This Is How I Would Become An INSANE Shooter (From 0 To 100)

I'm not a naturally good shooter. We all know players who, whether they work at it or not, can just naturally shoot the ball. Well, I was the opposite of that. In fact, I don't think I made a three pointer in a game until probably eighth or ninth grade. And I wouldn't even say that I was a good shooter until my sophomore or junior year of high school. So it took a ton of work for me to get to a point where I felt like I was a good shooter. And I never feel like I got to the point where I would consider myself a great shooter or a game wrecker or, or somebody that the defense has to face guard the entire game because they're that afraid of your ability to shoot. And funny enough, even though I haven't played a real game or seriously trained myself in almost five years, I'm a way better shooter now than I was back then. Now mind you, I had to work for everything that I was as a shooter. I spent a ton of time on this. I was getting up before school at 5 o' clock in the morning to go to the YMCA and shoot. And then after school I was in my driveway or I was back at the gym shooting. I would keep track of my shots. I even had like some of the shot tracks, tracking apps that I would use. And of course I probably used a million different online shooting programs growing up, but nothing that I did took me to that great level as a shooter. And it sounds completely backwards that now when I'm not doing any of that sort of stuff, I'm not spending time working on my own game and I'm not playing anymore that I would be better as a shooter now. But I've learned so much since then, working with thousands of players and studying the game and really diving deep into it. So in this video I'm going to share with you exactly what I would do if I could go back to my younger self and do it all over again. I know that I could have been so much better and I could have gotten myself to that great level as a shooter if I would have understood how to truly get better and what I really should be focusing on. So hopefully you can learn from these mistakes and be able to apply the things that we're going to talk about to your own game so that you take yourself to that next level as a shooter. This is definitely one of the most in depth and important videos that I've ever made. So make sure you strap in here and let's get into it. So these first two areas we're going to talk about might seem like common sense, but I think there's a lot that gets missed with this. And I know for me, I missed a ton of details when it came to these two areas that kept me from becoming great. So the first area we talk about is just mastering my form. And there's really three things that I think that I overlooked or that I didn't get right. And I think that was a big thing that held me back. So the first area we'll talk about when it comes to mastering form is hand placement. And this is kind of an overarching theme when it comes to everything we're going to talk about, but specifically a form, there is no one right way. Right? There isn't. You have to do it this way, and there's no other way to do it, because if you watch people shoot, you're going to see that everybody's a little bit different. And yet a lot of players get great results doing slightly different things. Okay. But the saying is, you have to know the rules in order to break the rules, which just means that we should know what the. What the ideal thing is. We should understand it, and then we can adjust and do it a little bit differently if that suits us better. So we'll talk about that. When it comes to this hand placement, I think is really important. What I say when I work with players is like, okay, we want to think about it this way. We want to take the air hole and split it with our first finger and our middle finger. That's going to make sure we have our hand in the middle of the basketball. And then we want to put that guide hand, like, right in that middle seam. And then that also is going to allow us to make sure that we have our hand right on the side of that ball. The second area, when it comes to form that is really, really important is rhythm and energy transfer. This is by far the most important parts of shooting, and it's probably the most misunderstood and overlooked areas. And so as a player, I had no idea what any of that meant. Rhythm, energy transfer. I had no idea what that was. And it definitely sounds complicated, right? You're probably hearing that if you've heard it before. It probably sounds complicated. In reality, it's actually very, very simple to shoot. We transfer energy from the ground through our body and into the ball, right? That. That is at a base level, what shooting is. If I transfer energy smoothly, chances are I'm going to be a pretty good shooter, or at least I'm going to have the potential to be once I get enough reps, if I don't do that smoothly, if I don't transfer energy well, then I'm probably not going to be a very good shooter and I'm probably going to be wildly inconsistent. So the first area of this we're going to talk about is a dip. So catching the ball and dipping the ball right now, the whole thing with, with old school coaches, and I know I coaches growing up who said this, and chances are you've probably had a coach or somebody say this to you where, hey, don't lower the ball, don't dip the ball, don't drop the ball. Catch it, catch high. Keypie. That's. That's the phrase that a lot of old school coaches have used. If you actually watch the game, you watch the best shooters, everybody dips the ball, everybody catches it and slightly lowers it before they go up into their shot. And there's a reason for that. When we catch the ball, we want to go down first and then up because it allows us to build energy and rhythm. If you think about it, if you don't dip the ball, then you're likely going to shoot it from a different point each time. Like you might get a pass that's a little to your left and you're going to end up shooting it from your left or a little to your right. You're going to shooting it from your right or a little high or a little low. And now your shot path is never the same. So it's going to be very difficult to be a consistent shooter when your shot path is very inconsistent. When you catch the ball and you dip it, that dip is going to be the same pretty much every single time, no matter where that pass comes from. So it allows us to build rhythm that way with our shot so we can make it repeatable. And it also allows us to build energy by coming down first and then being able to bring some of that bounce back, that energy back up with us. And so that rhythm and energy transfer is a big reason why we need that, that dip right there. So that's the first part when it comes to rhythm and energy transfer. And then the second thing you need to know is called sequence. Shooting has a certain sequence that we want to follow again if we want to be great at it. And it's very, very simple. The ball moves first and then our body moves after it. Right. If the ball moves first, it's going to ensure that we transfer energy through our body into the ball. When our body moves first and we get fully extended. Now all of a sudden, that energy kind of dissipates and there's nothing to put into the basketball. So we want to be able to make sure that we move that ball up first, and then our body goes up, and that's going to allow us again, successfully transfer that energy right there. And that is about 80 to 90% of what matters when it comes to your shooting form. When we add in that hand placement right there. And one more thing that we'll talk about here, a drill that I like to use that kind of works on this and also with our hand placement, is this drill right here where we can first of all, get our hands. Placing the ball we like is splitting that air hole, getting that guide hand right on that. On that seam there, on the middle seam. We're going to stand straight out or straight up, I should say, like nice and tall. I always use the cue. Imagine like you're at the doctor's office getting measured right there. And then we're going to hold that ball out, like extending our arms in front of us as if we were reaching out to get a pass. Then we're going to drop down to our shooting position and bring that ball towards us, and then we'll just go right up into that shot. So this allows us to work on the energy transfer, work on that rhythm, and work on that hand placement as well. You also notice when you watch my feet here, that I do what's called a foot replacement. Really, you just think of it as like a little hopper. And this allows me to again use that bounce back on my way up. And now I'm more able to successfully transfer energy and officially transfer energy as I go up into that shot right there. Very, very simple, but it really helps us to find good hand placement and then work on successfully transferring energy from the ground through. Through the. Through our body into the ball. And this is something that every single player that I work with is familiar with. So if you're watching this right now, you train with me that you've definitely done this before, and I think it's very, very important. The third area when it comes to form that we'll talk about is footwork. Before I get into that, though, I want to share this clip from JJ Redick and Cam Johnson kind of talking about footwork, because I think it's very, very applicable to what we're about to talk about.

But I remember one of my coaches, my rookie year, it was before my rookie year, and I was just. I was shooting spot shots after Practice. And 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.

That would essentially stop your momentum 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. So when I shoot, when I would shoot spot shots, and this is what I. I drives me crazy when I watch guys shoot spot shots. They do the same footwork every time.

Ooh, I'm big on that.

Every single spot shot I would shoot. And I didn't change it. I didn't change a ton. I shot a lot on the move, but it teaches your brain to just habitually and naturally do your footwork differently on every shot. Because every time 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.

I get asked that question all the time. And I had a coach in college that was very stickler on left, right footwork. So we. 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. So if I'm doing spot shots before the game, I'll go left, right, I'll go right, left. I'll go step. I'll step back toward. Away from the hoop. I'll step on a jump stop, or I'll just be feet planted. And my thought process is that I need all these in the game. I need to feel comfortable using any of these footworks at any given moment. So that's why I do it.

To your point, you can't predict which. What the timing is of a pass or whatever, and so you're building that in. 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. So when it comes to having great footwork as a shooter, it's less about having one perfect type of footwork and more about being able to use different types of footwork depending on the situation. Okay. This is called being adaptable as a shooter. That's a word we're going to use a lot throughout the rest of this video right here. But we want to be able to use different types of footwork. So want to be able to shoot off of a hop, off of a 1, 2 and off of like a back pedal or sprinting into the shot. We want to be able to use different types of footwork. Getting into that, and that's going to allow us to, no matter what situation we're in, be able to make the shot. Okay. Sometimes things aren't going to be perfect for you, and you still got to be able to make the shot. So when your footwork is a little bit different, are you able to still catch it, shoot the ball or take that dribble? Get into your shot and make it. But getting really comfortable when it comes to utilizing a hop, utilizing a 1, 2, either left, right or right left is so important off the catch and off the dribble. And we're going to go through a workout in this video a little bit later, and I'm going to show you a drill that kind of works on this exact thing that we're talking about here. But having access to different types of footwork and being comfortable with it, I think is really important. And it's something that I think that I didn't spend enough focus on as a young player. Right. I'd spend so much time on the 1, 2, which kind of like JJ Reddit talked about in that clip, where it's like, oh, I got to step into my shot every time, but when am I actually going to shoot the ball like that? Maybe sometimes, but there's a lot of other times where I might have to shoot it coming off of a hop or maybe I'm stationary and I don't have time to step into the shot right there. So we want to be able to do it in multiple ways. And like I said, we'll talk about a little bit more as video goes on. But that's that third area of format matters so much that I don't think I spent enough time on as a young player. So first of all, mastering our hand placement, mastering that rhythm and energy transfer, and mastering footwork, I think are three things that are so important to do if you want to really become a great shooter. So that's that first year. The second area that's common sense, but I also don't think it's thought about the right way is reps. And so this is actually one of those things that I think I try to do really, really well as a young player. But I also think that for a lot of players it becomes all hard work and no smart work when it comes to that. It definitely was for me a lot of the times over the past few years, I've been around a few elite level shooters and really when it comes to what separates these players from everybody else, it is an obsession, right? I have yet to meet an elite shooter, a great shooter, who isn't obsessed with the reps, right? Not like they like getting the reps up or they like, they try their best to go and get their reps. Like they're obsessed with it. Like if they can't get to a hoop and get their reps up for the day, they like, they might explode, right? And that's something that all of them have in common, is that they have an obsession with getting reps, right? So if you want to be a great shooter, you need that, that mindset, right? And I know a lot of players who have that mindset, yet they still aren't great shooters, right? So it's not just about that. Now the passion for the reps is a requirement to be a great shooter. It absolutely is, but it's beyond. It's about more than just the passion for it, okay? We can't just have the obsession, we can't just have the hard work. We need to make sure that we work smart as well and make sure that we're putting up purposeful reps, right? That word, purposeful is an important word for you to understand. So the two words we've mentioned so far in this video that you need to remember are adaptable and purposeful. So two words we got to remember. A lot of players chase after numbers, which is cool sometimes. Sometimes it's okay to chase after numbers, right? Meaning they got to get 300 shots a day, they got to get 400 shots a day, they got to Get 500 shots a day. I just saw Carl Anthony Towns talk about how he shoots 1500 shots a day, right? We have all these players so obsessed with numbers, and that's all that matters is, oh, am I shooting more shots than that person? In reality, that's not really what matters. It shouldn't be the most important thing. If the most important thing to you is number of shots and not the quality, then it's not going to translate to game success. What I mean by this is that rarely as a young player did I ask myself, what are the exact shots that I will likely be shooting in the game and am I spending most of my time working on these exact shots? These Exact situations. For me, it was much more about just, well, I went and shot them in the shots today and that's what I'm gonna do because that's what makes great shooters, is just getting the reps up and the reps matter. But they've got to be purposeful and they should be applicable to what you're going to do in the game and they should be something that you spend your time doing now. Unfortunately, back then there wasn't quite as many resources for understanding what shots actually do matter. What should I be spending my time doing? So I didn't know this and it really wasn't until I started to study the game because even now there's a lot of just bad advice out there. There's a lot of people who kind of approach it the same way that I just mentioned it, which is, oh, just go get up as many reps as you can. And while again that matters, I think