tie everything together and by you shooting it slower, it's going to make sure there's no hitches in your shot and you have a nice smooth motion. And then of course, we want to make sure we get into a regular two hand form shooting, making sure that we're not afraid to use our legs when we get into this shot. And you can start in kind of close, really exaggerate the arc elbow above the eye and you can take a couple steps back after that too, because making sure you still keep that arc and try and switch every single shot. And then finally, to allow you to work on actually getting jump shots up with your new form, we're gonna go with paint jump shots. So all this is is you're gonna be in the paint and you're gonna shoot a bunch of different types of jump shots. So you can go self toss to yourself, you can go off the dribble, whatever you want it to be. This is gonna allow us to be still in close to the basket, but able to work on our jump shots still with our new form.

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To make it easy. I appreciate it, guys.

And drop a comment too. Let me know what you want to see next. That's it, guys.

Peace. Sam.