My daughter is 10 yrs old, finishing up 4th grade in the next month. Her outside shot is extremely accurate. She shot a nice FT% and she even drained a three this season along with several other outside shots.

The rotation on her shot is good, her follow through is decent but could use some work. I'm most concerned with her ball placement as she takes the shot though. She has her right hand (dominant hand) slightly behind the ball and her left hand on the side. She brings the ball directly in front of her body and sometimes it looks like it's coming up through her chin as she takes the shot. It's also easy to let your eyes think she's shooting with both hands on the outside of the ball, but with the way she get's good rotation on her shots, I'm thinking her right hand is just slightly behind the ball.

This form is fine if she's open, but with a defender on her it's extremely difficult to get a shot up because she's placing the ball directly in front of her. My first thought is that it's just a youth/strength thing and has she gets older and stronger she'll have better form. I try to work with her every now and then on getting the ball out of the middle of her body and more to her strongside a little, but she really doesn't like the feel of it.

Another thought is that she seems to have a natural touch for putting the ball in the basket and sometimes you don't want to mess with that too much. I don't recall ever receiving much coaching on my shooting form but I've been a top shooter wherever I played since 8th grade. To me, I think shooting is more of a hand-eye coordination thing and some people naturally have that. The biggest issue then becomes follow through and rotation.

Would you continue trying to correct the form? Does it sound like bad form? Or should I see how she naturally progresses with age? I don't want her to form muscle memory in a bad shooting form and have to work harder to correct it later on.

She is young right now... some 10 year olds can hit outside shots but its difficult and typically it messes with their form. JMO

I think this is a strength issue and IF you keep her away from the 3 ball, it might be better for her. When she shoots 10 footers is her form good? FTs??


Like you said, when she gets older and stronger it should get better.

I have an X player with a 10 year old son, he is automatic.... form is NOT good at this point. He starts out with his elbow WAY out but as he goes into his shot, he brings his elbow in...... nice form and results from that point on.
By the way, he can nail the 3 ball with ease... but he practices for hours and his dad was a great shooter when he played varsity ball for me starting as a sophomore. He was maybe 5'2

Its hard for us to try and give you suggestions without seeing the shot.

When I tweak her form it usually takes her 5-10 shots to get comfortable with it, then she's hitting shots and her misses are still right on the hoop. It seems like she has a natural ability to shoot it. Like I said, her follow through and the rotation on the ball are pretty good. I'm just concerned with the technique she's using to get there.

I definitely try to keep her away from the 3 ball. I only gave her and another girl the green light a few times this season. The first time was at halftime of a blowout win. Later she happened to be dribbling up the court in front of our bench and I told her to pull up and take one. Splash! It was pretty exciting. But she only shot three of them all season and as a team I think we shot 6 total.

If I get some film, where can I show it to you guys and still keep it private? Email or something?

Talk to Jeff or Joe and we should be able to work something out for the video.

You could probably work on the form issure a lot here... having her take 100a od shots, but my best guess would be (at her age) that she would go back to her original form?? It takes a long time to develop muscle memory.

I agree with Coach Sar, hard to give a good opinion without seeing the shot. You can use youtube, set the video as private, and share the link with us. Another option is to use CoachesEye and I think they have sharing ability.

Here's a tip for using it here:
http://jeffhaefner.com/coach/sweet-basketball-coaching-app-one-of-my-favorites-to-improve-shooting/

When I have players that I think might be using two hands or thumbing the ball I use CoachesEye in 60 FPS to determine if it's really happening or not. Sometimes it's so fast you can't tell unless you watch on slo motion.

In regarding to putting the ball in front... doesn't Stephen Curry do that? Seems to work out ok for him. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding and need to see video.