Thoughts on Shooting Instruction

Thoughts on Shooting Instruction

These ideas are from Coach Tom Traynor, longtime and highly successful Pennsylvania High School Coach .  Coach Traynor passed away in 2011.
I received these notes from Creighton Burns. 

Just to share a few ideas we us teaching shooting. We emphasize form at the beginning of each session and game speed the rest the way.

We have shooting sessions at every work-out and practice usually 15-20 minutes a day in drill. We begin with Free Throws for form shooting. Next we practice our shooting arm with the ball on the shooting hand directly in front and beside the rim. Then we work off the dribble.  Each practice we make 50 shots (as a team) behind the arc while running our drive and kick drills.

Points of emphasis in our shooting that are reviewed daily are:

1.  Get the shooting hand behind the ball – Rotate thumb around the ball to put 3 shooting fingers in the middle of the ball. – Turn hand and shoulder in.

2. Elbow under the ball facilitates forearm and hand to the hoop. Provides shooting power and control. When the elbow is low its kinetic energy brings the Humerus Bone into the release and the ball is pushed upward from the elbow rather than up and out by the forearm and hand. (45 degrees)

3. Accuracy at the middle of the hoop

4. Overcome distance with complete extension of joints. Elbow extension is most important. – Don’t be ½ inch short.

5. Forming up your jump shot

6. Power the ball with the toes, ankles, knees, shoulder (lifts the ball) hand and elbow. This is the shooting motion – Kinetic movement – extra energy because of the motion of the object. Slow or feather the finishing action of the forearm and hand to control the kinetic motion of the shot. Do not overpower your shot by flipping the ball into the follow through. Finish must be natural motion.

7. Develop forearm extension. Forearm controls distance. Setting the ball over the elbow means the force will be applied by the forearm –creates an outward movement.  The Humerus creates an upward movement.

8. Key Measurement Terms:

Control – Promotes precision

Consistency – measured by FG Percentage 

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