it's also important and we can make it even more worth your time if you're also working on things that are going to directly translate to the game. So let's talk about a few things that matter. So we talk about shooting off the catch, driving kick, spot up shots. This would be like your typical like spot up stationary jump shots, right? That definitely happens in games, but also we can work on driving kick relocation shots is also something that happens quite a lot where somebody drives you relocate up or down, maybe towards the corner, up towards the top, towards the wing, whatever. And then you have to catch it coming off of like a little bit of a move now. So it's a little bit of a different shot. Those are two major, major, major type of shots that every player should be practicing. The next one will be extra pass threes. This is another very common type of, of three that you're going to shoot where maybe you're in the corner and you get a pass from the wing or you're on the wing and you get a pass from the corner, right? So now that pass is coming from more of a side angle and you've got to be able to turn and get into your shot as well. That's probably 75% of the catch and shoot threes you're going to shoot right there, those three things. So driving kick, stationary shots, driving kick relocation shots and then extra pass threes that those are, that should be a staple in terms of what you do when it comes to the shots that you're working on. But also we have catch and shoot shots coming off of like off ball Screens. So we have pin downs where you're like fading out towards the wing. Maybe you're the person who's setting that, that screen and your teammate tight curls your back doors and you pop out to the wing and there's your shot right there. That's another shot that's important to be able to hit. Being able to make a flare. So almost like an in screen and you're getting the ball over the top for a three and then a hammer screen. It's kind of like a flare but usually going towards the corner instead and and then game shots. So this would be like sprinting into your shot or backpedaling into it. This might come off of like an offensive rebound to a kick out. Stuff that's going to be like spur of the moment, right? Maybe not exactly what you'd be anticipating, but shots that happen still off of the catch that we've got to be prepared for. Those are the really important shots to be able to shoot. And it's something that I should have spent more time, more of my focus on. Okay, how do I make sure that my reps are targeting these things specifically? Because that's what I'm going to be asked to do in games. And so of the 300 shots that I shot today, how many of them are preparing me to be successful in that situation? And the answer was usually not enough of them. Now we talk about shots coming off of the dribble. This is where we have driving kick. And now instead of being able to catch the ball and go up into our catch and shoot three, maybe the closeouts there and we have to attack that closeout and get to a mid range pull up. So that's a very, very common time where you're going to get to a pull up jump shot. It's attacking closeout. And this can be one or two dribbles. We'll talk about that in a second, why that's important. But we also can get to pull up coming off of like a ball screen. So this could be like a three or into the mid range. But another very common situation where you're going to be be shooting the ball off of the dribble. Transition and pulling up in transitions an important thing as well. Whether it's mid range or three and then space creating shots. I think this is a huge one too. So step backs, different sorts of stops. So like a punch drag or a snatch or an inverted drag and anything where you're coming to a stop or you're changing your direction going into your shot right There another. Another type of pull up to work on. So as a side note, another area that I really messed up in was not understanding what pull ups actually are and the value that each of them have. So the, the common go to was like one dribble pull up. Like if I'm working on pull up jump shots is a one dribble. And maybe you've been told the same thing, you've thought the same way. Or it's like, all right, work on my catch and shoe shots and I work on my one drill pull ups. And that's the extent of it. In reality, if you watch the game, the majority of pull ups are not going to come off of one dribble. It's just not going to happen. Right. The only time where it's really going to come off of one dribble is off of like a shot fake where your defender jumps out of your way and there's nobody in front of you. So all you got to do is take one dribble. Normally pull ups are going to happen off of two or more dribbles. Like two or three is probably the most common amount of dribbles you're going to take into a pull up. So understanding this and then making sure that our, our work on our pull ups is more leaning more heavily towards two drill pulls instead of one drill pull ups is going to allow you to be much more prepared to make those shots off the dribble in games right there. Two dribbles allows you to find space more effectively. It also allows you to create space more effectively. Because we can get to, like I said, those stops or those that step back that we talked about, it's much easier to do that right there when we use two dribbles. So something that I had to kind of flip my mindset with, and you should too is your pull up work should lean much more heavily to two dribble pull ups as opposed to one. So right now we're going to start to put together what a workout might look like that kind of incorporates the things we talked about. So we'll start off with that form stuff we'll add in these shots we've talked about, these reps we've talked about. And then there's one more big area, crucial area that I completely skipped