Coaching Youth Basketball - Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13 Incoming! Shooting Skills

Feel pretty good about yourself, or is it sure of yourself? Everything should have gone ok up to this point, right? No major blow-ups, you've been in control, and you have put on the pretense that you know what you are doing. Everything is right with the world until now.

And the title of this chapter is *****INCOMING*****

Now it's time to teach your players to shoot. First you need to understand the technique - form.

1. Keep your knees slightly bent

2. Your shoulders should be square to the basket

3. Your shooting forearm should be straight up and down. If you are right handed, your forearm should be straight up and down and in line with your right shoulder, and visa versa if you are left handed.

4. Your shooting hand should be parallel to the ground and you look like a waiter carrying a tray.

5. Your non-shooting hand should be gently helping to hold the ball in place when it is in your shooting hand.

6. At your player's ages, your feet are spread apart about 6-8 inches. And your right foot is slightly ahead of your left foot if you are right handed. Visa versa if you are left handed.. When you shoot the power comes from your legs. Your kids will try to shoot stiff legged, with their knees bent. WRONG! To start your shot, you bend at the knees and you almost squat as you go down. Next you come up in a fluid motion and end up on your toes. Try this in your home, without a ball. It does not feel natural. Especially when you concentrate on keeping your forearm straight up and down the whole time. Your forearm and elbow will want to go sideways, parallel to the ground. Wrong! You will look like a chicken flapping it's wings. Your forearm stays straight up and down.

7. When you release the ball, your shooting arm should be pointed toward the basket and your hand and wrist should be at a right angle to each other. Hold your forearm up and down in front of you. Now hold your hand at a right angle, aimed in front of you. If it doesn't look like a cobra, you know, the snake, then your aren't doing it right. If it looks like a cobra, then this is the exact position your hand ends up in after you release the ball.

So now you have to practice this form a lot before your next LS because you have to teach it to your players.

IMPORTANT - IMPORTANT - IMPORTANT !!! Do not try to teach them by you shooting at the basket. Teach them by passing it to them, using the proper technique. Why not shoot? You don't want to embarrass yourself because you can't hit the broad side of a barn, now do you.

The last thing is that you should have arch on your shots, or passes. When you explain this to them, tell them that their shot should look like a rainbow.

SHOOTING PASS DRILL

Line up half of your team on the half court line and the other half about 6 feet away from them. Each line must face the other and each player must have a counterpart on the other line they can pass to. Have them practice their one handed shoots to each other. You will constantly have to remind them to arch their passes and to only use one hand to shoot. Their natural tendency is shoot two-handed, break them of this habit in the beginning and you have made life a lot easier.

DISTANCE - or are you sure valium's not legal???

This is just a side note to warn you about kids, basketballs, and shooting. You see, kids want to be cool. Shooting short shots are for wimps. Cool people shoot rockets from half court. It doesn't matter if they miss 99 in a row. If they make the 100th, they are cool.

Your job is to control where they shoot from. After every drill, yell baseline, count out loud to 5, and you know the rest. Now, every time they are on the baseline, they aren't allowed to dribble the ball. If they dribble while you are talking to them, you lose. So, if they dribble while on the baseline, everyone runs 2 laps. You have to maintain control.

lay-upS & DRILLS

Let's assume everyone is right handed. Place a player on the block to the right of the basket. They are to take one step toward the basket with their left foot and shoot. Don't let them dribble, just one step and shoot. Now here's comes part 2.

When you shoot a lay-up, pretend there is a rope connecting your right elbow and your right knee. As you go up with your right hand to shoot a lay-up, your right leg should be going up at the same time. If you are left handed, then your left elbow and knee should be connected. You can actually practice this while sitting in your chair at home.

These are the simple mechanics for a lay-up. Now let's get them to do it on the run. Line them up on one of the baselines. They are to run at half speed to the half court line and jump off of their left foot as far as they can. They have to jump off of their left foot. Make it a contest. Whoever jumps the farthest, gets a tootsie roll pop.

When they are jumping off of their correct foot every time, now you need to make a slight adjustment. They need to jump high and far, not just far. A little thing I do is to lay down on the floor on my side. They must jump over me off of their left foot. (Don't lay facing the kids, because they will get the family jewels if you do. I'm so stupid, I had to learn the hard way.) When they get this down to a science, tell them this is exactly how you want them to move when they go for a lay-up, up and out!

Now is when you let them try a lay-up and actually shoot the ball. No dribbling, have them run and shoot. When they can make this shot without dribbling, 5 out of 10 times, then you let them try it while dribbling.

After they perfect the right handed lay-up, you teach them the left handed lay-ups, using the exact same steps, except you reverse the hands, elbows and which foot you jump off of.

If you can teach them how to make a lay-up, with either hand, on a consistent basis, you will be one to two years ahead of everyone else. In fact, I know varsity players who can't make a lay-up with their reverse hand. This is the most important shot you can teach them at this age. Every LS from now on should contain 10-15 minutes of lay-ups. For left handers, just do everything in reverse. Their left elbow and left knee work in tandem etc.

You now have enough material for your first six or seven LS's. If you can get your players to learn these simple steps, you will have taught them enough to win a lot of games. But more importantly, you, my friend, are becoming a coach and COACH - TEACHER AND ROLE MODEL. You are teaching and so far you have not had to scream at a single kid. SIMPLE IS GOOD, ISN'T IT?????