HoopClinics

by Coach Ken Sartini

I always felt like I was a pretty good teacher of shooting mechanics — and then I went to a neighboring school and saw George Lehmann hold a clinic.  He was amazing, I think he missed one shot the entire time he was there.  Now I know that there are a lot of good shooting coaches out there who can really break things down…  I am just saying that this is what worked for us.
 
What I really liked was that he broke it down to a very simple form…
he called it BEEF.
 
B- