The Step By Step Guide To Developing Go-To Moves and Counters

Foreign welcome to the Vision for Basketball Training podcast. Really appreciate you guys tuning in. Whether you're an Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, really appreciate if you are on Apple podcast, it'd be great if you guys could scroll down to the bottom of the page and leave a review. Really helps out the show. And if you're on YouTube, make sure you leave a like and subscribe as well. Thank you guys. It's awesome. And today I want to talk about developing go to moves and counters to those moves. Because this is a question that I get pretty often. And I think it's very important for us to understand the misconceptions around the whole go to move conception and how to actually implement these things. Because there's a lot of stuff that players believe that really is a little bit misinformed when we talk about developing go to moves and then counter to those moves as well. So, you know, off the bat, it is very, very important to have go to moves and then counters to those moves. But more importantly, it's important to have things that you can go to whenever you want to at least get some sort of look or some sort of opportunity. Okay. That's really what we talk about when we say a go to move. It just as a way for you to get an opportunity to either score, make a pass, make some sort of play with the ball, or at least get yourself some space. So it's important to have those to keep that in mind when we talk about what actually is a go to move because the definition for it is a little bit different. We're going to talk about that a little bit more. There really is a big misconception though, with what a go to move actually is. And a lot of players have a very limited view, a limited scope of what the true definition of it is. And off the bat, most players think that, you know, a go to move is something like a flashy crossover or some super advanced thing, that it's going to get them on a highlight tape. Because when they look at, you know, the career highlight tape for, you know, somebody like, you know, Michael Jordan or Allen Iverson or Kobe Bryant or Steph Curry, they see all these flashy plays and they think their go to move has to be something flashy. And that's just not true at all. You know, they think, you know, an Iverson, a wide Iverson crossover or, you know, a killer crossover or, you know, an in and out behind the back triple crossover between the legs, step back. Like they think that's, that's what a go to Move should look like when in reality that's not the case at all. And so when players DM me and they ask about, hey, coach, you know, what should I do for a Go to move? Like, what should I do? Like, what move should I should I get? And when I give them my answer, a lot of them are kind of surprised by how simple it is. But I want to talk about exactly what that means and how this is going to help you, how you can take what I'm going to tell you today, transfer that into your game and become much more effective. And we're going to talk about how we can even see, when we look at the, the best players in the world, we look at those top NBA guys and we really break down the details of what they're doing, how you're going to see some of these Go to moves in their games and, and how you're going to see that they build everything off of those little, simple, simple moves. Okay? So, you know, the, the first and most important key to developing a Go to move, to really deciding what it's going to be, is you have to figure out a couple things. First of all, you have to play to your strengths, okay? So if you're not a great ball handler, then trying to be Allen Iverson and copying what he does is probably not going to work for you. So you're going to want to find something that again, is simple. So right off the bat, the most important part of developing a Go to move is that it's simple and it's repeatable. Okay? We want something that we can go to at any time. It doesn't have to be an exact situation where we can only go to this move. We're very limited boxed in, which is what's going to happen if all your Go to moves are just little, or if all your Go to moves are advanced combo moves. If that's the case, you're going to be very limited in when you can use that move. We want to have a move that we can go to all the time. Okay? And you know, I love the NBA and I'm sure probably all of you watching this love it as well. And you know, I'm a big fan of studying players and in the NBA because they are the best. They're the best in the world at what they do. So you can learn a lot from watching those guys play basketball, especially when you start to break it down and really look at the little minute parts of what they do. And the issue though becomes if, you know, you're Watching highlights and you're only taking the surface level things that you see. Again, if you're watching Allen Iverson career highlights and you only take the flashy stuff and think that that's how you have to play, that's not true. Because there's a lot of things he does that, if you really take a close look at it, are very, very simple. But he's so incredibly talented that he's able to add on to that and build on those simple things, which gives him that whole flashy sort of game. But it all starts with having the basics mastered. And obviously, I'm sure a lot of you guys watch my NBA player workouts, hopefully a lot of you guys do them as well. And you know, obviously when I do those workouts, I'm taking moves that are. Or combo sequences that all those players have used. So, you know, but when I do that, I'll take moves that have translatable aspects to games. So my intention with those, with the NBA player workouts is not that you're going to do those exact moves in games. Maybe you will, right? In the Allen Iverson workout, you know, there's an in and out crossover into like a fade away. You might not do that exact move in a game, but if you're able to get good at it, at that in and out and you can get to the basket instead of having to shoot that fade away, that's the skill we're targeting right there. So my goal isn't that you go and do those exact moves in games. This is not what it is. My goal is that you can take bits and pieces of those skills that we practice and then be able to translate those to, to, to your own game. You know, for example, let's say that one of those moves is in and out, you know, between the legs, step back. We might work on that exact combo during an NBA player workout or