THOUGHTS ON SHOOTING FROM TROY DANIELS

Here are a few of the Q & A's from Troy Daniels of the Phoenix Suns on the art of shooting.  You can read the entire article by Scott Bordow here.

Q: How many hours does it take to perfect the shooting form?

A: Wow. It’s tough to say. As a kid, you have a ton of energy. I was always trying to be around basketball. I have no clue, but if I had to say, at least five to six hours a day, just playing around, shooting.

Q: There are certain things good golfers have to do with their swings. Are their certain things good shooters have to do with their stroke?

A: I’m a firm believer that I don’t really think it matters what shot you shoot. If you shoot your shot, if you work on it every single day, literally get up 1,000 to 1,500 shots a day, you’ll master that shot. I really think that, honestly. I don’t think there’s a certain way to make a lot of shots. (Stephen) Curry shoots a different shot, Klay (Thompson) shoots a different shot, J.J. Reddick, they all shoot different shots and come from different places. Their stance and their balance, everything is different. So I think if you just master what you do, I think the sky is the limit.

Q: Do you study other shooters?

A: I don’t study shooting but I do study how shooters play. I’ve watched a lot of film on J.J. Reddick, how he moves without the ball. I watched a lot of film on Kyle Korver. Everybody watches Steph, but you can’t be like Steph because he’s different. I think as a shooter, 75 to 80 percent of it is confidence. It’s all mind, all mind.

GREAT TEACHING CONCEPTS FROM KEVIN EASTMAN

You can’t be tired and you can’t be bored. It’s not easy getting better. It takes work and discipline. We have a choice of pain of discipline or pain of regret.

Workout discipline:
•Maximum intensity on every repetition.

•Machine like mechanics

•Focus on every repetition - we’re going to take one shot 500 times.

Philosophy:

•Becoming a good shooter is lots of reps.

•Becoming a great shooter is lots of reps at game speed from game spots at a game angle.

Theory of two:
•It takes two minutes to show any skill.

•It takes two weeks doing it every single day to get comfortable with the skill.

•It takes two months working on a skill everyday to get good enough to execute in a game.

Shooting form:
•Be ready on the catch.

•Ten toes to the rim (if you have ten toes to the rim you will be square to the basket).

•Only change his form if the shot doesn’t go in. Make him the best worst form shooter.

•Two second rule: As soon as it’s 1 cm into our players fingers I’m counting one two. Players don’t have a great understanding of game speed when working out.

•The better the shooter you are, the better your shot fake needs to be. Definition of a shot fake is a real shot that you don’t shoot.

Free-throws:

•Shoot free-throws until you miss, and count how many in a row.

•Players tend to fall forward rather than backward.

Give your players statistical feedback:

•When you chart your players’ shots give them percentages for free-throws, lay-ups, jump shots and three-point shots.

•Break it down so they know what to work on.

•Players can be receptive to stats.

Make time to practice shooting:
•You will be surprised how little your guys shoot during practice when you exclude shooting drills.

•We recorded how many shots our players took in a 2.5 hour practice:

•Paul Pierce – 16.

•Ricky Davis – 13.

•Al Jefferson – 7.

•During an hour pickup we shoot on average 12.8 shots per player.

•Average number of shots taken in a game is 16 per player.

My goal right now is to get everything you can teach in the game down to three bullet points. It makes it easier for players to take in:

For shooting:

•Perfect feet.

•Ready for catch.

•Perfect follow through.

Coaches must maintain their intensity everyday:

•A coach can never get bored.

•The intensity that a coach brings to the floor helps the player have a more intense workout.

•Coaches have body language too. Be careful of your body language, and how it could be interpreted by your players.

Three things skill development can do for you:
•It can create a career.

•It can improve a career.

•It can revitalize a career.

J.J. REDICK'S OFF-SEASON SHOOTING PROGRAM

There's a great article J.J. Redick via CoachingClipboard.org.  It’s well worth reading in its entirety here.

The piece talks about Redick’s off-season shooting program:

◄Full speed perimeter shuttles into 140 spot up two-pointers

◄Full speed perimeter shuttles into 140 spot up three-pointers

       •Must make 20 shots at seven difference spots

◄42 pull-up jumpers off the dribble

       •21 to the right...21 to the left

◄20 free throws

Coaching Clipboard points out that Redick can be a perfectionist.

