Shooting is a self-learned art, and requires discovery through play not tied to makes and misses. One way of shooting might work terrifically for someone whose feet are relaxed on a particular day but will need to be tweaked to adjust to the different contact one’s feet are making the next after a hard run the previous day.

The problem with players today is not that they do not practice enough or do not get enough coaching, it is that they are told how to do things and try to do them one way because that is what the experts tell them.

You take young kids who are genuises in their bodies so that, in addition to extraordinary athletic gifts, they perform in ways that get them to stand out. No one “taught” them how to carry themselves, how to move their pelvis and ribs and shoulders and carry their heads so they are so, so in sync that throwing a baseball, hitting a baseball, catching a ball, throwing or shooting it has a special quality to it.

In a different age, that intelligence was given freedom and time to develop without outside intervention. People did not just become better they became smarter at figuring things out. Now, kids don’t get to learn by playing on their own, experimenting in the world of what is possible and what feels good and what looks worth replicating. Rather, from the time that they are tots, EXPERTS are telling them not only what to do and when, but how and what they need to change. EXPERTS WHO DON’T KNOW JACK ABOUT HOW PEOPLE LEARN AND HAVE NEVER BEEN TRAINED IN IT.

Blaming players for the faults of the experts presupposes that learning movement can be taught the way someone is taught to add 2 plus 2. It ain’t.

Now, certain fundamental information can facilitate learning, but the key to being a good foul shooter does not lie in technique nor in blind repetition. It lies in adapability and understanding different modes of how to use your body to accomplish the task at hand given how your body presents in that moment.

Stand on a busy street and watch people walk. Some make you chringe and you ain’t even in their bodies. We learn to do some things poorly for any number of reasons. For someone like Smooth, who is so obviously gifted in having learned to do some incredible things with his body, I have to believe that there are some very fundamental things that he has upside down concepts about when it comes to shooting that get in his way, as opposed to supporting his shot.

As I posted on a recent Sekou thread, Smooth could do worse than practice shooting really little shots righty, using what he understands are core credentials and be committed to producing shots that float with a high arch and lots of backspin, then lesser arch and less backspin. From 3 feet, 5 feet, trying to soften and change how he holds his torso (the tension in various parts of it), his release point, etc. Do that for a while, then shoot some shots from the same distance lefty. Then to different spots righty. Only as long as it is fun. Then come back to it. Then on one foot, then another, noticing how he has to change. He’ll figure it out, as long as the experts stay the heck away.

Yes, I am an expert in this stuff, both in shooting and in how people learn. The shooting was self taught, the how-people learn stuff has come through having completed more than half a 4 year course of study in a highly credible body of work about such matters put together over a 40 year period by an Israeli whose name was Moshe Feldenkrais.

As far as comparing today’s players to yesteryear’s, you cant. Today is more of a wrestling match. They respected the foul in the old days. They mug each other now. It’s unwatchable. I like women’s basketball because they respect the rules. You may not touch the player with the ball at all. Don’t touch him/her. Don’t do it. It’s against the rules. See, there was a movie called “no country for old men” where the theme was that once kids stop saying “sir”, then the whole society goes down hill. I disagree. I think it’s more accurate to say that once basketball players start cheating, then the fans don’t care, and then society goes to pot.

Respect the foul. All I’m sayin’.

Excellent thought provoking column, this is astute insight! I have always found it hard to believe that someone who plays basketball for a living, full time, can’t hit at least 70% from the “Charity Stripe.” I sat the bench in high school, but still can shoot 65-70%, so the best athletes we can muster should be able to do better.

It would be interesting to see how many games each of these teams would have won if they could have averaged 72%?