really any workout. But you know, there are multiple parts to that move that you can do separately. You can just go to the in and out, and if your defender shifts to the, to the left side, you might be able to just attack him downhill into the basketball. So those aren't necessarily going to be your go to moves. You know, looking at one of my player workouts and oh, that's my go to move. That triple combo in the Trey Young workout is going to be my go to move because that's not really what a go to move is. Okay. They should be very, very simple, especially, you know, for younger players. Okay. You shouldn't want to have you shouldn't choose a go to move that's incredibly complex because again, it's going to be harder to master it, but also it's going to be less applicable to you in games. And you know, so, so you don't want to fall into the trap of thinking that, you know, your go to move should be the same as the surface level. When you look at, you know, James Harden, right, you see, we see the crazy size up, 30 foot step back threes. Just because he's doing that doesn't mean that you should also do the same exact thing. Obviously James Harden is, you know, very few players will ever have the freedom on offense that he has because they very few players will ever be able to shoot the ball as well as he can. That's just how it is. So trying to copy what he does exactly, looking at the surface level is not what we want to do. You know, my advice to players is that you don't want to get mesmerized. You don't want to get mesmerized by who has the coolest highlights because that's just, it's not going to, it's not going to help you, right? You want to be able to look past that stuff, look past the service level stuff and try and find the simple things that these guys do that make it easy for them to score. Okay? What, what makes these move, these moves work so well and when they don't have to use a flashy move when it's a regular play, why do they score? You know, if it's a simple, you know, jab step into a pull up, why did that move work? Right? Because the majority of their points are not going to come from flashy plays. Okay? Those, that's the plays you're going to see on espn, on, you know, posts all over social media, but the majority of their points are going to come from pretty pretty, you know, everyday, pretty, pretty casual plays. So you have to be able to look at those and realize that those are what's important. Not the, not the highlights. Okay? You know, we see, like I said before, we see James Harden with the, with the 30 foot size up step back, okay? But we don't see the cross jab he used to shift his defender to get to an easy layup. We don't see the in and out between the legs that helped him get past his man and get into a pull up, right? We don't see the jab step that he used to shift his defender before he blew by him and then hit his Open teammate in the corner for three. Like that's not what we see all over the ESPN top 10. We don't see that post all over social media that often because it's just not as cool. It's not as flashy. Right. People aren't going to stop and watch it and really think about why it's important. But really, any, any fan of basketball who really understands the game is going to see that and be like, that's, that's awesome right there. That's impressive. When guys can use simple moves like that to, to perfection against elite level defenders, that's what's important because you can repeat that. You can do that over. So when we talk about developing go to moves, those simple plays that we can go to all the time are what's going to be important for us to develop. You know, these. It really is the same thing with Trae Young. And you know, we see the ridiculous pull ups from three, all these crazy shots that he's able to make coming off of ball screens and all these different things. But what we don't see posted and we don't see put up on a pedestal is the way he uses his hesitation dribble off of a ball screen to freeze his defender and then make a play off of that. You know, that's, that's the important thing. Right? But it's a little detail that's not flashy. So we don't point it out, we don't look at it. But that is way, way, way more important than any of his highlights are. Okay. Your ability to do that can actually translate and help you in games. Trae young hitting a 35 footer, you know, that's great, but it's not, that's not what you should be focused on. It should be, what can I take from this to make myself better? And you know, that's the important thing. The simple things that they do. So in order to be, to truly be an effective player, you need to commit to mastering the simple things and then you can go to those things as often as you want to. And you know, here's a few options. I'm sure a lot of you are thinking like, okay, coach, like that sounds good. But what are some, like, what moves should I go to? Like what, what are you talking about? So I'll give you guys just a few options and there's more, but this is just off the top of my head, just kind of a few. So you have, you know, the jab step, which is probably my favorite. We'll get More into that as well. We have the hesitation, which I love as well. And there's multiple kinds of hesitations you can go to. But like I just said, Treyo will come off of ball screen and go right into a hesitation to kind of. Especially if they switch it. And he's got a bigger guy on him who's slower. He can go to his hesitation, then blow by him. If the defender sags off him for the hesitation, you can shoot the three. It's a lot of really great things you can go to off of a hesitation. And then there's a punch drag, which we talked about before. The punch dribble, which is one of my favorite things to go to. The inverted drag is another great thing. You've watched Luka Doncic play. He loves going to the inverted dragon and the in and out move, which we just talked about. The in and out is one of my favorite moves. And if you actually go to my channel, you'll find a breakdown on it. There's a playlist called Unguardable move Breakdowns. You're going to find a video on the in and out dribble. Okay. And it's one of the most effective ways to shift your defender. And it's super simple. Super simple. And then there's the shimmy jab, which kind of would go along with the jab step, where essentially you're going to jab, bring the ball back to that. To that side it started, and then go to that same side you jab to. Right. It's a real quick move, but really it's another. It can be a