“It’s more OCD. I’m pretty obsessive about things,” Redick said. He expects himself to shoot 80 to 90 percent in the Sunday drill, no excuses. “I don’t take a shot unless I expect to make it. I expect to make every shot I take.”

It was also pointed out that once Redick starts these workouts in July, he goes six days a week and does not travel -- that commitment.

STEPH CURRY'S APPROACH TO WORKING ON HIS SHOT

The great ones are intentional and deliberate in the approach to work and improvement.  Listening to Mike Dunlap at a coaching clinic a month ago he talked about a big key in Steph Curry's success is hit ability to create space -- before and after the catch -- to get his shot off.  This is not an accident.

There was an outstanding article on SI.com’s written by  Rob Mahoney. It a lengthy, well-written article and should be printed and passed out to your players -- you can read it in its entirety here.

For now, here are a few take aways starting with the price paid on the college level under the tutelage of his college coach:

Stephen Curry saw the white flag wave. It danced before him in a taunt as he went bullied and beaten, made to second-guess himself as he never had before. The wispy guard was put through the wringer in one-on-one workouts against bigger, stronger, more experienced players lined up one after another by Davidson coach Bob McKillop. This was Curry’s first day and McKillop intended to test the freshman’s mettle.

“I was tired and kind of frustrated and he came out and waved this white towel in my face,” Curry said. “He kept saying, over and over again: 'You wanna surrender, don't you? You wanna surrender? Go ahead, surrender.’”

Curry played on but never triumphed. Instead, he endured just as McKillop hoped he might—standing up, again and again, to be humbled.

Mahoney also writes of Curry’s growth from the standpoint of understanding shot selection:

“The biggest thing for me was the coaching aspect of understanding the balance between taking chances or making the simple play,” Curry said. “When to force the issue and when not to and understanding that dynamic of what happens on the court. I can go out and not be afraid to make mistakes, to turn the ball over every once in awhile if you're trying to make a pass through a tight window or something like that. But over the course of the game, you've got to make smart decisions and then use whatever footwork, whatever coordination to get the ball from point A to point B.”

The key? Curry’s relentless work ethic.  We talk about game shots at game spots at game speed — Curry takes it to another level.  Writes Mahoney:

"We do a warm-up drill every day that we practice where we literally work on just pivoting, stepping through, and pick-and-roll footwork. Just break it down, step by step. Those things happen so many times in a game that you might take it for granted—just the coordination it takes to be explosive in certain situations on the floor.

So we work on that in practice. Outside of that, I just kind of work on footwork in moves that I normally will make in a game, whether it's dribble moves into shots or the footwork coming off a screen, things like that. You drill that while you're getting shots up so that you'll obviously be efficient and make your workouts tough. But staying on top of that simple fundamental makes you a little bit faster, a little bit more creative, a little bit more efficient on the floor."

“With the stuff he does, he challenges himself to get less rhythm and use harder cuts and more speed,” said Warriors assistant Bruce Fraser. “He's always constantly pushing himself to make shots challenging so that when he gets in the game he's done that a lot.” 

Mahoney also points out that not only Curry coachable, but he wants to be coached and coached hard:

“I respond best when a coach is able to get on me where he's raising his voice, yelling and whatever, because he expects greatness from me—especially when I'm not performing the way I'm supposed to,” Curry said. “I like to have, obviously, a mutual respect, and a guy who can be as consistent as possible with his message. But if I need to be yelled at and refocused, I'm open to that and I usually respond well.”

RICK TORBETT: BUILDING A GREAT SHOOTING PROGRAM

Reviewing some old notes from a PGC/Glazier Clinic I attend.  Here are some gems from Rick Torbett, founder of www.BetterBasketball.com:

8 Secrets to Training:

Preparation

Repetition

Attitude

Concentration

Technique

Intensity

Conditioning

Expectations

Can't create time...have to give things up.

If you want to be exceptional, you can't be normal.

Don't shoot to get in shape -- get in shape to shoot.

Ready -- get hands right

Set -- knee bend

Fire -- breaking of wrists w/feet leaving the ground

Post -- follow through...both arms

"Catch the rim between your wrists."

Eliminate excessive motion to increase accuracy.

"Pivot square up the most important thing in shooting." -Steve Alford

Train your vision.