out on that we're going to talk about and add to as well. So for example, we might start off with something like line shooting. So we'll have like a line on the floor. It's going to be like the lane line or the sideline, whatever. And we're just working on shooting the ball and shooting it straight, right? So as simple as that sounds, your ability to shoot the ball straight is such an important thing to have. And so we're just working on shooting the ball up in the air, trying to make it land on that line. Maybe we go for 15 perfect shots on the line right there and then we can go with perfection shooting right there. So now we're, we're going with like kind of a traditional form shooting, but we have to switch the shots. So we're just making sure that everything feels perfect. We're taking time, you know, finding that hand placement and just making sure that we're switching every single shot. So Maybe we have 10 or 12 footage on that. And then we can go high spin energy transfer shooting. So this would look like I'm standing straight up, kind of like what we talked about earlier with the energy transfer stuff. But now we're going to toss the ball kind of high to ourselves. We're going to catch it, drop down into that stance and go up into our shot. So working that energy transfer like we talked about already right there. And we can add to this so we can go just stationary, standing still. And we can also add like a, a right step to a hop and a left step to a hop right there. Maybe we go like 4 to 6 makes of each right there. So there we are working on our form right there. Mastering that stuff. The hand placement, the energy transfer and the footwork stuff we'll touch on here. So now we'll have like relocation shooting. So this would be like wing to corner where we're gonna like toss the ball to ourselves and we'll relocate down to that corner, then maybe back up to that wing right there. Go for a certain amount of makes and then same thing on the other side, same thing at the slot. And then we'll talk alternating pull up footwork shooting here. So now we are working on our ability to get to different types of footwork. So for example, we might start off with an inside outside footwork and then we might go to outside inside footwork. And then we might go to a hop right there and we'll alternate between the three. So every single shot we're moving on to the next type of footwork right there. And that allows us to work on not just the ability to make those shots, but the ability to change up our footwork every single shot if needed. Because great players are able to be adaptable. There's that word again. And are able to do that in games if they need to. Like I said, we'll add to this as we go on here. So the third area that I completely skipped out on as a player and this is probably the number one reason why I didn't become that great shooter that, that really high level shooter that could just wreck games. And it was because I didn't understand what a game shot actually was. That's such a, a phrase that's commonly used throughout the game of basketball is game shots. Okay, we're going to work on game shots today. And I think a lot of players, and a lot of coaches too, don't really understand what that even means. When I thought about game shots, probably the way that a lot of, a lot of other players, maybe you even think about game shots, which is, all right, I'm going to shoot my five shots at five spots around the perimeter and then that's my, that's my game, like shooting right there. Or maybe I'd work off of a certain action, which is great, like we talked about, maybe I work off a relocation or I'd work off of like a ball screen. That's great stuff. But I think when it really comes down to game shots, we have to look at what happens throughout the context of a game. I think usually when we talk about practicing game shots, it looks something like this right here. Now, I'm not saying that this doesn't happen right here, but let's take a look at some shots from an actual game and try and spot the difference between what we've just watched here. The answer is variability. Now, when you're shooting a shot in a game, there's so many things that are going to change each shot. So where you're shooting from is the obvious one. You're rarely going to shoot a shot at the same spot twice in a row. That almost never happens in a game. The type of pass you get can also be wildly different. You might get a pass a little high, a little low, a little to your left, a little to your right. Sometimes it'll be perfect right where you want it. Sometimes you're running into the shot, sometimes you're sliding into the shot, sometimes you're standing still. Sometimes the shot is contested, sometimes the shot is open. Sometimes your feet are perfect. Sometimes your feet are a little wide or a little narrow, or you're a little off balance. Sometimes you have all the time in the world and sometimes you have to rush a little bit so you don't get your hands placed perfectly in the basketball. There's so many little things that can change shot to shot that will change shot to shot. When we look at clips of game of shots being made in real games, we see the little differences happening every single time. Yet if you want to be a great shooter, you still have to make the shot even when something's off. Kind of like that clip we look, we, we watched earlier with JJ Redick and Cam Johnson. When one thing is off, can you still make the shot? That's what great shooters do, that's what high level shooters do. And a great example of this is the game tying three that Jalen Brown hit in the first round of the Eastern Conference finals to send the game to overtime where he caught the ball in the corner and he had almost no room to shoot it. He had Pascal Siakam right in front of him. He wasn't able to bring the ball up his normal shot path in the middle of his