counter to your jab step as well, or it can be kind of a go to move as well. So again, why I love the jab step, because you can add that to it and you can make it really, really difficult to guard. Then the step back, There's a lot of guys who love going to the step back, which is. Which is a. It's a. It can be a tough shot to hit, but once you. Once you have it down, it can be a really great move to go to, especially if you're a bigger player and you're able to elevate over people and. Or a quicker player who can get guys going downhill and quickly stop on a dime, step back. Then the float dribble is another one. So, you know, kind of similar to the hesitation where you're essentially going to float to the side, maybe raise up a little bit, kind of see how your defender plays it, and then whatever you want to play off of that that's going to be kind of what you go to. So, you know, those are just a few. But if you watch the best players in the world play, you know, you'll see those guys use those all the time. And you know, so, so the question then becomes, like, how do I go about developing a, that go to move? Like, well, like, what is that? What does that take? And you know, the first thing you're going to want to do is you're going to want to isolate that move. Okay, so let's take the jab step, for example. We're going to want to isolate that move and make sure we have the actual form down. Okay. We want to make sure that our technique, the way we use the jab step is actually effective. So you can do, you can go about a couple of different ways. So for example, I also have a breakdown of the jab step in that same playlist as the in and out move. If you go check that, you'll see my breakdown of the jab step or if you watch any of my workouts that incorporate a jab step, you're going to see how I do it. And essentially when you jab, you want to make sure that you, you bring the ball to your, to your knee. You're jabbing to. So you're going to bring the ball from basically your hip to your knee. That way. You're going to sell that, you're driving that way, right? You're going to make sure you look that way as you jab. You're going to have a violent step as well. All three of those things need to be there. You need to have the, the ball needs to move to that outside knee. You need to have a violent step and your eyes, your head have to look that way so you can really sell that. You're going to be driving that way. So once you have that down and you can do that consistently, then it's about just getting reps, you know, one on zero, just getting reps out of that jab. So jab into a pull up, jab into attack the basket, jab into a three point shot, right? Jab into one dribble, step back, jab into a one dribble between the legs, attack, jab into a two dribble behind the back, speed, stop, jump shot, whatever. So now we see that the counter is off this too. Okay. So we don't just have to settle with, you know, jab, one dribble, pull up, we can also jab. And if, if we get enough space, we can shoot the three. Or we can jab and, you know, we take that one dribble, they cut us off again between the legs and go, right? So that's where those counters come into play. You have to be creative, which we talked about last week in the podcast. You need to be creative and be able to add those. Those counters to the actual move. Very, very important that we're able to do that. So it all starts with, again, isolating that move, making sure we have the technique down. After that, you want to make sure that we rep it out. Okay. And we have those counters, too. You need to think to yourself when you're developing counters, how can the defense play this? Right? What ways can they play this? Okay, so if I jab and they don't move, they don't move for the jab. Well, then I'll just keep going, right? I'll just go to the right side. So if I'm jabbing to the right and they don't go, I'll just go. If I jab and they jump to that side, I might have space to shoot the pull up. If I jab and they're really giving me space, I can shoot the three. If I jab and they go. And then, you know, or maybe they don't go all that much, and then they cut me off. When I take that dribble, that I'll go between the legs or behind the back so I can get to the other side and then beat them to the right, right? So you got to think yourself, how can they stop this? And it's the same way with a. We'll take a float dribble, too. So if I'm. If I'm using a float dribble, right, I float to the left side, right? And they. They back up, all right? They. They think I'm going to blow by them, so they back up. I'm going to shoot the three. If I float and they're playing right up on me, then I'm just going to try and beat them off the float dribble, okay? If they float and they stay, they jump to that. To that float side, then I'm going to cross over, go between the legs, and go to the other side and attack downhill, okay? So you got to think of how can that. How can this defender play this? Okay? And at the same time, it's also. You can watch film on guys, on NBA players, on really good college players, and you'll see them go to these things pretty often, right? Watch Trae Young use that float dribble. Okay. A lot of times he's going to shoot off of it because he's such an elite shooter and he can get a shot of so quickly. But that's one of the most important things, is that he's able to repeat that and he has all sorts of different counters off of that as well. Okay. Steph is great off of that as well. You look at a guy like Damian Lillard and there's more, too, really. So it comes down to watching these guys and again, paying attention to the little details, the simple plays. So, you know, instead of watching full. Full season highlights, go. Go to a. Go watch individual game highlights. So, you know, for example, let's say you want to watch Bradley Beal, right? Go watch the game that he had 47 or 48 against. Trying to think it might have been against Atlanta. Go watch that game. Or I think he had 50 against the. Against the Bucks or something like that. Go watch those individual games where they're going to show you every single basket and you're going to see how many simple, simple baskets he gets. Okay? And you can look at those little details and say, what does he do? What patterns do I see that he keeps on going to? That's very important. So the biggest thing is that you want to make sure that you develop it correctly, because there's no point in having a ghost who move that doesn't work. So make sure that the first step, make sure that move is you're doing it the right way. That's the important thing. If a move. The biggest thing to realize is that if there's a move that's worked for somebody else, it can work for you as well, especially when it's simple like that. Again, I'm not saying that every person can be Allen Iverson, because it's not true. I'm not saying every person can be Michael Jordan. I'm not saying every person could be Penny Hardaway. Okay? But I'm saying there are things that each of those players do that you can take and incorporate into your own game. So when it comes to developing a Go to move, you want to keep it as simple as possible. And I gave you guys a couple of things you can go to, but you want to see what works for you. So you might say, like, I don't know which one to pick. Well, two things. First of all, figure out what works best for you, like, what is effective for you, okay? And that might take some trial and error. You might have to go and try and move. And maybe, you know, maybe you just don't like it very much or whatever, you know, you're gonna want to stick with that for a little bit. Give yourself some time to actually, you know, develop it before you just say, oh, it doesn't work. But give yourself some time to actually get it down. Give some good effort for it. And if you still, it was still not your thing, then try something else. Okay? There's no shortcut to this. You have to be able to, you have to be willing to put the work in for it. Okay? I can't, I can't, I can't tell you exactly what your move should be. I can give you some suggestions. I might tell a player. Listen, and actually I'll tell everybody this. If you ask me, hey, coach, what moves we need to have? I'll tell you need a jab step. You need to have a good jab step. You need to be able to have a good shot fake. Basically those are the two things I'm going to tell you. Jab step, shot fake. Those are two must haves in my opinion. In the game of basketball. There are other things too I think are important. You need to have a good flow dribble, I think as well, and I think some sort of separation move in the mid range or from three, either a punch dribble or a step back. I think those, if you have those basics down, then you can be really, really effective, especially if you can do those at a high level. Okay, so how long is that process though? Because obviously, you know, you don't start, you don't pick up a move in one day, right? So to me, once you have that move down, I think, you know, you rep it out for about a week. Maybe you go through your regular workout and at the end you spend 20 minutes working on this move. Or maybe you just go out, you know, at some point during the day, you just go work on a move for 20, 30 minutes. I think you do that for a couple of weeks, you'll really start to be comfortable with it. And then at that point after you have it down, you're going to want it to transfer that to translate into like a one on one. So, you know, find somebody to play one on one with and try that move out. Okay? Try the counters out to it. See? See what works. And again, it might not be a one day thing. You might not be able to do it very well the first day you play against that person. Okay, maybe day two you're a little bit better. Maybe day three a little bit better. Okay, Give that a little Bit of time as well, develop it and learn how to translate it into actual live situations. Then once you're comfortable with that, I would say take it to your pickup game. So you're five on five, whatever, four on four. Now that you're into context with team defense, now try and go to those things. Okay. And, and, and be okay with looking kind of bad for a little bit. Be okay with messing something up for a little bit. That's fine as well. And you know, and then at that point, once you have it down and pick up, you feel comfortable with it, then that's the point where you can transfer that into, into your actual games. Okay. So, but, but ultimately it comes down to you being committed to actually developing that movement. Okay. There is no exact science when it comes to what move you should have, what moves you should have. And I say moves because you can have more than one. It doesn't have to be one go to move. Right. You don't. Especially when we talk about what we have now. Okay. When I'm talking about simple things, you can master multiple simple things. You can master a jab step, you can master a punch dribble, you can master a jab step, you can master a shot fit, you can master a step back. Right. You can have all these things into your game. All that I would say is that you want to focus on adding them in one at a time. Okay. If you really are trying to master them now, you can have workouts that have multiple things and then you can have a workout that has a jab step into a step back. That's fine. But what I'm saying is you don't want to try and add in seven moves at once because it's going to be hard to master something doing that. That's my advice to you guys. But again, keep it as simple as possible. That's going to be the most important thing. And at the end of the day, like I said, you can have a great jab step, a great shot fake, and some sort of a great float dribble ability to play off of a float dribble, which I have a workout. So if you guys go to my channel, check out my jab, my jab step workout, which is going to have both the jab step and it's going to incorporate the float dribble as well. So that's a really good workout for you guys to check out. And, and then shot fake as well. Very, very important. And then also adding onto that some sort of separation move in the mid range. If you're attacking. So a punch dribble is my personal favorite. You can also go to a step back. You can go to an inverted drag or a speed stop, whatever you want it to be. There are plenty of things you can go to and then kind of building those counters being created with those different things. So that's very, very important. So I wanted to get into a couple questions. I have a few questions today, really good questions this week. So again, if you guys ever have questions, make sure you send me a dm. That's the best way for me to see it. You know, I get a lot of comments on YouTube, so sometimes I'll miss them. So if you want me to see it for sure, make sure you send me a dm. So first question comes from Nathan. He says, I have a question. I asked it on YouTube, but I don't think you answered it in any of your podcasts. The question is in terms of goal setting, would you