Mel Gibson in "Patriots" -- "Aim small, miss small"

Aim at center loop

Concentrate so hard you get a headache.

Concentrate on straight -- don't worry about long & short

Train to ignore closeouts and fly byes 

PRACTICE/TEACHING THOUGHTS FROM SHERRI COALE

Reading some of Don Meyer Coaching Academy notes from 2003 and wanted to share some thoughts from guest speaker Sherri Coale.

Coach Coale said that the #1 question she was asked was did she transition from high school coaching to college coaching:

"There is no secret.  Do the best job that you do no matter where you are.  Be in the right place at the right time.  Coach kids like they are pros.  Everything else will take care of itself.  If you do the right things consistently, people will find you."

Here is a list of things that Coach Coale was said in starting a program:

   Practice planning is most important.

   Teaching is the most important part of developing your team.  How do you go about   
   teaching your kids every day?

   Taking notes is the single most important thing that you can do.

   Keep every kid engaged at all times.

   Every drill that you do must have a purpose.

   Spend twice as long preparing as you do teaching.

   Practices should be designed to be tougher than games.

   Use competition drills as much as you can.  There should be a winner and a loser.

   Use echo yells when practicing.

Five things that Coach Coale said they do everyday in practice:

   Fundamentals (Passing, Shooting, Catching, Dribbling)

   Defensive Transition

   Offensive Spacing and Timing

   4/4 and 5/5

   Rebounding

DETROIT PISTONS PRACTICE NOTES (PART II)

One of the great things about social media is not only the information that becomes available but new relationships developed.  One of those for me is with Coach Steve Finamore (a great follow on twitter) who has an amazing passion for the game -- he, like all good coaches, is a continual learner.  Steve recently visited the Detroit Pistons for a practice session and Steve was great enough to share those notes and we want to pass them on as well.  This is part of II of Coach Finamore's notes:

Detroit Pistons

Practice #1

Tuesday September 29, 2015

10:00 A.M. – 12:30 P.M.

“Be active off the ball. You can’t relax.” –SVG

- SVG with lots of emphasizes on the importance of having hands up on defense.

- Lots of work on technique.

“You got to want to get a stop!” –SVG

- Ersan Ilyasova draws two charges in scrimmage.  Knocks down jump shots and plays hard.

- Assistant coach Brendan Malone stopped the action and shouted, “When you catch the ball, look at the rim.”

- SVG then said, “Catch the ball, look at the rim and look in the post.”

- Pistons coaching Andre Drummond up to run the floor hard and get to the rim.

Detroit Pistons Offensive Musts:

1-Take care of the ball

2-Push the pace

3-Attack from inside-out

4-Play unselfishly

5-Make quick decisions

6-Take good shots

- The “3” man takes it out on made free throws.

- Tons of teaching during scrimmage.

“Don’t be in such a hurry. Mistakes being made are because you go too fast.” -SVG

“Run hard, but don’t be in such a hurry.”

-SVG

“Game tempo.” –SVG

- A joy to watch seven year vet Cartier Martin teaching and helping rookie Eric Griffin a few things on the defensive end of the floor.

- D-League coaches of the Grand Rapids Drive, Otis Smith and Dion Glover involved in practice learning Pistons philosophy.

Pistons Support Staff 

Doug Ash, Tom Barasi, Robert Werdan, Al Walker, Jeff Nix, Art Luptowski.

- Pistons shooting coach Dave Hopla on sidelines throughout practice taking notes in a composition notebook.  He stands by Andre Drummond during free throws.

- Interesting observation at end of practice.  Three teams during scrimmage. Blue team wins, two other teams had to run sprints for losing.  Marcus Morris, Reggie Jackson and Stanley Johnson, all on the winning team decide to run with the losers. (Extra work).

