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Shooting Coaches

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Norcal_Fan

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A couple of questions for all you out there.

1) Do you think that a good (or great) shooting coach needs to be a good shooter in order for him/her to teach shooting?

2) do you think that a skills coach (dribbling, counter over, etc) needs to be an experienced player to teach these skills?

I was talking to a friend today who has his son going to a "trainer". The trainer has him doing all sorts of things from dribbling, teaching moves (NBA moves that would be a travel in HS), and shooting BUT not focusing on the mechanics but just getting shots up. How do you know if your player is getting the best training that you're paying for?
 
I’ve had conversations with several NBA shooting coaches and they stress footwork and repetition. They believe if a player gets up enough shots regardless of their form they can become good shooters. This is why some players are drafted with poor mechanics. I am all for proper mechanics but I’d spend my money on shooting machine rentals over a shooting coach.

Also several of the best shooting coaches were not high level players. Some went to small colleges and specialized as outside shooters but were far from being known as NBA prospects. They still fill important roles in the game.
 
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In order to be consistent and not a streaky shooter you will need a coach to correct the mechanics of the shot. Otherwise If you have a court at home just get a shooting machine or take your kid to the park and rebound for them while they get up tons of shots. You have to look at the subtle things like elbow bend. Angle of release is important also. Also the finger spacing is important and the follow through is important. Your body rythm is most important. Knee bend, all the way to the release and where your body motion is on release. If they aren't focused on that it's a waste of time other than a workout in my opinion.
 
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Interesting question, especially for me as I was never a good player, really. I could shoot a little but though I was a decent passer, I was not a skilled ballhandler. (I just want to make that clear so the following has context.)

I think one issue is the age at which we're talking about training. As I've said on here before, I think the key time for instilling shot mechanics is middle school -- it's too late in high school, really, because to rebuild the muscle memory would require a significant amount of time missing shots, and with the focus on winning and impressing college coaches, it doesn't make sense to do it then.

I think getting a trainer who is focused on true fundamentals -- footwork, etc. -- makes great sense for younger players, especially because coaches for that age group are generally not that skilled and tend to focus on easy stuff like running plays or pressing. (Along that line, trainers who spend a lot of the time making kids sweat and work hard are really wasting parents' money. Getting in shape is completely different than learning skills.)

The problem is that working on repeating fundamentals is boring, and the child will come home and say "That wasn't fun -- I didn't learn any cool moves," or something like that. But just like math and reading comprehension, it takes time and repetition to lock in shooting form and ballhandling.

For older kids, trainers can add moves, etc., but really, how often do you see a move that takes hours to learn used in games? And compare that to the number of free throws or open threes. Players should practice those skills that make them better in games, not in one-on-one pickup games.

So the older kids need a trainer who adds shots, not moves, to the repertoire, and the trainer's job is to make sure that the form is correct on the floater, say, so that when the player practices on her own, she's not locking in bad form.

And again, a trainer who sends a girl back home drenched in sweat isn't making her a better basketball player. Training is about skills, not conditioning.
 
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Coach_Case said:
I’ve had conversations with several NBA shooting coaches and they stress footwork and repetition. They believe if a player gets up enough shots regardless of their form they can become good shooters. This is why some players are drafted with poor mechanics. I am all for proper mechanics but I’d spend my money on shooting machine rentals over a shooting coach.

Also several of the best shooting coaches were not high level players. Some went to small colleges and specialized as outside shooters but were far from being known as NBA prospects. They still fill important roles in the game.
Click to expand...

I totally disagree about a shooting machine being more valuable than a shooting coach. Now I'm not talking about a "trainer." I'm talking about an actual, experienced shooting coach. Most of the better trainers can take a kid with some level of skill and help them apply those skills to various moves, footwork and drills and get them a good workout. But I don't see a lot of trainers that I would consider shooting coaches.

The reason I disagree is lower ceiling. If you practice a lot with poor mechanics you are just engraining bad habits. So if you are a 28% 3 point shooter and shoot for an hour a day on a shooting machine, you might improve to 30% or so? But if that kid had their shot broken down, refined, and repped by a true shooting coach, they could dramatically improve their shooting percentage well above just a percent or two. Of course, the player has to be willing and open to change, be accountable to the corrections and breaking the bad habits, and put in lots of time to retrain their body.

You would never get the same payback from a shooting machine that you would from sending a player to a shooting coach to the caliber of Doc, for example. Not even close.

And Clay, I agree it is IDEAL to teach proper shooting mechanics prior to HS age, but we have had several kids do a major overhaul in their mechanics that came to us sophomore or junior year and are day and night better--because they were open to change, they got the proper breakdown and daily reinforcement, and repped it over and over. But we start our shooting system in Kindergarten and progress over the next 12 years. And we nitpick our mechanics daily in practice. The kids are getting constant feedback daily. In talking to hundreds of players, most will say they weren't ever really taught how to shoot. Coaches would say "use your legs" if they were short or "hold your follow through" if they were off line. But those may not have even been the reasons for being short or missing left.

Finally, you don't have to be a great shooter to be a great teacher of shooting. Same as being a great player. I know many great players that were subpar coaches. Things came so easy and naturally to them that they never really had to break it down to be more successful. The marginal player probably spent far hours learning and being corrected just to survive. To be a great coach, you have to be a great teacher. Study and master your content and be able to break it down to a learnable component while constantly refining and improving your teaching.
 
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One thing I've noticed about shooting machines in high school gyms: They are stuck in a corner and very often seldom used.

I dislike them for a lot of reasons, but one big one is that during games passes very seldom come to shooters from straight under the basket, so what you're practicing is not what happens in games. And passes also do not come with the same speed every time or to the same location.

Plus, as Craig points out, working on bad form is worse than not working at all. Occasionally I would break out a shooting machine to work with two or three girls, but another problem is that you want to stop the machine and make corrections, which isn't always that simple or consistent. It's really easier to have another person rebound so you can tell them to hold the ball, or just have several balls in a rack to pass to the shooter yourself.

And also, as Craig says, constant reinforcement of mechanics is crucial because it's easy for young players, as they grow and/or get stronger, to unconsciously alter their form.
 
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I also disagree it's too late after middle school to work on form. Case in point LeBron James. He couldn't shoot the three when he first came in the league. Now he is a threat. You most definitely can gain shooting ability and probably mechanics late in your career if you are mentally willing to press your self. Some kids aren't even playing competitive basketball in middle school. Most are but some arent.
 
GBBall4L said:
I also disagree it's too late after middle school to work on form. Case in point LeBron James. He couldn't shoot the three when he first came in the league. Now he is a threat. You most definitely can gain shooting ability and probably mechanics late in your career if you are mentally willing to press your self. Some kids aren't even playing competitive basketball in middle school. Most are but some arent.
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Lebron tho??!?!
 
I think of a lot of that reworking was done after high school, and by players whose career was assured (Jason Kidd is another). For a high school girl hoping to play in college, rebuilding your shot without excellent coaching and a big-time work ethic is a major roll of the dice.
 
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ClayK said:
I think of a lot of that reworking was done after high school, and by players whose career was assured (Jason Kidd is another). For a high school girl hoping to play in college, rebuilding your shot without excellent coaching and a big-time work ethic is a major roll of the dice.
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True. The coaching and method is the most important.
 
ClayK said:
I think of a lot of that reworking was done after high school, and by players whose career was assured (Jason Kidd is another). For a high school girl hoping to play in college, rebuilding your shot without excellent coaching and a big-time work ethic is a major roll of the dice.
Click to expand...

Think about how much time it takes to be good at something. I read somewhere that it takes 10k times for you to be good at something, like learning a skill. meaning shooting, working on good form, step in OR hop. Agree that earlier in a kids life is much easier to teach and harder to master. That's what is frustrating to the individual...they're not seeing the fruits of their labor early on. Trainers need to make sure to focus on the process, not the results when starting. Easier said than done
 
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GBBall4L said:
I also disagree it's too late after middle school to work on form. Case in point LeBron James. He couldn't shoot the three when he first came in the league. Now he is a threat. You most definitely can gain shooting ability and probably mechanics late in your career if you are mentally willing to press your self. Some kids aren't even playing competitive basketball in middle school. Most are but some arent.
Click to expand...
I get the point, but Lebron? Okay.
 
Norcal_Fan said:
Think about how much time it takes to be good at something. I read somewhere that it takes 10k times for you to be good at something, like learning a skill. meaning shooting, working on good form, step in OR hop. Agree that earlier in a kids life is much easier to teach and harder to master. That's what is frustrating to the individual...they're not seeing the fruits of their labor early on. Trainers need to make sure to focus on the process, not the results when starting. Easier said than done
Click to expand...

It is 10,000 hrs. to master pool and billiards. I teach pool and have been asked to help someone who wanted to become a pro. I had him doing some simple drills and I asked him to repeat them ten times in a row. He became bored after 1 hour.

On the other hand, Efern Reyes is considered the greatest all around player who has ever lived. The other pros call him the " Magician "
He has terrible mechanics. But when his cue stick hits the cue ball it is always in the same spot every time.
Here's wishing you a smooth stroke, and great hoops.
 
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I always start with footwork (then release, then focusing on the target) and there's no reward for improving your footwork without a better release and targeting. So patience is required, and that's not a common trait in teenagers. Or anyone.
 
