In Reply to: Looking at the wildly disparate shooting forms... posted by ClockBlocker on March 25, 2025 at 09:00:23
as a push motion vs pull motion. But when I analyze my jump or set shot, it was basically a push motion. In any at athletic skill motion (baseball, golf, basketball, etc)compact, IMO, is always better than more moving parts. That's the way I always taught free throw and shooting to youngsters back when I was doing that sort of thing.
In addition to optimum fundamentals, a critical thing in any kind of shooting is fingertip control and touch and holding the follow through without pulling the releasing hand back too quickly. Without those things, most will never be great shooters. I've played with some great athletes but some of them simply didn't have the touch required to be good shooters (always called them "bricklayers"). Fundamentals always looked reasonably good but the ball wouldn't consistently go in for them.
One way to see if a player has reasonably good touch is to put the player at the free throw line and put a blindfold on him/her and see how many free throws he/she can make. Prior to the blindfold, I always let them shoot 10 free throws just to get the feel of distance. Then, if a player can make over 50 percent of those taken with the blindfold on, that's a good indicator of reasonably good fingertip touch. I'd always have them shoot 20 with the blindfold on to see if they could make 10 or more. With the blindfold on, they could see the ball and floor but when they looked up, they couldn't see the hoop.
But one thing is certain. Once the fundamentals are mastered, it's up to the players to make themselves into good shooters by hours and hundreds and thousands of reps of "perfect practice" in shooting the type of shots they will get in games. Individual shooting coaches are often used to support the players who are really serious about it. However, some players simply don't want to spend all the time and creative effort it takes to be a great shooter.