- SVG admitted to the team that they were putting a lot of stuff in:

“I know that was a lot…”

 

A GOLF PRO HELPS LEBRON WITH HIS 3 POINT SHOOTING

The following comes from "How Champions Think" by Dr. Bob Rotella.  Rotella is a renowned sports psychologist that has garnered much of his reputation for working with golfers.  But the mind is the mind and the ability to help someone with the mental aspects of athletic skill has carry over as shown in Rotella's story of his time with LeBron James:

It may surprise some readers to learn that the suggestions I gave to LeBron involved a lot more of what most people would perceive as plain hard work than they involved what most people would consider sports psychology. I did tell him that I thought he could benefit from one of the standard methods of sports psychology, visualization. I wanted him to see himself making three-point shots. I suggested that he ask the Cavaliers’ staff to make a highlight video for him, about eight to twelve minutes long. This video would be a LeBron James long-range shooting montage. It would have LeBron making threes off the dribble. It would show LeBron catching the ball and making threes spotting up. It could have some of LeBron’s favorite music in the background, helping him to attach the good feelings associated with that music to the act of shooting threes. He would watch it every night. As he fell asleep, he could conjure up images of himself making three-point shots against tall, quick, tenacious defenders. He could let them fill his dreams. All of this would help him improve his three-point shooting, because it would feed the right sorts of images to his subconscious, helping him become a more trusting, confident shooter. But if improvement were as easy as watching videos, the NBA would have a lot more great three-point shooters. It isn’t. The mental game is a big part of sport, but it must be combined with physical competence. So I suggested that LeBron hire a shooting coach and work with that coach every day. I told him he needed to make maybe two hundred three-point shots off the dribble every day, imagining the best defender in the league guarding him. I told him he needed to make another two hundred catch-and-shoot three-pointers. I told him I didn’t care how many shots it took to make those four hundred three-pointers, or how long it took. If he wanted to be great, he would find the time and find the energy. The actual number of shots I suggested was not as important, in my mind, as the idea that LeBron would set a practice goal for himself, commit to achieving it every day, and wait patiently for results. I told him patience was essential because I had no way of predicting how long it would take to see improvement in his shooting statistics if he took my suggestions. But the patience and tenacity required were factors that could help him separate himself from his peers. A lot of athletes might undertake an improvement regimen like that one I suggested to LeBron. But not many would stick with it. After a few weeks, if they weren’t seeing immediate results, they’d find a reason to quit. Maybe they’d decide the extra practice was wearing them down. Maybe they’d decide that they just didn’t have the talent to be a great outside shooter. They’d find a way to talk themselves out of it. To encourage LeBron to persevere, I told him about my belief that great basketball shooters, like great golfers and great baseball hitters, are for the most part made rather than born.

With LeBron, I also talked a lot about Bill Russell and Michael Jordan. Unlike golf, basketball is a team game. An essential part of being a great player is, in my mind, playing and conducting yourself in ways that make your teammates better. That, far more than scoring average, is the hallmark of a truly great player. Jordan and Russell were the players LeBron was Chasing, because in addition to being great individually, they were players whose teams won many championships. They were great leaders. I suggested that LeBron read about Russell and Jordan and talk to them about leadership whenever he had the chance. I was very impressed with LeBron James. He was attentive. He asked insightful questions. It was clear that he was disciplined and that he set very high standards for himself. He was more than just a superstar. He was a very coachable athlete on a mission to see how great he could become.

I have noticed a few things since I spoke with LeBron. One is that his three-point shooting has improved dramatically. It’s now roughly 40 percent. A one-third improvement over his rookie year.

9 BLOG POSTS TO IMPROVE YOUR OFF-SEASON

Here is a series of blogs that we posted in the past to help coaches maximize the off-season:

John Maxwell on Making the Most of Your Off-Season
Everyone that follows our blog knows how much we admire and respect John Maxwell.  Here are five areas he says for us to work on between seasons.

Rick Majerus Concepts of Summer Pick Up Games
A great set of guidelines for Coach Majerus who was obviously dedicating his team's off-season to pressuring the ball and the passing lanes.  The key question is what guidelines have you gave your team to help develop in the areas that important to you.

Individual Ball Handling Drills from Coach Don Meyer
No better teacher in the game than Coach Meyer.  Here is one of our blog posts that includes a video of some of Coach Meyer's players executing some of his dribbling maneuvers.

The Advantages of Individual Workouts
Here is a short post with some great concepts from another great teacher -- Bill Walsh.

Morgan Wooten: Post Season Evaluations
The ability to take a reflective look back on the season and be able to decide what needs to be adjusted is a key to growth. Here is a good checklist from one of the greats in our business.

Muffet McGraw on Players Expanding their Roles in the Off-Season
Several excellent excerpts from a book written by Coach McGraw on how she motivates players through the off-season with the goal of expanding their roles through work and development.