suggest setting a long term goal or many different short term goals? That's a great question. And actually, if you guys haven't watched the very first podcast episode where I talked about, I believe it was the four, the four steps to getting everything you want in basketball or something like that. Basically the four steps to achieving what you want in basketball. Go check out that podcast. It's a little bit shorter, I think it's about 20 minutes. But the very first podcast episode, so go check that out if you have not if it's been a while, you don't remember it, go listen to it again. Very, very important, maybe one of the most important podcasts you'll listen to. Highly recommend you do that. But to answer this, and I kind of talked about that a little bit in that podcast, but I'll make the distinction. So when I talk about a long term goal versus short term goal, you need to have both. In my opinion. I think you should have both sorts of goals. So obviously a long term goal, when I talk about a long term goal, typically I'm referring to something that's like a year or farther away. And you can have a different definition for it. If you want to say my long term goal is six months from now, that's fine too. But my personal definition of it is, for me personally, if I'm talking a long term goal, that's something that's a year or farther down the line. That's, that's, that's the time frame looking at and anything before that, I would consider more of a short term goal. And I think it's Very, very important. You have both. So obviously your long term goal or goals. You know, for example, maybe your, your long term goal is that you want to start on your varsity team next season. Okay, maybe that. Maybe, you know, that's, that's whatever. Or you want to become a varsity starter. So let's say maybe that maybe you're going into your freshman year, by the time you're a junior, you want to be a starter, okay, maybe so that could be your long term goal. Maybe your short term goal is that you want to make the varsity team this next year, okay, that could be your short term goal, right? So now you have something more tangible to work to. Because the thing is, you know, whether your goal is start on varsity or you know, get a college scholarship or play in the NBA, whatever that goal is that you have, that's long term. A lot of times it will just seem like, oh man, like this is, like this is massive like this. It seems like it's not even possible because it's so. It's so far away from where you currently are, right? So if you have, you know, if you haven't played any varsity basketball, but your goal is to go to the NBA, well, that goal is going to seem like pretty unrealistic because you've never, like, you haven't even mastered who you are right now, okay? So in order for you to actually believe you can get there and actually work towards it, because a lot of times it can be like deer in headlights, right? It's such a massive goal. Like, where do I even start? Right? So you end up just doing nothing and being like, you know, it's a goal, it's a nice goal to have. But like, how do I even do it? That's where short term goals come into play. So you want to have basically stepping stones that lead to that long term goal, right? So if your goal is to, you know, make it to play college basketball, maybe your short term goal is that, you know, you want to start on your varsity team this season. And then, you know, maybe your. Another short term goal you have is you want to average 15 points a game this season. And you know, maybe another short term goal is you want to win the conference this year, right? Maybe your next goal is that you want to win the state championship, okay? So there are your goals that are short term and you see those as a very tangible goals you can get to, okay? So I think it's important that players have both. So have your long term goals, but also have short term goals. Like what do you want to happen this season? Right. And I think to go even deeper with that, and this is what I talk about in that other podcast and when I talk about goal setting all the time, is you want to not just have those goals, you want to also have your. You also want to map out how you're going to do it. So your steps you need to take. So if your goal is I want to play college basketball and your short term goal is that you want to average 15 points a game this season, you need to ask yourself, what do I need to do to get there? Maybe the answer to that is you need to become a better shooter. So what are you going to do to become a better shooter now? Okay, so I have my long term goal, my short term goal is 15 points per game. I write below that. What do I need to do to make this happen? I need to become a better shooter. Okay, what am I going to do to become a better shooter? Well, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to fix my shooting form. Maybe there's something in my form that's a little bit off, maybe a little bit of a weird spin on the ball. Then maybe the next point is I'm gonna get up, I'm gonna make 100 threes a day, every day. Maybe that's your goal. And something like that. You gotta give yourself some tangible things. You can follow that. If you follow those things, you can get to that goal. Okay, that's the most important part. You can have your goals. But then ask yourself, what can I do every day so I can actually move towards that thing that's super important for getting to those goals. And once you, it really leads to everything else. You have your, you know, it's like a pyramid, right? You have the very top of the pyramid, which is your long term goals. You have the next step below that, which is short term goals. And then you have below that, you know, how am I going to do that? And then below that, like, what is my day to day going to look like now? Okay, so if I follow those day to day steps, those get 103s up per day that, you know, work on my ball handling for 30 minutes a day, right? And I follow those two things and that leads me to that how? Okay, so I'm better, I'm a better shooter now. I'm a better ball handler now. Once I got there, now all of a sudden maybe I hit that goal, 15 points per game, right? I continue to do those things with my goals and then I hit that top goal, now I'm a college player, right? So you have to look at it from that perspective. Okay? All that, basically what you do daily, your choices that you make on a day to day basis are going to lead to where you are in a year from now. Okay? It might seem like time just