body, so he had to bring the ball around like the right side of his body and up into the shot for that three that ultimately got into overtime where they then won the game right there. Despite the imperfection, he made the shot. And that's what great shooters do, is that there's no excuses like you find a way to still make the shot even when something is thrown off. Now as a side note, I've seen a ton of people chalk up that specific shot as luck. Oh, it was a lucky shot. Oh, you know, he got lucky on that one. And here's the thing, within basketball, every shot there's an element of luck, right? You can't force the ball to go into the basket unless you're dunking it. That's the only time, right? There's always a little bit element of luck and of course with a shot like that. But guess what, the better you are, the more prepared you are. The more solutions, the more movement patterns that you work on that you are able to access when you need them, the more likely you are to get lucky in those moments. Okay? So we want to maximize our chances of being lucky in those situations. And that's why we want to actually work on those things so that we're prepared to handle the imperfection. And then speaking of the Boston Celtics, there was a video that went around at the beginning of the playoffs of Derrick White shooting these shots coming off of horrible passes from his coaches. Now I'm not sure if they were just messing around or if this is actually something that they do, but anybody who's trained with me knows this is something that we do all the Time, call it bad pass shooting. And. And it really trains you to work and be able to shoot through the imperfection that comes from the type of passes you're going to get. You're not going to get great passes every time. Right. Especially depending on your teammates, you might get bad passes a lot of the times. Can you still make the shot? Right. There is no excuse for missing. You can't blame it on the pass every single time. You've got to be able to make it despite the pass being high, being low, being to your left, being to your right. And so it's really important that we work on that. And this is also something that you can do without a passer. So just by kind of being creative and bouncing the ball to yourself or tossing it to yourself, high, low, left, right, just making it not perfect. And that's just one example of a drill that we might do. So going back to the workout that we talked about earlier, we can add that to it as well. We'll go bad pass shooting. Now, another example of a drill that we might do to kind of work on becoming adaptable. There's that word again, is bad footwork shooting. There's going to be times where you're a little bit rushed, where you're a little bit off balance, and your feet aren't exactly perfect how you'd want them to be be. And as simple as it sounds, we'll train this. We'll just switch up our feet every time. So sometimes our feet are going to be normal. Sometimes they're a little wide, a little narrow. Maybe the left foot's a little bit ahead, maybe the right foot's a little bit ahead. Maybe the left foot's really far ahead, right foot's really far ahead. But we're just going to change up our feet every single time. And again, this is going to help us to become adaptable when it comes to our feet. And a drill like this is going to prepare us to make the shot anyway. Even if our feet are a little bit off, we're going to be able to make that shot. Something that I've been experimenting with lately is called hand placement shootings. We talked about hand placement earlier on in the video and how important it is. But you've probably experienced this. I know I have. Sometimes you catch the ball and maybe the defender is kind of rushing to you, or you don't pick it up cleanly, or you don't catch it cleanly and you go up and you feel like your hands were just off and you missed a shot. Being able to shoot when your hands aren't perfect because you're not going to be able to get them perfect every single time. Being able to do that and, and still make the shot, I think is important. So here's a couple drills that we, we've done to kind of work on this. So for this one, we'll just kind of toss the ball back and forth, just kind of like readjusting our hands every time. And then we'll just go up into the shot and we'll just try and make it different every single time. And then for this one, we'll literally just alternate. So the first shot that we'll shoot, our hands will be a little more narrow on the ball than they normally would be. And then the next time they'll be a little wider on the ball than they normally would be. And so now we're again building that adaptability, building that ability to, to make those shots when our hands are not perfect on the ball. And I think it's an aspect of making shots in games, making those game shots that is incredibly under trained. And then a really simple way that we'll work on this and we'll work on this. This ability to be adaptable is just training with like variable spot shooting. All that means that we're just going to change the shot every single time. Like the simplest thing we've talked about so far, we're just going to shoot from a different spot every single time. We can do this in two different ways. The first way is to literally change your spot. So we might shoot from the corner and we might shoot from the wing and then we might shoot from the low wing, then we might shoot from the slot. Then maybe we'll be at the corner again, then maybe we're back in the wing and then we're at the top of the key, whatever. We're just changing up where we're at every single time. The other way is changing how you move into the shot at that same spot. So maybe we're in the corner, but the first time we backpedal into it and then we stand still and then we slide into it, then we sprint into it and so you're, you're, your