Let me describe a story to illustrate what is possible. Its one of my favourite stories and it is 100% true.
I had a college player that I started working with at the beginning of his offseason, in April. This player was a good player, but was a 50% free throw shooter. Good player, weak shooter.
So we identified a micro-skill that was holding him back, and we started to work on it. The first workout we did nothing but form shoot from about 10 feet from the basket. This 6’7 20 year old who played on the Jr National Team stood there for 45min, shooting form shots, and airballed roughly half of the shots.
The next workout we did the same thing. Working on the same habits, and still he was airballing half of the shots from 10 feet away. But it was the micro-skill I believed he needed to work on, so I saw no choice but to keep working and get better at it. Over the next few weeks there was improvement, but still a fair number of airballs. We kept working patiently, only moving on to something slightly more challenging when he was getting good results. It took a long time and was much slower progress than I’d ever had before.
Flash forward to September of that year, about 6 months after we started working together. Their airballs were gone. His shot was improving. We still weren’t even tracking results at this point so that he had a chance to just focus on the process.
On one day I was finishing up a workout with him when my next workout entered the gym. I said to my guy, “Lets finish with 100 free throws. I’ll start with you, then I’ll go get my other workout started, and come back for the end of the 100”. After about 20 or so free throws I left him alone to go get the other player started with a warm up drill.
I came back about 10 minutes later and said “ok, where are we at?”
“96” he replied.
“Perfect” I said. “4 more free throws and you are done”.
“No, I mean I just made 96 out of 100.”
My jaw hit the floor. I wasn’t even aware that was possible for him, even after the first 20. I knew he was improving, but I wouldn’t have guessed 96% was on his radar yet.
Now I laugh when someone tells me that a player is incapable of improving. That they are too old, or too “bad”, or their habits are too strong. I laugh because I’ve seen a player stand stationary, 10 feet from the hoop, shooting form shots, and airmailing half of them. And I’ve seen that same player keep working until they were able to make 96% of the free throws. The biggest thing they did right? They didn’t give up.