keeps on going, but your life could look way different a year from now than it does today. All based on what you choose to do. Okay? So if you choose to not work at it, to not be smart. And I think the biggest thing, guys, is you want to make sure you really, you cement these things down. You have these goals actually written out. Okay? Right. Like this is something cool to listen to. You might feel a little inspired. Be like, you know what? Yeah, coach, I got to work every day. I really highly recommend that you guys go into your notes app right now. Write down three long term goals you have, and then for each long term goal, write down maybe two or three short term goals, or maybe they overlap, whatever, but write down a few of each. Then ask yourself, what do I need to do every day to get to those short term goals which are going to lead me to my long term goals? But that's super important that you guys should do. I think that in itself, being smart, having a plan, right, I always go to it. But you know, vision without action is a daydream and action without vision is a nightmare, right? You've heard me say that before. If you've been an OG listener, you've listened to all that podcast episodes, you've heard me say that before, then that's really how it is. If you just are out there doing stuff and you have no roadmap of where you're going, then chances are the result you're gonna get is not gonna be great. Okay, you might get what you want, but you don't know if you will. You might not get what you want. You might get something completely different from what your actual goal would have been. Okay. Obviously the action first is required. You can write down these goals. But if you don't commit to doing those daily things or those tangible steps, it might not be a daily thing, but you don't commit to doing those actual physical things you need to do, then that's a problem for you and you won't get there. But you need both sides. You need the vision part of it and you need the action part of it. I highly recommend you guys write those goals down. That's really going to help you. So what really great question. And again, he said, you know I left on YouTube, but you didn't see it. That's going to happen. So if you really have a question for me, DM me, vision driven basketball is the best way to reach me and I'll always see those. So. Second question from Tasker. He said, is it alright to have a bunch of different heights that you jump to on your shot? Like say I need to get a shot off over a defender. Is it okay to jump a lot higher and shoot or should I just find a different shot to take? That's a great question too. And the answer is that it's absolutely okay to have different heights you jump to. If you watch, you know, especially the, the best guards in the NBA, you know, a guy like Kevin Durant doesn't always necessarily need to change the height he jumps at because he's 7ft tall, right? Although he probably does. I haven't watched enough of his film to be able to say that for sure, but I'm sure he probably does. But you watch Kyrie Irving, you watch Trae Young, Chris Paul, you watch these guards who especially can play, can, can shoot the ball and especially you can shoot them in the mid range. You're going to see them jump at different heights. So if you are wide open by yourself, the height you jump at, it might not be the same as if you're pulling up at the mid range over a guy who's 6 7. Okay? It's going to be different. So that's a great question. You absolutely can. Sometimes you're going to need a little bit more height to jump to, but I highly recommend you guys watch, like go watch Chris Paul, go watch some of his highlights and notice that you're going to see there's going to be times where he's going to shoot at different heights. There's going to be different arc on the ball at times, it's going to be a different height on his actual jump and he has to be able to do that. So that's a skill that you can work on. And that's why I really, really, I stress so much playing one on one. Because when you play one on one against, you know, a good defender and you're playing with three or four dribbles, you're going to need at times to shoot the ball at different heights. You're going to have to take contested shots in the mid range and you're going to have to get the ball a little bit higher. Okay. You're going to have to put a little more arc on it sometimes because your defender is right there. You might have to get a little higher on your jump. You might have to feel fade a little bit on that jump. Not every jump shot is going to be the same in a game. And the more angles you can hit a shot out of, the harder it's going to be for teams to stop you. Because you can score against better defense. You know, it's something that you can, you can theoretically work on that during practice by yourself, but the best way to develop that is through playing. So getting into the, into the mid range, hitting those tough shots against tough defenders, against, you know, them playing good defense, I think that's, that's super big for you guys and that's a great question. And you know, it's important to recognize the situation. So if you have game film of yourself, that's awesome to watch and recognize. When are those situations that you have where you might have to get a little bit more height on your jump or a little more arc on your shot. If you can see that, then you can actually, you can go work on that by yourself. You can go say, hey, you know what? I got into this punch dribble, which is what I noticed a lot. I notice it a lot. If I'm going to go to that punchable to my left side, I'm going to punch. If my defender doesn't go, I know I can still hit the shot even if he's right in my face. But I got to put a little more height on that ball. I got to put a little more arc on it. So that's something that I have to, I have to work on. And especially like when I'm playing one on one, I love just working on that. Like I'm playing with somebody, I'm just going to try and get to that shot and see if I can hit it against good defense. So that's, that's super important. You can recognize that and see the situations that you need that in. You know, maybe you love to go to your step back and maybe there's times where you need a little bit more height on that shot, right? And that might vary from game to game. You might go, you might have a game where you're going against a guy who's six foot. Okay, Maybe you're, maybe you're six two, he's six foot, so you might not need