Aggie Summer Pick Up Guidelines
Here is our list of summer pick up guidelines that we go over and give to our team.

Off-Season Shooting Program
This post has some good guidelines for how to operate a summer shooting program as well as a good video of a shooting drill by J.J. Reddick .

Creative Strength & Conditioning
Good stuff here from the Florida men's basketball program.  Strength and conditioning in the summer is difficult -- it has to be for gains.  But it can be made enjoyable for competitive athletes.  There's a video attached of some of the stuff done at Florida.

HOW THE GOOD GET BETTER: WORK

The follow came from a report on Comcast that speak of the type of commitment needed to excel:

Following the Warriors' 102-93 win over the Bucks on Wednesday night, Klay Thompson wasn't ready to go home.

The 2015 All-Star returned to the Oracle Arena floor well after the final horn to work on his jump shot.

Thompson scored 17 points against Milwaukee on 5-for-16 shooting (3-for-8 3's).

The game prior, the 25-year old shooting guard suffered one of his worst shooting nights of the year -- 3-for-17, including 1-for-9 from the 3-point line in Brooklyn.

The night before that, he went 9-23 from the floor (2-10 3's) against Boston.

Despite his recent struggles, Thompson is shooting 43 percent from the deep on the season, good for fourth in the NBA.

His 178 treys trail only Stephen Curry's 193.

THE ART OF SHOOTING VIA KYLE KORVER

Earlier I spoke of a great email newsletter resource I receive from Nova Southeastern assistant Brooklyn Kohlheim.  Here is an example of something that I got from her that we will share with our team.  It a great article on Kyle Korver written by Jeff Zillgitt for USA Today.  It's an outstanding article (Coach Kohlheim told us in her newsletter "If you don't read any other article here, you MUST read this.")  You can read the entire article here but here are a few excerpts we took from it:

Where does a basketball player find the perfect shot? In a gym? A high-tech sports science and medical lab? On a paddleboard on the ocean? In marriage? Mind? Body? In a system that accentuates three-point shooting?

For Atlanta Hawks guard Kyle Korver, the best three-pointer shooter in the NBA, it is all of those places and more.

He began searching for the perfect stroke.

"I started breaking down every single little detail of this simple stroke and tried to make it perfect. Get one perfect stroke and try to do it again. And just got lost in trying to perfect the stroke," he said. "I focused on one detail and after 100 strokes, that didn't feel like a detail anymore. That felt natural.

"There was a smaller detail after that. I found a new detail and then a new detail and then a new detail. Eventually I was stroking, and eventually I wasn't that tired.

"That exercise of finding that stroke was revolutionary to me in shooting. You take the same concept of the stroke and do it with your shot."

He set a record last season for most consecutive games with a made three-pointer at 127 and is flourishing with the Hawks, a key reason why the Eastern Conference leaders were running on a 19-game winning streak and stand at 40-8 entering Monday's game against New Orleans.

San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich called Korver the best shooter in the league. He leads the league in three-point shooting percentage (53.7%) and is on pace to become the first player in NBA history to shoot at least 50% from the field, 50% on three-pointers and 90% on free throws.

Korver loves shooting, and he loves talking shooting.

"To be a great shooter, to be a consistent shooter, which is what constitutes a great shooter — the goal is to make your shot exactly the same every single time," he said.

He has made three-pointers seem easier than they are. "If you shoot it with all the leverage you have in your mechanics — using your legs and your technique — there's a way to make a three-point shot feel like it's not as far," he said.

This season is as close as Korver has felt to taking the same shot every time. "This is the best I've ever shot, for sure," he said. "There's a lot of reasons for it. As you get older, you should just become a better shooter. You've shot more shots."

Korver has a 20-point checklist that helps him determine how sound his shot is. "It's things I've identified that are keys to my shot," Korver said.

1. Wide stance.
2. Exaggerated legs.
3. Drop through heels.
4. Engage core.
5. Slight bend at waist.
6. Up strong.
7. Elbow straight.
8. One hand.
9. Fingers spread.
10. Slight pause.
11. Elbow up.
12. Land forward.
13. See the top of the rim.
14. Ball on fingertips.
15. Strong shot.
16. Shoulders forward and relaxed.
17. Ball and arm risen straight.
18. Hold the follow through.
19. Keep the release point high.
20. On turns, square shoulders.

