The Biggest Mistakes When Shooting a Basketball

Arthur Jackson: Hi! I am Arthur Jackson from One on One Basketball. Now, we are going to talk about two of the biggest mistakes people make when shooting the basketball. Very important to know these mistakes and see them and correct them early because if you don't it develops bad habits that last a lifetime and it makes it very difficult to be a good shooter. The first mistake is that too many people bring the ball through their opposite hand. You will especially see this with the young kids; they think that they need two hands to get power, but rather than bringing the opposite hand to the ball, so that I can keep everything straight with my shooting form, they bring the ball to the opposite hand. Now, as they come up, they rely too much on this opposite hand; you will see kids they will shoot across their body with their follow-through. They also lose control of the ball as they come up and we have talked shooter's touch, this is a lot of times where you will see kids that don't have very good shooter's touch.

So, we want to make sure, very important, we want to make sure that we keep our shooting hand in a straight line. We have talked about the right angles; if I bring the ball to my hand, I bring the opposite hand to the ball. I tuck my elbow in; I will make sure my elbow is tucked in to my side, so that I can drive it up and under; I release my opposite hand and I go up and follow-through into my shot. That's the number one biggest mistake, is bringing the ball to the other hand. You'll see a lot of kids, lot of shooters, they'll bring the ball here and as they come up they're relying too much on the opposite hand. We want to make sure we have a one handed release.

The second biggest mistake is kids a lot of times pull the ball back; they break this angle and then the shot becomes more of a push than an actual release. So, we want to drive the ball under it. We want to lock this angle; this 90 degree angle, so that we are not throwing the ball. We want to make sure that our wrist doesn't bend; our elbow is at 90 degrees, so that's not a forward motion. If we start to do that the ball becomes very flat and the flatter the shot, the more chance of it not going in. We want to drive the ball up and have it drop down through the net. So, making sure to do that, we don't want to pull ball back, close to our body. We keep our angles locked when we drive it; again, under, release the other hand, up and follow-through into the basket. Making sure that we have our angles set, we keep our opposite hand just on the ball lightly without pulling the ball back; we drive it up, making sure we get our elbow under it, drive it up, release the other hand and then follow-through, putting our hand in the basket. Those were two of the biggest mistakes you make and we want to make sure parents that you see your kids try to correct it early and next we are going to talk about free throw shooting.