There are so many different methods of teaching shooting that it honestly makes my head spin.

Pro Shot with the feet turned, the dip, the pinch
Rick Torbett with his ready, set, fire and the shot pocket
Squaring Up
Who knows what else?

Have any coaches ever been successful using one method to instruct all of their players? I have 5th grade girls and I'm finding what works for one doesn't necessarily work for the next.

If you had to make a short bullet list of the biggest considerations when teaching shooting, what would they be? MIne might look like this:
- Balance (find your comfort zone as far as stance goes and make sure you have a level jump, no twisting or leaning)
- Hand placement and follow through (shooting hand behind the ball, snap the wrist and get the index finger down)

I don't know what else should be included in that list. I'm sure there are a few other items.

My approach this season might be:
- Form shooting with no ball
- Line shooting focusing on form
- Close range form shooting
- Gradually increase the distance once the form becomes consistent
- Live shooting drills (simulating game like atmosphere)

Thoughts? Comments? Would love to have a discussion on shooting and boiling it down to the essentials.

Yep, it seems all the shooting coaches are different!

Here are my biggest considerations, which I think almost all the shooting coaches happen to agree on:

- hold your follow through
- ball should roll of your finger the same way in a straight line
- make sure you have at least a little back spin
- shoot the same way every time
- get feet in a comfortable position, preferably a staggered stance, but not required. needs to be the same each time and usually around shoulder width. a little narrower or wider is fine.
- make sure arc is around 45 degrees or so (in other words, get the ball high enough)

That's it. I just start with holding your follow through, getting back spin, and shooting straight. Then build from there as needed.

Botton line is that if you can shoot straight, get enough arc, and do it the same way every time... none of that other technical crap really matters. There are 800 different ways to shoot the ball with accuracy.

When/if a player needs help with technique, I follow the one shooting shooting technique with my 3rd and 4th graders. I have seen everything and prefer that.
http://www.onemotionbasketball.com

Check these out

http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/fundamentals/shooting-technique.html#ixzz30Yl0Pcmg

Proper Basketball Shooting Technique, Fundamentals, Form, Mechanics

5 of the Biggest Basketball Shooting Mistakes (And How to Fix Them)

I taught George Lehman's technique after watching him at a couple of clinics and he missed ONE shot.

BEEF

Balance -- have good balance , similar to a boxing stance
Eye on the target -- Keep your eye on the target until the ball goes in the basket.
Elbow under the ball... or as close as you can, that helps to keep your shot straight
Follow through -- as you release your shot, hold the follow though, don't jerk your arm back.

This worked for us.. . I wont question all the other shooting coaches out there, they are teaching what they believe in.

Can I expand on this topic a bit?

I am currently coaching 2nd and 4th grade teams and I'm interested in what coaches use for progressions while teaching shooting.

Do you start with wall shooting then progress to basket shooting?

With young kids on a team or decent sized group, I usually have them spread out on the floor and pick a line on the court. Then I have them shoot the ball in the air trying to get the ball to land on the line. So all we are working in is foot placement, holding follow through, getting the ball to roll off the shooting hand in a straight line, and keeping the guide hand still.

Then after a while we might move to the basket for form shooting at a lower rim. In second grade I try to avoid the basket. We only shoot to spots on the floor, work on dribbling, passing, footwork, and defense. In 3rd grade we go to the basket a little more but still don't shoot much... focus on other skills. Then in 4th grade we start actually doing shooting drills at the basket and getting more reps.

When working with a player 1on1, I just adjust depending on what they need. Sometimes we sit in a chair. Sometimes I have them plyo jump so they learn the type of jump I want. Sometimes we just focus on getting to set position and that's it.

We started out this season by doing the line shooting with a partner. Really good for focusing on shooting straight. From there we would progress to just shooting from about 2-3 feet in front of the hoop. Reinforces straight shooting. And I'd tell the girls to try to swish every shot, so they were working on touch and rotation.

We have now progressed to spending 10-15 minutes each practice playing short distance around the world. We go block, lnae, block. They can't get to the next spot until they make the shot in the previous spot. If you get all the way around, you take 1-2 steps back and start working your way back around the other way. I think this has been good for us. We split them to as many hoops as available, so we usually have no more than 4-5 at a hoop and everybody is getting tons of form shooting reps in that time span.

We'll also do some timed, competition like shooting drills to emphasize game shots at game speed.

Thanks for the replies.

Our 2nd graders only have one basket that can be lowered to the 8.5 playing height during practices. Because of this, I have to be a bit more creative on how they get their shooting reps.

With the 4th graders we'll have 3 usable baskets to get in our reps.

For all levels, I'll work on form shooting every practice.

Update:

We have spent a ton of time on shooting this season. We usually practice for 90-120 minutes. The first 45 minutes of practice are ballhandling and shooting. I think the line shooting has really helped. For the most part every player's follow through is looking good. We have one girl that isn't quite there and it's been a struggle. She has a lot of bad muscle memory built up so it's going to take some time to break that and establish the good habits. She's trying, lord knows that. But her patience is growing thin. It doesn't help that she gets to the free throw line the most on the team. So her struggles are very evident in games and I think that rattles her even more.

Our big thing we've been focusing on now is making our footwork better. We started working on the "hop" to get into triple threat/shooting position. We'll do simple toss outs all the way around the key where they have to toss it out, go catch it and hop/pivot/1-2 step into triple threat. They can do whichever one they are more comfortable with, as long as they are doing it properly and not traveling. Then we do around the world shooting where they still have to toss out, catch, turn, and now shoot.

We also work a lot on individual offense and part of that has been the catch, triple threat and we work on a pullup jumper and a step back jumper. Most of the girls are pretty comfortable using the hop for both of these. It has really opened their eyes regarding getting turned to the basket and into shooting position.

We have 2-3 really pure shooters. 1 of them has been our glue-girl and never scored much, but she has scored 8 points in each of the past two games by knocking down some open jumpers. I think she's playing with a lot more confidence lately.

Overall the team shooting has gotten much better and I expect it to continue. It's been a big focus and I'm happy the results are starting to come around.