Remember one of the first emails that I sent to you, where we talked about positive and negative power?
We discovered that energy at the target and straight up in the air helps players makes shots, and energy away from the target helps us miss.
That is basically how I analyze video of players shots. I watch how the energy flows. 75% of the things that I can see in shots can easily be recognized by any player or coach if they take the time to record good video. Most habits are very obvious and easy to understand.
Let’s talk about what good video looks like. And trust me, it is important. I get players on instagram that send me a lot of bad video. It is worthless. The player will be across the gym and tucked in the corner of the screen, about a quarter of an inch tall. You zoom in and they are 5 pixels. Or they are wearing black pants and a back hoodie and are shooting against a black background and you can’t tell where their arms end.
First, get the camera close to the player. Allow room for their followthrough but have their body fill the screen. You’ll want to see as much detail as possible so get in there.
Then hold the camera still as they shoot. Give plenty of lead in video (its called video pad in the broadcasting industry) and plenty of pad at the end of the shot as well. Don’t follow the ball. Stay fixed on the shooter so we can see what is happening with their body even after the ball leaves their hand.
Pay attention to the angles that you take the video from. I prefer these three angles. Directly under the rim, 90 degree angle on the shooting hand side, and behind the player (shaded a small step to their shooting hand side). These three angles are where I stand for 99% of players shots in workouts.
Lastly, take 5 or so reps of the same shot. Mistakes happen all the time when you shoot and the last thing we want is for a player to make a rare mistake on the one shot we record, and we assume that they make that mistake all the time.
Once you’ve recorded the video, we need to know what we are looking for. The possibilities are endless and I’m not going to get into all of them here, but I will tell you the concepts I look for.
I look for straight lines. Imaginary lines that are going up in the air or at the target. I draw lines between ankles and knees, or along the spine, or from chin up through the nose. I want to see those lines straight up in the air.
I’ll draw a line from the shooting hand just before release up through the middle of the ball. Hopefully that one is straight too.
I’ll watch the guide hand and I’ll watch their feet. Nothing I do is earth-shattering. After all, identifying a flaw is the easy part. The hard part is doing the work.