to, you might not need to have the extra arc on your shot. Okay. But maybe the next game you're going against a guy who's 6 4. So now all of a sudden you might have to at times have a little bit more on that shot. And that's a more advanced thing too. Like a lot of players aren't at the level where they can really do that yet. But you know, for those of you guys who are a little bit more advanced, that's something you can, you can consider too. And again, if you watch these NBA guys, especially these guards when they're attacking, especially in the mid range, the mid range is really where you're going to do this the most. They're going to have their shot. It's going to look a little bit different based on the situation they're going to be in. Okay. And I think that's a very, very important thing. I'll probably do a film breakdown on that at some point too because it's such a great question. Nothing that can really, that, that really is a, an important part for players to recognize because if you really want to be effective in the mid range, being able to do that is huge for you. So another great question, Jaden. So my next question, he said, hello, Coach Ethan. I have another question. My goal isn't quite 10ft, so his basket hoop isn't quite 10ft and my rim is bent and sticking up slightly. And my goal is leaning. Is it better to just work on ball handling or will shooting on my basket just mess up my shot? So I get this question so much. Like I probably get this question. I probably got this question five times in the last week. And you know, essentially there's, there's a couple different answers I'll give you. So for Jaden specifically, he said his room is a little bit bent. So not, not too bad, not too far off 10ft. And at that point I was like, you know what, like just, it's really not gonna be that big a deal for you. But I get a lot of questions from guys who are playing on a hoop that's nine feet eight and a half seven. I have someone else who told me they only have a seven foot hoop and so that's a little bit different. So if you're on a seven foot hoop, like, yeah, that's not gonna be great. Like if you're shooting a seven foot hoop, probably going to, probably not going to help your shot all that much. You know, maybe you can try and circumvent that by like maybe sitting down, just working on form, shooting from the ground, maybe that would do something. But if you're actually doing moves into a seven foot hoop, probably not going to help you all that much. Also depending on how old you are. So if you're younger then maybe it won't be as big of a deal. But I would say, you know, if we're talking like 8 foot or above, so your hoop is 8ft or taller. So you know, if your hoops like 8 to 9ft tall, obviously good amount shorter than a 10 foot rim. The thing with that is that it's not ideal, obviously, but if that's what you're working with, then you can go for it. Because as long as you have good mechanics, right, you don't have any weird size spin on the ball, your form is good. All those things, as long as you have that and you add it to, you know, those moves and stuff you work on. When you get to an actual 10 foot, 10 foot rim, 10 foot hoop, the really, the biggest, the biggest change you're going to have to make is just your arc. So you know that, that, that itself isn't too difficult of a change. It's not as difficult as you know, moving your, the set point of your jump shot or getting rid of a, of a, you know, your offhand being too active or any sort of thing like that. So if that's your, if that's your problem, like, you know, I have a eight foot, eight and a half, nine foot rim, that's not too big of a deal. So I would say to you, like, don't worry too much about that. That's not too, it's not, not too much of a problem. Again, obviously if you have, if you have access to a park or anything like that, like, go do that if you can. So obviously with the pandemic and the quarantine and everything like that, a lot of people are just stuck at home and all they have access to is, you know, a rim that's a little bit shorter. And you know, my big thing always is like, just work with what you have. So if all you have is an 8 and a half foot rim, work with it for now. Okay, Maybe, maybe you put a little bit more emphasis on your ball handling training on, you know, different things like that where you don't need a basket, but at the same time you can still get shots up. Okay. And obviously again not ideal, but the only, the only real change you need to make when you get back to a gym is just readjusting to that ten foot rim. Okay. So once you're able to do that, they're really that muscle memory of you still having the same release, all that thing that's gonna translate. It's just the arc you're have to change. Okay, so. So it's not too big of a deal. Again, if that's, if that's the only issue you have, then continue to go with it and make the most of what you have right now. You know, I've had a lot of people say that like, you know, they're able to get back into a gym, back to a park, and then, you know, it's kind of crazy because every day things are changing in terms of being able to go out and do this and then the next day, you know, your city or your state closes or whatever. Like things are changing by the day. I would say, though, again, work the best with what you have and don't worry too much about it's got to be perfect. Okay. It doesn't have to necessarily be perfect right now. It's really just more about the little things. Especially, you know, I have a couple guys in the perimeter score system right now actually who are working with smaller rims because they're at home. And the biggest thing for me is like, for you guys, it's not going to be as big a deal for you because you're still working on the actual space creation, the actual game situations you're going to be in and you're going to be able to be effective in those as well. So if we're working on, you know, getting, let's say we're working on our jab series or our shimmy jab series, right? You're still going to have that move down, right? When you get back to a gym that's. Or a hoop that's 10ft tall, whether it's a park or a gym, you're going to have that move down. You're going to still have the ability to create that space and get a shot off. All that. You're going to have to change is your arc on it. It's getting a little bit weird at first, but you're still going to have that. Okay. So don't throw everything out just because your hoops a little bit shorter. Still work on those