spot is going to actually be a little bit different every time. Yeah, you're still in the corner, but the actual place you're standing is different and the focus that you're using is different. And that's a great way that will add some variability for some adaptability when it comes to just the shooting that we're going to do now. We can also train variability when it comes to how quick we shoot. This is another thing I love to do where we'll alternate between shooting slow, like we're wide open, like, okay, I catch it. I have all the time in the world. And then catching and shooting it really quick, like you have a closeout coming, you got to get the ball up, okay? Because again, we're not always going to shoot the same speed every single time. So being able to change that shot to shot is really, really important. And the last way we'll talk about adding challenge, making our practice game shots much more similar to game game shots, is by adding pressure. And this is a very, very underutilized thing. I definitely didn't do enough, and now I do it so often with my players where we'll add pressure, we'll add weight to our shooting drills. Really, the, the problem is that a lot of times when we chase numbers, we, we have, we go for 300 shots. But let's say in that 300 shot workout, how many of those shots actually mattered? How many of them actually meant something, right? Or was it just, okay, I get my five makes here and I move on. In a game, every single shot matters, right? Think about it super simply. You get on the floor and you want to do well because you've practiced, therefore you have something invested into that shot. I've worked on this before. I want to go in and do well. So there's a little bit of pressure on the shots you shoot in games just because of that. Now let's add in all the other stuff that could be into it. First of all, you're in a game trying to win. Maybe you're in a close game or it's the fourth quarter, and now all of a sudden that shot has a little bit of weight to it. Maybe you're down by two, and this three will put you ahead. There's some pressure. There's some weight on that shot. That shot matters. You know, you, maybe you come off the bench and you want to go in and you want to earn more playing time. So you. I got to make shots. There's more weight. There's more pressure. Maybe you are a starter and you want to keep your starting spot or you want to play more minutes, you want to have a bigger role. And so that shot means more to you, right? There's so many things that go into it. Your parents are in there watching, your friends are in there watching. There's. There's stuff that's on the line. Your team is trying to compete for a playoff spot, you're trying to win a tournament. There's all this pressure, and there's weight on the shots that you shoot in games. Yet in practice, a lot of the shots we shoot don't mean anything. You miss a shot, oh, well, it doesn't matter. So I like to create goals and consequences for not reaching goals when it comes to shooting drills sometimes because it allows us to almost recreate some of that pressure. So, for example, instead of shooting until you get 10 makes, maybe you have to get five makes in a row. Now, all of a sudden, there's some weight on these shots. You get to, like, make number three. All of a sudden, like, shot four, you. You're kind of like, oh, hey, I got to make this shot. This shot matters. This shot means something. There's a consequence if I don't get this, which is I have to go back to zero. So that's a very simple way for us to do it. We can. We can make it like, hey, you've got to make two out of three shots here. Instead of saying, hey, let's. Let's make three shots. You got to make two out of three. Or, you know, if you don't do that, you go one for three, you're back to zero. And so that's a great way of doing it right there. Sometimes what we'll do is we'll say, hey, you've got to make two out of three shots. Maybe you're working on, like, a relocation to the corner. So you say, okay, we've got to make two out of three, relocating to the corner. And then in order for that to count, you then have to make a standstill catch and shoot three. So you get your two out of three, and then all of a sudden, there's a lot of pressure, a lot of weight on that catch and shoot three. Because if you miss that, then you're back at zero and the set didn't count. And if you make it, you succeed. So we can add weight, add pressure, and make it much more like it would be in a game where they're. There are goals that you're going after, and there's consequences if you don't get those goals right there. And great way to do it. Another really simple way is like, maybe instead of saying, hey, I have to make eight shots at the spot, you have to make eight shots without missing two in a row. So you make your first shot, you make your second shot, you miss your next shot, you're okay as long as you make your next one, but if you miss your next one, that's two in a row. Now you're back to zero. So you got to get all the way up to eight without missing two in a row. And now there's pressure and. And you're training yourself. You're developing a mindset that says, hey, I don't miss two in a row. I missed one. Well, okay, I'll bounce back and make my next one. Great mindset to develop if you want to be a great shooter. Being able to handle pressure and succeed when pressure is present is such an important skill to have, and a lot of players don't have it. And I see it all the time with players that I work with where, especially if they're new to what I do, like, they'll. We'll do a drill where they have to make three in a row. And maybe we've been doing drills the whole time where they don't. There's no pressure, just, hey, make five here, make six here, make three here. But all of a sudden, we put that in a row, and it's like they can't shoot anymore because