Basketball shooting has a general progression for players starting at a young age and increasing in difficulty as the kids get older. At first, when kids are young like 1st and 2nd grade, there motor skills and strength may not be very good. So, shooting is a very stationary drill. As the kids get older and get stronger, the ability to shoot from farther away becomes the norm. Finally the ability to dribble into a shot needs to be learned and developed to make the player a good offensive threat. This easy drill transitions players from a stationary shooting drill into a pullup jumpshot drill.
For this drill, the players will start in lines on the wings on both sides of the court. The front player will have a ball. Now I teach and have my offense designed to attack the defense through the elbow and through the baseline. All of my offenses have the dribble drives going through the elbow or baseline. Due to my offensive teaching this drill has the players dribbling into the elbow or the baseline. If your offense is designed differently, then you can change the spot on the floor where the players dribble into.
The front player with the ball dribbles to the elbow, plants their feet off the drive, and shoots a shot. The player then gets their rebound and goes to the other line passing the ball to the next person in line and going to the end of the line. Both lines do this so the drill should continue for as long as you want this drill to take place.
The player should dribble to the spot whether it is the elbow or baseline. The player is then going to set their feet to shoot. In setting their feet, the foot closer to the basket should come down first. The foot farther away from the basket should then step to be in a proper basketball shooting form. Once their feet are set, the player can then jump and shoot.
If the player starts on the right side of the floor and dribbles to the elbow, then the dribble should be left handed and the right foot should be planted first followed by the left foot. If a player starts on the right side and dribbles to the baseline, then the dribble should be right handed and the left foot is first followed by the right foot. If the player is on the left side of the floor and dribbles to the elbow, then the dribble is right handed and the left foot is first followed by the right foot. If the player is on the left side and dribbles to the baseline, then the dribble should be left handed and the right foot should be planted first followed by the left foot.
Once the players get comfortable with a straight jumpshot, then you can introduce a change of direction dribble before taking a shot. This slight change helps to improve dribbling, body control, and shooting. The player will dribble into the elbow or baseline like before but now instead of shooting they will do a crossover or between the legs or behind the back or spin dribble before taking the shot. So the shot will not take place at the elbow but with the change of direction dribble added the player should be mid-post on the lane line.
By adding the change of direction dribble, this drill can now be used from 3rd grade all the way through high school. At the high school level, I want my players shooting a layup off the change of direction dribble. In order to shoot a layup off the dribble, the players must really explode out of the move. If the step off the change of direction is not long and explosive, then the player will not get to the rim. This causes the players to learn to attack and be aggressive off of a change of direction move. After a few layups, then I will make them stop at 5-8 feet and shoot that shot as well.
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