This Advice From JJ Redick Will Completely Change Your Shooting Ability (Stop Making THIS Mistake)

You're probably training wrong when it comes to shooting. I'm going to tell you exactly why. And if you get into games and you feel unprepared to make shots, or if you feel like you shoot better in practice than you do in real games, you're probably making this mistake. There's a huge myth in the game of basketball that shooting is simple. There's only one way to do it. There's one type of footwork, one type of release, and coaches try to make claims like this all the time. In reality, it's this exact mindset that holds players back and prevents them from actually shooting well in game situations. And at the end of the day, it couldn't be farther from the truth. JJ Redick, who's one of the best shooters in the history of the NBA, just talked about this. I think it's something worth understanding if you really want to be a great shooter. And make sure you stay tuned until the end, because I'm going to show you exactly how to add this to your training so that you become way better shooting in real games. Let's get into it. So first, let's listen to what JJ Said on his podcast with guest Cam Johnson of the Brooklyn Nets.

Before my rookie year, I was shooting spot shots after practice. He comes over to me and he's like, you should plant your left foot before the ball goes there, and then step with your right foot as you catch it and go up and shoot every single time. And I asked him, I said, no offense, but how many times in a season am I actually going to shoot that way? I might go five or six games without shooting with a left foot, planted, right foot. And this is what I Drives me crazy when I watch guys shoot spot shots. They do the same footwork every time.

Oh, I'm big on that, because every.

Time, like, I come off a pin, this way, you shoot the gap. I got to do something different. My feet, I don't have to think about it.

And I had a coach in college that was very stickler on left right footwork. We worked it, we worked it, we worked it. But over time, I became of the mindset that you have to have them all, and you have to have them all readily available, because in a split second, you have to be comfortable choosing the one that's the most efficient, that gives you the best balance, that gives you the best elevation, that gives you the best chance of making the shot.

Now, the first thing that both these guys mentioned is that they had coaches who tried to get them to shoot the same way every time. And in this case, it was the same exact footwork every time. And keep in mind, these are coaches at the NBA level and at the elite Division 1 level. So if those guys are saying stuff like that to them, then it's very likely that if you're watching, you've probably had a coach say something similar to you in terms of, hey, you should step this way every time. Hey, make it repeatable, something along those lines. And both those guys, though, pushed back on that because they realized that there was more to it than what they were being told. They actually thought about it. They looked at the film and they realized that, hey, I need to be able to do more than just that certain footwork if I want to be successful in. In games. And they recognize that the game is very unpredictable. You're not going to be able to set yourself up in the same exact position every time. Passes come from different directions. You don't always know if it's going to be a good pass or a bad pass, or if there's going to be defense closing out to one side of you or the other. So shooting with the same footwork doesn't prepare you to be successful in games. Just as a side note, I think this is a really important thing to recognize that both of these guys didn't just take what their coaches said at face value. I think there's a lot of myths that get pushed around from coaches because it's the same things that they heard growing up and they've never challenged them. So now they just kind of parlay that into players today. And I think it's important that you genuinely question everything you're being told so that you can see like, hey, is this real or is this not? At the end of the day, it's very different for those two as well, because if you're both of those guys, you make your livelihood based on your ability to make shots, right? If you don't make shots, it doesn't matter if you listen to your coach. If you don't make shots in games, you don't have a job, right? So those guys have to be really, really cognizant of that. And they have to continually ask themselves, hey, what do I need to do to be at my best? Right? That's a per. That's a professional mindset these guys have taken when it comes to shooting. And I think that players can really benefit from adopting this same mindset as well when it comes to their game overall. Right? Don't just accept what's being said to you really do the research and figure out what works best. Right? Right. What is the true answer? And I think when you do this, you're going to really be able to optimize your game, especially when it comes to shooting. No, two shots you're going to shoot in a game are going to be exactly the same. And you can't predict how good a pass is going to be or how bad a pass is going to be, if it's going to be high or low or to the right or to the left. You can't determine. You know, you can't predetermine. Is there going to be a defender who's rushing me or closing out to my right side or whatever the case may be. Every shot is going to be a little bit different. Right. There's a million different things that could happen that could impact the type of footwork you're going to have to use for a shot. So like Cam Johnson said, it's important to have all the options available to you so that you can pick and choose which one is going to be the best one in the situation that you're in. Right. Because you're going to be in a lot of different situations. They're all going to be a little bit different. So you have to have options. But if you only ever work on what type of footwork like their coaches were trying to get them to do, then you're going to be very unprepared when the situation calls for you to try something different. Hey, you're gonna have to use a hop on this one to get your shot off quick enough or on balance enough instead of a 1, 2. And if you haven't worked on that, you're probably gonna miss that shot. And again, for these guys, if you can't make that shot in that situation repeatedly, you don't have a job anymore and you're not getting paid. Right. Or if you're at, you know, if you're in college, like, you know, Camp Johnson was at the time you get recruited over, now you're not playing anymore. You gotta transfer. Like, all these different things happen if you don't make shots. So it's important that you prepare yourself. And there's a really major, major point that JJ makes right after this.