now there's pressure on the shots that they're shooting, and it can literally affect how you. How you shoot. So we want to recreate this when we work out, when we train, and this is a great way to do it. It's just finding ways to say, I got to make this amount of this amount in a row. I got to make this amount without missing two in a row. I got to make two out of three here, three out of four here. I have to make another shot after for the set to count something that we do a ton of that. I wish I would have done way more as a player, I think would have prepared me much more to actually make shots in games when there is pressure and there's weight on everything that I do right there. So now that we've gone through this, here is what this workout that we've started off might look like if we update it with adding these game. Game shots into this as well. So now we have bad past shooting, so maybe we go 12 to 16 makes. And the rule is it's got to be a new spot every time. Okay. And. And ideally this would be three pointers if you shoot threes, right? If you don't shoot threes and make it from the mid range, but 12 to 16 from three new spot every single time, then we might go bad foot. We're shooting. So same idea. 12 to 16 makes new spot every time. Then we might go five spot shooting. So now we're kind of getting a bulk of our reps right here and at each spot. So we'll start corner, wing, top wing, wing, corner. We've got to make between five to eight shots without missing two shots in a row. And then to finish it out, we can go what I like to call game time. Shooting with 8 to 10 makes, which is simply just you are pretending like you've got the ball and it's a game winner, right? And you're just going to put yourself in a bunch of different situations. So maybe you're coming on the floor, you got to hit a transition pull up, maybe you're coming off of a pin down, you got to hit a three. Maybe you're coming off like a driving kick relocation to hit a three for the win. And you just got to make between eight to 10 shots, putting yourself in that game situation right there to finish it. And this would be a really good example of a good shooting workout that touches on everything that we want. We work on our form, we're getting up our reps, and we're adding in these game game shots where we're working on our ability to be adaptable and to make shots despite imperfection right there. So this would be something that I would, I would use. Feel free to take this workout and use it yourself. See how it makes you feel. Go through it for a little bit and I guarantee you're going to see improvement when it comes to making those shots that are important. So going through those three things that we've talked about here. Number one, I would have mastered my form. I would have mastered those three areas we talked about. Hand placement, energy transfer and rhythm and footwork. I would have mastered those three things. Number two, I would have made sure that my reps were purposeful. There's that word again. Purposeful. And therefore translatable to the game. So I would have worked on the shots that I actually am going to be able to make and I would have first of all asked myself that question. And I would have made sure that even if I'm chasing those numbers, right, you got to be obsessed with it. You got to obsess over. I got to go get my reps. But I also would have made sure that, hey, let's make sure that I'm working on this with my reps here. Let's make sure I work on this shot because I'm probably going to be asked to do this. And then number three is I would have practiced game Game shots and not practice game shots. So not game shots where it sounds good to say it. And you see all these NBA players doing it in their workouts, so you. It must be the only thing that I need. In reality, I would have made sure that I work on the things that actually happen in game, so I would have worked on the different types of things that are going to challenge my ability to make shots when it's imperfect. I would have become a more adaptable shooter and therefore I would have been a more game ready and consistent shooter. And I think that if I would have done those three things as a player, it would have taken me to a whole other level as a shooter. So hopefully you can take those things and that can be you. Now, if you want a step by step system that's going to help you to implement all of these things, then you should check out my shooting program, the Elite Shooter System. Now the Elite Shooter System was designed with these three areas in mind and all the principles and a lot of the drills that we've gone through and the clips that we've gone through in this video are actually from the Elite Shooting System. I've seen numerous players take their shooting to a whole new level with the Elite Shooter System and it's the same thing that I use with my players that I train now. So if you want to take your shooting to a new level, click that top link in the description down below. Go ahead and check that out. This is definitely something I wish I would have had growing up, but I didn't, so I had to create it. And now here it is for you. Now if you're not ready for that completely. Okay. I also have a free two week scoring program that you can get in the description down below as well. And a lot of the stuff that we talked about, all of the drills we talked about, it's also included in that program too. And it's going to help you see more progress, more improvement over the next two weeks and you probably ever have seen in a two week period in your life. So completely free. You can check that out as well if you're not quite ready for the Elite Shooter System. Like I said, this is by far one of the most in depth and information packed videos that I've ever made. So if you made it this far, I really appreciate that. Thank you for watching Talk Soon. Peace.