Jamal: Shot-Check

Aug. 15, 2012 – Photos and Notes on J’s Shot

J:  Very happy with the direction this is heading – you’ll see the promise in the shot, but it’s up to you to respect the secret of all secrets – the talent is practice, the practice is talent.  Love going to the park to shoot 250 shots by yourself as much as you love lacing ’em up for you games.  Remember in a game, you spend 1 hour with 10-15 players and two coaches fighting for one thing:  the ball (and the W).  When you go out to shoot, the ball is in your hand for the entire hour or most of it.   You cannot play your way to greatness.  You practice your way there and along the way, you play, but you never compromise the discipline of practicing and doing it perfectly.

The above shows a little stiff-leggedness on the catch – at the same time I like how much body control you are exuding after you loosen up.  The major flaw is that you get a little eager after you shoot and your jump forward.  If I had a video camera rolling, you’d see your start point and end point – you want to be as vertical as possible – no jumping forward on jumpshots or you end up hitting the back of hte rim far too often.  The other thing this shows is an elbow that is not totally in – but there’s a huge difference here in your attempt to line up that elbow from the start and get out of the middle of your body on your shooting.

Better prep – but the knock-knees are a concern.  Remind me to show you a perfect squatted position this week – a deep squat, a shooter’s squat – when you knock your knees, your feet, legs and overall shot loses its power.

Not in seated position leads to mistake 2 – one knock knee – then it feels like the guide hand jumps in to correct when you go halfway up and the mind detects a mistake.  (Plus elbow is out – that may also be contributing to your knee knocking as the leg may try to correct that elbow.)  You want to get your alignment right on the catch so the body doesn’t try to correct as you shoot.  Sometimes it can correct – other times, it’s too confusing – you want to keep everything on the shot line on the right and not be moving to try to find that shot line right before you release.

Knock knees again (above).

Good – this is a big step in right direction – the only guilty party is the guide-hand thumb that is flicking the ball, which changes that top over bottom spin that you want.  The flick creates side spin, which will many times cause your ball to spill/spin out of basket.

The stiffness again.  You want to keep your L on the right side – this feels/looks like the older clunky shot where you’re shooting on the way up.  Watch a good shooter who holds his L perfectly – watch him from his profile (like this) and you’ll see his arms never match like this until after he’s done releasing the ball – not during the release.  My shot videos show my L as do Coach Jordan’s.  I’ll send you a link.

This looks like a free throw – but what I like about it is the effort to do the prep work and get into that seat before the ball arrives and your body control.  Now you have to work on that connection between the wrist snapping back and letting the ball go exactly when you get to the height of your jump – you started to get this after about 10-15 minutes.

Here it is  – this is a beautiful, controlled shot.  I don’t know if it went in.  I would imagine it did.  Doesn’t matter. Form does.  Beautiful shot – much better than where you were a year ago.

High praise here, too.  Remember to keep those eyes locked on your target.  If you’re looking at a bulls eye, you do not allow your eyes to go searching for the bullet – you keep your eyes on the bulls eye.

This shot shows the effort that you and David made to match the photo I asked us all to focus on for the day.  Great body control – and you’re getting it.  Nice job.  Make the time to get in your reps.  Go out and shoot in the pouring rain (be careful though – it gets slippery).  If I see a kid putting himself through a workout solo, it says a major message to me.  You want to impress people walking their dogs, J.  They’re going to look at you and respect your discipline.  Then when the big moment comes in the big game, if you’ve done your time, you’ll own the place.