things. So that'd be another recommendation I give to you guys. Work on more game moves, more game situations into those jump shots. Okay. Maybe you don't shoot a ton of, you know, spot up shots. That's fine. You can still work on those other things though, those. That jab step we talked about, the float dribble into, you know, a pull up or into a step back, a punch dribble into your shot. Okay, that, that's, that's, that's those are still things that. Those actual moves, those actual sequences will translate to the game, regardless of the size of the rim and then the finish, obviously that'll be a little bit different, but cross that bridge when you get to it. Okay? For now, do the best what you have. And last question for today. And another good question. Really a ton of good questions this week. And this is from Jay Souza, and he asked me, he said, hey, do you have any tips to find good pickup competition? And this is a question I get whenever I talk about pickup, and I talk about almost every podcast, basically, or I talk about, you guys need to be able to. You guys need to play more pickup. And you know, what I had told him is basically the best way to do that. Because the issue is a lot of players will tell me that they can find pickup, but it won't be the guys who are playing aren't very serious about it. So it's just like people messing around or the players aren't very good or whatever it might be. So I think the biggest thing you can do is you can be that person who organizes things, okay? Be the person who gets people together. So text your teammates, text your. Any, any friends you have who live in your area, anybody you know who's good at basketball, who lives in your area, text them, be like, hey, you know, you want to play pickup, even if it's just you can, you know, even you only get eight guys and you play four on four, that's still enough to go full court. Play four on four. That's the best way to do it, in my opinion. If you, if you don't have, like, good runs, you can find, obviously, if you can go to a park or a gym and you have people there that you can play with, that's cool. But if you don't have that, you know, organize it yourself. You can be that person to say, hey, let's go to the park and let's play. Or, you know, maybe someone has a hoop in their driveway and you can get three on three going. You can get five of your teammates or five friends, you have to come play. And you can really dictate who's there and who's not. That's my biggest thing. If I'm organizing pickup, you know, you. I want to try and have the best people I can have there, but also guys who are going to, like, take it seriously and, like, going to help everyone get better, because there's no point. And I hate more than anything else to play, pick up with people who like just don't really care and just messing around, not doing anything because to me it's just a waste of time, right? You don't want to, you don't want to be stuck in that. So be willing to be that person. Because here's the thing too. A lot of people are looking for pickup games. Like they want to play more basketball, especially guys who are good Hoopers, like, they want to play more. And a lot of times no one's really like, no one's reaching out, trying to set that up. So you can be that person who does that. You can be the person who says, hey, you know, I'm going like, I'm trying to play pickup. Like, hey, do you want to come play? A lot of people are going to jump at that situation and so be willing to do that, to do that. And as you do it, more, more and more people are going to kind of go to expect that and it's going to be easier for you to get people to come. You're going to, the runs are going to get better every time. People are going to look forward to that and everybody, it's going to help everybody, everyone's going to get better. So you know, obviously right now with the whole pandemic, that might not be an option for some of you, depending on where you live, that's fine. So if you can't do that, then if you're able to, even if it's a one on one, then again be a, hey man, you want to play one on one today, simple as that, okay? And once you're able to get back to playing with more people, then be that person who's willing to create the event, okay? Don't just sit around and expect it's just going to happen, okay? There's probably a park near you you can go to and you can be that guy. So I think that right there is just crucial when it comes to if you want to play better pickup. Okay? The biggest thing is being proactive in finding ways to help yourself, okay? And that's a big part of it. So that's another great question and a question I get pretty frequently because again, I always talk about the importance of pickup and obviously in 2020, it's really weird right now because we haven't been able to really play a ton of pickup. Again, depending on where you live. Like, I know where I live, there's teams playing summer leagues right now, so probably not the case in most areas. But if you can be that guy, take, take that, take that on your shoulders to do so. Another great question. Really appreciate all of the questions I got this week guys. You know, like I said this, this whole show revolves around your guys questions. So every podcast topic is coming from questions that I get. So you know today again, all about those moves, those go to moves, those counters, how to develop it. That's questions I get. So you have a question for me, make sure you send me a DM VisionDrivenBasketball. If you don't even have a question for me, just give me a follow. Anyway, you know, nothing to lose by doing that at VisionDrivenBasketball. Like I said before, if you guys could scroll at the bottom of the page, if you're on Apple podcast, leave a review. Really would appreciate that. YouTube like and subscribe. Hit. And like I said, going back to that, developing those go to moves. Keep it simple, right? Develop it and make sure you have the actual form, the technique down. Drill it in, play one on one and try it out. Move to pick up, try it out. Then you can translate that actually into your games. That's the simple process. You can repeat that for multiple simple things. And once you have those simple things down, you can start to make them more complex. You can start to add different combos to those different moves. And that's where the flashiness comes into play. But it all starts with your ability to have those simple things down. Okay, so appreciate you guys tuning in today. I'll see you guys soon. Peace.