"I'm not going to check every single one of them every time," Korver said. "There's a certain point, a certain feel I'm trying to get to every day. Some things, you do more naturally. Some things, I have to think about them. As I'm shooting, I have this list in the back of my head, and I know I'm not doing one or two of them. Once I feel I get all 20 of them clicking, then I'm going to have natural rhythm in my shot."

A lifetime of basketball and the pursuit of the perfect shot have made Korver one of the most accurate three-point shooters in NBA history. He's No. 6 on the all-time three-point shooting percentage list, and it's easy to imagine Korver shooting 1,000 shots a day. Not the case.
"I don't ever shoot a ton of shots at once because I want to shoot them game-like," Korver said. "You can't shoot 500 shots at the exact speed and exact intensity that you're going to in a game.

"Very rarely will I shoot more than 150 shots at once."

He has four opportunities to feel good about his shot on gameday: during the morning shoot-around, after the morning shoot-around, during his pregame routine and during warmups just before tip-off.

"That helps me more than shooting a ton of shots at once and trying to find this rhythm that everyone talks about," Korver said. "I want to seek perfection. Four times during that day, that's what I'm trying to do."

His high-energy pregame routine is worth watching and if you have a ticket to a Hawks game — home or away — you can watch it. He begins his routine about 50 minutes before game time with player development coaches passing, defending and setting screens.
Korver takes shots from several spots on the court, including several spots around the three-point arc. The routine is tailored to the Hawks' offense, and Korver has to make a certain number of shots before he can move to the next spot.

Most players won't leave the floor on a miss. Korver isn't most guys.

He can't leave the court without making 10 consecutive free throws and three consecutive three-pointers from the top of the arc. One miss and he starts over.

"Ten in a row, three in a row," Korver said. "I've done that for a while. If I make all of my shots, I can have it done in less than 10 minutes — eight or nine minutes if I miss two, three, four shots."

HOOPTHOUGHT NOTE: This is only a SMALL portion of this article -- well worth reading in it's entirety here.
 

GREAT SHOOTING DRILLS FOR THE GUN

I think we are all always looking for creative ways to work on our shooting in the off-season.  We are fortunate at Texas A&M to have The Gun 8000 from Shoot-A-Way.  If you go to their website, they have 20 of the games best teachers going through a series of their best shooting drills utilizing The Gun.

Here are a few of my favorites (click on each coaches' name to view the youtube clip):

Steve Alford with a 3-player shooting drill which gets shots for a cutter off the down screen, the screener making the second cut, and the passer -- great motion shooting drill.

Brad Stevens with a drill that gets a player a shot off the down screen followed by another off the flare screen.

Pat Summit -- leave it to Coach Summit to tie in a defensive component with The Gun as she works on closeouts while shooting.

Tom Izzo -- shows a ball screen and pop drill for all those coaches utilizing the ball screen.

Steve Wojciechowski -- demonstrates a penetrate and pitch drill for all those dribble drive coaches.

Thad Matta -- showing his team shooting "Hubies."

Remember, there are a ton more of these at The Gun site!

FREE THROW SHOOTING MENTALITY

Players always ask me what they should think about at the free throw line, something to make them forget the pressure, block out the crowd and the noise and all the distractions. First of all, I can’t give you a made-up thought; it has to be something internal that means something to you. But ideally, I want you thinking about nothing. If you’re truly in the Zone, it’s just you and the ball and the hoop, as if you’re alone on the playground or the driveway or the practice floor. I’d rather have you tell yourself, “it’s just a couple of free throws, not the end of the world either way.” But if you have to go somewhere in your head, go somewhere positive, to your kids or something that’s all about pure relaxation and happiness.

From "Relentless" by Tim Grover

OFF-SEASON THOUGHTS -- DAY #7: SHOOTING PROGRAM

OFF-SEASON THOUGHTS -- DAY #7: During this 10-day period, we are going to load up our blog on thoughts that are relevant to developing or improving your off-season program.  We will delve on off-season topics from player development and drill work to motivation and team building.  It will be our sincere wish that over the next 10 days we can provide you with at least one item or thought that will help you and your program.

Below is J.J. Redick going through a series of shots he likes to work on when facing a closeout situation.  He has five that he works from in his shooting workout.  The question is, what shots are your players working on in the off-season.  Don't assume they know what they need to be shooting. 

