How Shooting 10% From The Free Throw Line Won The Championship
by Sidney Goldstein
Copyright © 2008 by Golden Aura Publishing
Many years ago I coached a team of freshman girls, many of whom (most of the team) had difficulty hitting the rim on their free throws. So, for a drill involving a free throw, the foul line transition drill, I had to move the players closer to the basket, just to run the drill. This is no problem. Players need to develop technique, besides aim, in order to improve free throw shooting.
A player with poor technique who practices from the free throw line will only get worse because technique will only get worse. Technique needs to be developed close to basket because less movement is needed. I can think of two NBA stars (initials wc and so) and their coaches who apparently did (& do) not understand this.
So, how do players with poor technique practice free throws? Well, they can't practice from the free throw line because they will only get worse. They must practice from anywhere from 3-6 feet, a distance where their technique holds up. But you say they gotta shoot from the free throw line in the game! You gotta get them practicing from the free throw line! If you do, if you force them, they will only shoot worse, believe it or not, not better. Remember that shooting improvement goes along with technique improvement.
And you can readily determine the distance at which shooting technique breaks down. Let a player start at the basket and move back one step after each shot. When you notice a change in the way he/she shoots, this is a change or breakdown in technique. A player's technique should not change with distance from the basket.
With this in mind I kept my players shooting as close to the basket as possible for as long as I could stand it. It's not easy to forbid players to shoot from more that 3-6 feet. Anyway, a little more than half-way through the season we had a close game with a very good team and lost by 2 points. This would not be so bad, but we missed 17 out of 19 free throws. And I wanted to change my policy then and there, but I knew what the outcome would be. So, we continued to work on technique along with other basics for the rest of the season.
Our last scheduled game was against the best team in the league. They were undefeated and this included a win over the team that beat us by two points. I should point out that the 2 point loss was our only loss of the season.
In this last game we shot about 50% from the free throw line and hit the rim on each miss. So working on technique, staying short worked. We also doubled the score of our opponent. In a sense, by keeping my kids shooting close, by allowing them to develop technique, by constantly working on all other fundamentals we won the hypothetical championship, since there were no playoffs for freshman.
Your comments are welcome.
Sidney Goldstein, author of
The Basketball Coach's Bible and The Basketball Player's Bible,
has successfully coached both men's and women's teams over a
period of 15 years.
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