Why is it all important? Because if I only practice one way and one thing is off, guess what? I'm not getting my shot off.

Yep.

I'm not getting my shot off.

Nope. So what does this all mean for you? I think it's important for you to understand that you can't just work on spot shooting the exact same way every single time. Meaning, like JJ said, just going through spot up shooting where your feet never change. You're standing in the same exact spot every single shot. The that's not realistic at all. Right. So just kind of cut that from what you're doing and it's very easy to make it more game like, make it much more effective, and to add variability to this. That's what essentially what we're trying to do is add variability, which just means making each rep a little bit different. Because like we said in a game, each shot is going to be a little bit different, whether it's the feet, the momentum, whatever the case may be, we want to be able to simulate that as much as possible in our training so that we're prepared for it. One rep might have a certain type of footwork. You might step left, right into your shot, and the next rep might be a hop, and the next one might be a right left, and the next one might be off of a backpedal, or you might sprint into it and taking that into your training and saying, okay, this rep is going to be left right? Now, second reps could be right, left. Third reps going to be hop. Fourth was going to be a backpedal. And now we're getting variability from shot to shot, and we're working on being able to, any given time, get to any of those footworks and be able to make that shot, because that's how a game is, and that's the demand that it's going to be placed upon you in a game. So let's go through exactly what this could look like for you. I'll put this up on the screen so you can see it. But when we talk about catch and shoot, right, spot up shooting, there's five different types of footwork that are going to cover the majority of shots that you might shoot in a game. Right. So the first one is going to be a hop or basically just kind of replacing your feet underneath you, and the next one's going to be a 1, 2. So a left right or right left. Another way you can add a little bit of variability is like, sometimes it might be a big step, a big one too. Sometimes it might be a small one too. We're taking, you know, small steps instead. You don't have to move that, cover that much distance. Right. Jj, Red is a great example. A lot of his shots were coming off of screens where he had to sprint into what he was doing. Right. So if he's taking a one, two, it might be a little bit bigger or he might take a hop and it's a little bit bigger. But it's going to kind of depend on are you standing still or not moving very much or are you sprinting off of a screen or relocating, you know, to a different spot on the floor and that might affect your 1, 2. So hop 1, 2 and then a backpedal is another type of footwork you might shoot off of sprinting into your shot. And then difference was a pin down footwork or coming off of like a down screen. Right. And that's going to be a little bit different as well. So those are essentially the five types of footwork that are going to cover you in the majority of shots that you're going to shoot. Right. So it's a really easy to add that to your training so you can think about if you're working on spot up shooting, right. And let's say you're shooting, you know, you're over 10 makes at all five spots around the perimeter instead of just shooting those 10 shots the same exact way every time, you alternate every single time. Okay, the first time was a hop, now it's a 1, 2, now it's a 1, 2, but it's the other foot stepping first. Now it's a backpedal, now it's a sprint, now it's like more of a pin down. And just alternating between those is, is how you really become somebody who can at any given time step up to the plate and make a shot regardless of the situation. Because you're prepared for whatever the footwork needed is for the situation. So you can do that in like, okay, I'm going to go through five shots here and every shot. Shot one is the hop. Shot two is left right. Shot three is right left. Shot four is a backpedal. Shot five is a sprint. You can do it that way. Or how I like to do with a lot of my players is we'll just, I'll say, hey, we're going to, we're going to go for 12 makes this spot right here. You just need to change up the way you get into your shot every time. So I don't care if you go hop, then