Drills play
Drill: Form Shooting
- Court
- Half court
- Length
- 9 steps
About this play
One-hand form shooting from two or three feet, the first thing I do at every workout and the first drill I teach a young player. Why it works: there is no defender, no speed, and no distance, so a miss can only come from the release or the alignment, and the player can feel exactly what went wrong. Setup: one shooter per basket with a ball, up to three rotating, and no cones; the three spots are straight on and the two forty-five degree angles. The ball sits in the shooting hand only, guide hand at the hip, shooting-side foot lined up with the rim, knees bent and chest up, shoot tall. Raise it to the set point with the elbow under the ball, pause one count, shoot with the legs and one arm, and hold the follow-through until the ball hits the net. Make five (youth) or ten at a spot, slide to the next, then back up a ring: the blocks, eight to ten feet, the free throw line. Mistakes: a flared elbow, a guide-hand thumb pushing the ball, a flat arc, dropping the follow-through early, and moving back before the form is clean. Progression: add the guide hand to the side of the ball, then a small hop into the shot, or shoot at a taped target on a garage wall when there is no rim. I learned to teach it from Duncan Robinson's and Allan Houston's Jr. NBA form videos and Breakthrough Basketball's form shooting page, and I wrote up the wall version in the garage drills post on the site; start there with a young shooter.