Thoughts on developing an off-season program should include:

GAME SHOTS: Give your players the shots they need to hit for you as it relates to how you play offensively.  I was impressed that Redick had a routine for attacking closeouts. Have a plan of what is important to your offensive success and work your off-season program around that.

GAME SPEED: You players must know that game shots much be at game speed.  Be quick, but don't hurry.  Using a stop watch or clock can assist in creating a sense of urgency.

TECHNIQUE: Make sure you give them one simple teaching point for the drill that will help them with better execution.  They don't need a huge laundry list to follow -- because they won't.

MEASURE: A method of measuring makes is important.  The ability to chart improvement will help with their motivation.

FORM SHOOTING: While game shots at game speed are important, players should find time for basic form shooting to reinforce the fundamentals of their basic shot.

OFF-SEASON THOUGHTS -- DAY #1: RICK PITINO'S 3 PLAYER GUN SHOOTING DRILL

OFF-SEASON THOUGHTS -- DAY #1: During this 10-day period, we are going to load up our blog on thoughts that are relevant to developing or improving your off-season program.  We will delve on off-season topics from player development and drill work to motivation and team building.  It will be our sincere wish that over the next 10 days we can provide you with at least one item or thought that will help you and your program.

We always talk about the importance of utilizing your imagination in coaching.  Whether you are creating a drill or tweaking one to maximize the workout for your players, the off-season is a great time to take a look at your drill package -- especially ones that you would like for your players to utilize in the summer.

Below is a three-player shooting drill form Rick Pitino utilizing The Gun that has movement and passing involved -- "game like action."

HOOSIERS UTILIZE BLOCKING PADS TO WORK ON FINISHING

I remember a few decades ago listening to Bob Knight speak at a coaching clinic and he spoke of the importance of coaches having an imagination.  He said there was nothing more in the game he enjoyed than creating a drill to help his team develop.  It has certainly been one of the parts of the game that I have developed as well.  Which is why I enjoyed an article written by Pete DiPrimio of the Fort Wayne Sentinel who speaks of Indiana coach Tom Crean and his ideas for working on finishing shots against contact.  You can read the entire story here but here are some excerpts that I took away:

Tom Crean has so had it with Indiana's missed layups and 1-foot shots, he's broken out the practice pads and gone against his don't-foul nature.

Will it make a difference? The first test comes Sunday against Illinois.

The Hoosiers (12-7 overall, 2-4 in the Big Ten) lost to Northwestern and Michigan State in the last week, missing nearly 30 layups in the process. They went a combined 21-for-58 on layups and tip-ins.

Yes, that gets you beat. So Crean has ramped up the practice intensity, having players try to make layups while teammates hammer them with pads.

“We worked on all the different ways to make layups,” he said. “We're working against pads and contact. I'm not big about practicing fouling, but for a couple of minutes there was some of that, that they have to play through.”

Layups come easy against non-conference opponents, but that ended like a fist to the jaw once Big Ten play started. Defenses concede nothing, and despite the rules changes designed to create more free-flowing offense, contact remains significant.

“There's a lot of contact at the basket,” Crean said. “You have to keep your concentration high, your fundamentals high. You've got to use the backboard. And, for us, it's taking one more dribble.

“What you can't do is throw the ball at the backboard or the rim and hope it goes in. We had a couple of those moves at Michigan State. Our intention of getting to the basket was good. The fundamentals of making the next pass wasn't as good. We have to out-grow that. It's youth and inexperience.”

BOB KNIGHT: PRACTICE GUIDELINES

You need guidelines for an effective practice

Never let a player shoot on their own
◄Players need a coach, manager, or other player with them
◄No free shooting on their own

Have things in practice that are physically and mentally tough

◄Drills where players will bang/bruise each other
◄Drills that will challenge their mind (mental quickness)

Start practice with quick drills

◄Drills that require hand/eye quickness, and get their mind thinking right away

Don’t practice too long
◄You get to a “point of no return” with practice time
◄Start of season thru December = 2 hour, 15 min practice
◄January thru End of the season = Never go longer than 1 hour 15min
 
Player/Team Development
◄Drills that involve an individual skill – spend no more than 5 minutes
◄Drills that involve the team as a whole – spend no more than 10 minutes