backpedal, then hop again, then 1, 2, then backpedal. Like you just have to make it different every single time. And you're not really too worried about keeping an order of it. Right. But all we care about really is getting the variability of it right there. So you can do it either way, you can kind of prescribe and say, okay, here are the five shots I'm going to rotate between. Or you can say, okay, I just, I've got to make 10 or 12 shots, whatever the case is. And I just have to make sure that it's different every single time, right? Either way is great. So that's what you can do it for off of the catch. And then when we look at off of the dribble, we have really four types of forward that's going to cover us. Again, the majority of situations we have the hop, we have the 1, 2 where we're stepping inside, outside, we have the 1, 2, we're stepping outside foot, then inside foot and then we have different sorts of stops or different sorts of creative stops. So this could be a step back, this could be a punch drag, this could be a snatch, this could be an inverted drag. And if you guys don't know what I'm talking about with that, that those terminology, that terminology, click the top link in my description below. Get my free elite perimeter score program where you can, where we go through a lot of these different footworks, the stops, so you'll know what I'm talking about if you've been through that completely free. So check that out. And so those four things, right, Also in between the hop, inside, outside, outside, inside, and then different sorts of stops is going to cover you in the majority of situations you're going to shoot off the dribble. And again, it's going to make you much more prepared for any game situation you may face where it may require a different type of footwork depending on how the defender is playing you, how much space you have, how much time you have, all those different sorts of factors can play into that, right? And what you're going to see we can kind of treat the same as off of the catch, right? You might just go through and hey, I'm going to make 10 shots, but my footwork's got to be a little different. Or you can go through first shot's going to be this second, that's going to be that and go through all four. That's completely fine as well. Just getting that variability and mixing it up is probably the simplest, but maybe the most important thing you can do to make your training transfer much better to the games. And what you're going to see is that during your workouts, when you do your spot up shooting and you know, or you're just getting your reps up and you start to mix up your footwork, mix up the type of shots that you're shooting every single time, you're going to see that transfer happen to games at a much higher level. You're going to feel much more confident in games that you're going to be prepared to handle anything that comes at you. Right? Confidence is just understanding that you have what it takes to be successful in a situation. Right? I've used this example before. If you drive to the gas station two minutes down the street every day for 20 straight dra. 20 straight days, you're going to feel pretty confident that on day 21 you're going to be able to make the same trip successfully because you've done it 20 times already. So if in your training you've worked on all these different sorts of shots, you're going to be prepared that when you get into a game situation, no matter what happens, you are going to be prepared to be successful in the situation that you find yourself in. So it's important that we do this. Switch up your footwork often and watch how much it's going to impact your ability to be prepared to hit shots in games. So I thought this was an amazing conversation between JJ Redick and Cam Johnson. I'll link that down below in the description too if you guys want to check out the full podcast. I thought it was really, really high level talk, but really great takeaway for every player. And again, we're listening to two of the best shooters in the world talk about this sort of thing. So I think it's important you add that to your game. Like I said before, guys, click the top link in my description below to get my free Elite Perimeter Score program which is going to help you with this and then way more. Right? It's going to completely help you to transform your game. So go ahead and check that out. Top link description below. I appreciate you for watching. Drop a Like subscribe if you're new. I'll talk to you soon. Peace.