You have all heard the expression “great touch”, referring to a player who made a basket with several rebounds at the rim or some analogy like that. It’s really a sarcastic comment, because the insinuation is that the shooter planned it that way, but it was actually a fluke or a series of lucky rebounds, etc. I want to elaborate on the “touch shot” and possibly shed some light on this aspect of the shot. You may know by now that I don’t give much credence to the importance of the feet in the shot other than the 6 “bend at the knees and the feet should be shoulder-width apart. I also don’t think there is an important factor in whether the dominant foot is slightly in front of the other or perfectly square or directly below the shoulders.
We all know this since before the era of the “peach basket”. Since I’ve been doing shooting clinics, I don’t remember anyone ever telling me that the last thing they think about when they release the ball from their shooting hand is where in the hand the touch and feel of the ball dominates. By this I mean that players are simply not aware of the importance of the correlation of the fingers with the release of the ball. Of course, I would say that most players are completely unaware of the position of the hand or the alignment of the grip on the ball. I am specifically referring to the free kick here, where a player has time to do it, but when you see players on TV rebounding or their so-called pre-shot repertoire or routine before a free kick, you will be surprised how few players even look at the ball and ensure correct hand alignment on the ball before shooting. Go ahead, I challenge you to look and see if I’m right. Anyway, this is very important. This is when you get to the heart of the matter.
Since I just don’t think you can trust the natural human constitution to be a great shooter, I feel like our natural build isn’t perfect enough when it comes to shooting a basketball or engineered precision. As a human entity, we were created perfect, but when it comes to external activities, everything becomes subjective. We need the help of scientific and physical criteria to help the imperfect anatomical structure. The reason I know this is because I fit into this box myself. No matter how hard I tried to be a great shooter in my early days, I was never able to achieve the efficiency numbers that I do in my later life because I have learned to shoot mentally and physically and not just physically.
The shot begins cerebrally. It is a matter of mind over matter. Process on product. Starting before the end. Alpha before omega. You get the picture. It is a fact that a high percentage of players think about taking the shot instead of concentrating on the all-important mechanics at the moment of the shot. Now this is where the rubber meets the road. When we shoot the normal inflated ball, ask yourself what you do at the moment of launch. Why do you think most other players are different? Are not. In general, we have not been trained from the shooter’s perspective. We have been trained from the coach’s perspective. And how many coaches were shooters in college, or let me rephrase that. How many were great shooters in college or professional categories? Not many. You see the gap that we have to deal with.
You will notice how much time I spend isolating individual fingers and their involvement in the filming process. Well, I know that when I start teaching my methods and secrets, a lot of players have a hard time making this adjustment of transferring their thought process from the basket to themselves. It’s a total change from what you were used to. Some make an easy transition, but with others it takes longer and that’s understandable. One of the key factors, if not the main factor involved in shooting, is shooting directly. And what guarantees that the shot goes straight? The index finger does.
There is definitely a different feeling to throwing a flat ball and a fully inflated ball. It is difficult to explain. You just have to try it. If you are a player who has a hard time connecting a sensation from the brain to the ball through the fingertips, then you should try shooting with a flat ball. Here is the feeling you will feel, or should feel. It is a natural tendency that when a ball is fired, the shooting wrist tends to shake or at least rock sideways. It is the weight of the middle finger and ring finger combined that usually causes the rocking. When shooting a flat ball, you will feel the indentation more pronounced than with an inflated ball. The extra time it takes for the indentation to occur will convey to your conscious brain which finger is applying how much pressure to which part of the ball. This has to be understood, felt and corrected. Ideally, the ball needs to generate uniform energy from the tip of the index finger to the broad base of the little finger and the broad thumb. This wide base should stay that way from the beginning to the end of the shot. All the while being aware of those 2 dreaded fingers (the ring finger and the middle finger), so as not to let them dominate the direction of the ball.
You almost have to see this whole process in your mind and really subconscious it before you can make it work for you. This is a case where you really have to tune in to superfine muscles. If you can feel your capillaries at your fingertips, then you are on the right track. A good shot really is a case of fine muscle dominance and not large muscle control. Not only do you want to feel or control the energy generated by the ball, but you need to know how much input into the ball each finger delivers. The amount of force generated by each finger must be countable and measurable.
Knowing this gives you the real insight and feedback you need to repeat or change the next shot. Because that’s all there is. THE NEXT SHOT. It is about how well you control your physical faculties through total mental knowledge and understanding. Shooting is not just about throwing the ball in the direction of the basket and hoping for the best. You can control the destination of each shot while pulling the trigger because you have actually calculated distances and direction because you now have perfect knowledge of these mechanical and scientific principles.
The percentages you should feel are 90% on the index finger, almost zero on the middle finger and little finger, and about 5% on the pad of the thumb and little finger. Just to give you an idea about the wrong finger placement, I attended the 2009 NBA All-Star Weekend and Jam Session where everyone is having fun. There was a booth called “Get-a-grip” and there was a display of a giant basketball with one hand on it. Downstairs were a dozen balls with the professional players’ hands engraved on the balls where people could match their hands with the grip on the balls. Well, the downside here is that every ball and every grip had the middle finger in the center of the ball. My problem with this is that it promotes erratic follow-ups. The strongest part of the hand is the index finger when it is aligned with the inside of the forearm that forms an imaginary ruler or the barrel of a pistol.
