The Myth of "Perfect Footwork" - The Key To Being An ELITE Shooter (Breakdown + Drills)

One of the things that's crucial to understand about the sport of basketball is that it's so far from a perfect game. Things go wrong all the time. A ton of situations that you'll find yourself in are not going to be ideal or situations that you've necessarily practiced 100% completely. Oftentimes the actual in game environment is very chaotic. And being a great player is about being able to thrive regardless of the chaos around you. In fact, I'd say being a successful basketball player is less about your ability to be perfect and more about your ability to overcome the imperfection around you. One of the easiest ways that we can see this is with footwork when it comes to shooting. In this video, we'll break down exactly what this looks like. How you can become an expert when it comes to shooting the basketball, off the catch and off the dribble, and how you can start to work on this in your own workout so that you become someone who thrives in the chaos of a game. Let's get into it. I think the first important thing to understand is that there's no such thing as the right footwork. A lot of people want to believe that the 1, 2 is superior to the hop or that you always should step with your inside foot first. And the funny thing is that a lot of people will believe the exact opposite of that as well. The truth is, there's problems and there's solutions. Every time you shoot the ball, that's just your solution to the problem that you face. You came off of a screen and the shot you shot was a solution you had to the problem, which was getting the ball into the basket. Now, the issue with this is, like I said earlier, basketball is not a perfect game. And you're not going to shoot this same exact shot twice in a row. Momentum is going to be different. How close the defender is is going to be different. How much time you have to get the shot off is going to be different. The direction that you're going is going to be different. So your solution might have to be different every single time you shoot the basketball. Now, this is not me saying that specific footwork shouldn't be drilled. It's important that you have control over your feet. So you can get to a 1, 2 if you want to, you can get to a hop if you want to. You can be perfect when you choose to when the situation calls for it. There's certainly a time and place to work on that. But if you only work one solution to any given problem that you're going to be extremely limited as a player when that situation shifts a little bit and that perfect solution isn't going to work anymore. So instead of being boxed in with a quote unquote perfect footwork for each situation, we should strive to build the ability to have multiple footwork solutions to any given problem. And working on this trait of adaptability when it comes to footwork can be really, really simple to do. One really great way to do it is just to pick a certain situation. So it could be a catch and shoot, could be a transition shot, could be a ball screen and just work on shooting that shot but varying the footwork that you use. So if it's a catch and shoot the first time you might use a hop the next time it might be a 1, 2. Same thing if it's a pin down situation like what you see right here. Sam, you can also use situation like a ball screen and just try and use as many different types of footwork as you can to get into your shot. So now you're really challenging yourself to not only be creating creative, but also make shots with different footwork each time. And this doesn't have to be your entire workout, but if you just take time, maybe it's 5 minutes, 10 minutes each workout to work on shooting with variability footwork wise in the same situations, you're going to start to see your ability to make those shots in games become much, much stronger. You're going to become much more creative and you're going to have way more solutions to any given problem, which is a huge key if you want to be a great shooter and a great basketball player in general. Let me know your thoughts on this in the comments below. If you enjoyed this video, make sure you drop a like subscribe if you're new and be sure to give me a follow on Instagram at Vision German Basketball I'll talk to you guys soon. Peace.