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Great discussion. We see so many trainers and shooting coaches these days. I scratch my head wondering what qualifies one to be a trainer? I'm sure that i'm not the only person to see the explosion of trainers, and although you may not have had to be a great player to be a great trainer, what qualifies one to have this title? How do you judge a youth trainer? Is it the guy/woman who teaches the fanciest moves? Slickest ball handling? I dont want to sound like a hater, but i see more kids who can do the fancy stuff, but completely miss the fundamentals. No shot fakes, jump stops. It all looks like Euro steps and 9 dribble combo moves.
 
girlsballfan said:
Great discussion. We see so many trainers and shooting coaches these days. I scratch my head wondering what qualifies one to be a trainer? I'm sure that i'm not the only person to see the explosion of trainers, and although you may not have had to be a great player to be a great trainer, what qualifies one to have this title? How do you judge a youth trainer? Is it the guy/woman who teaches the fanciest moves? Slickest ball handling? I dont want to sound like a hater, but i see more kids who can do the fancy stuff, but completely miss the fundamentals. No shot fakes, jump stops. It all looks like Euro steps and 9 dribble combo moves.
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but can they finish? that is the important part.
 
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"Can they finish?" You can run the best play ever and get a great shot -- but it doesn't matter if the girl can't make it.

Practicing plays is fun, but practicing shooting is how you score.
 
Kids today are too caught up in how things look instead of how the ball looks when it goes in the basket. That's what matters.
 
Marcskit said:
It is 10,000 hrs. to master pool and billiards. I teach pool and have been asked to help someone who wanted to become a pro. I had him doing some simple drills and I asked him to repeat them ten times in a row. He became bored after 1 hour.

On the other hand, Efern Reyes is considered the greatest all around player who has ever lived. The other pros call him the " Magician "
He has terrible mechanics. But when his cue stick hits the cue ball it is always in the same spot every time.
Here's wishing you a smooth stroke, and great hoops.
Click to expand...

First, this is a great thread! Really informative

Second, I'll have to remember not to play pool for money with Marc next time I'm up for the Gridley tournament lol.
 
ClayK said:
"Can they finish?" You can run the best play ever and get a great shot -- but it doesn't matter if the girl can't make it.

Practicing plays is fun, but practicing shooting is how you score.
Click to expand...
practicing plays is not fun, let be real haha. Shooting is very important to practice, but also is working on separation moves and counter moves. you don't want to be one dimensional and be the kid that can only shoot.
 
Norcal_Fan said:
practicing plays is not fun, let be real haha. Shooting is very important to practice, but also is working on separation moves and counter moves. you don't want to be one dimensional and be the kid that can only shoot.
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Some coaches really enjoy finding and installing plays. Players don't enjoy them nearly as much, for obvious reasons.

And of course you have to work on more than shooting, and the skills you mention are valuable every time down the floor. But a play you run three times a game, or a post move you use twice, or a dribble-spin-between-the-legs-step-back-in-the-lane-floater you use once a season are not the best use of limited practice time. You have to defend, rebound, dribble, pass and shoot continually through a game so it makes sense to focus most (not all) of your practice time on those. (One caveat: If you have a very skilled, talented team whose members already are good at defending, rebounding, dribbling, passing and shooting, you have more practice time at your disposal.)
 
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There are certain high schools that when you think of their basketball programs you immediately think of how well they shoot. They ALL have shooting coaches...or as we call our shooting coach at Cardinal Newman..."The Shot Doctor".
The shooting coaches that I know of all played and could shoot a little themselves back in the day.

I'd rather have someone that played the game with knowledge of spacing, footwork and breaking down the defense. But that's just my preference and my take.
 
Azzi Fudd is the real deal -- and yes, she was named for Jennifer Azzi.
 
As long as the form is good, the more shots the better. But young players can easily fall into bad habits without being aware of it ...

Also, when I just shoot by myself, I get more focused on making more, and my shot slows down. When I would get hurt in the past and not play for several weeks, but shoot by myself, when I got back to games I had to speed up my release -- which in a sense made a lot of the shots I took when I was out not really that helpful.

In short, the younger the player, the more critical that supervision needed; and regardless of age, be conscious that shooting with a machine or just by yourself is considerably different than game shooting.
 
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ClayK said:
As long as the form is good, the more shots the better. But young players can easily fall into bad habits without being aware of it ...

Also, when I just shoot by myself, I get more focused on making more, and my shot slows down. When I would get hurt in the past and not play for several weeks, but shoot by myself, when I got back to games I had to speed up my release -- which in a sense made a lot of the shots I took when I was out not really that helpful.

In short, the younger the player, the more critical that supervision needed; and regardless of age, be conscious that shooting with a machine or just by yourself is considerably different than game shooting.
Click to expand...

agreed. With younger players, the focus is on the process not the result and its hard to keep younger kids motivated when they're not successful right from the get go.
 
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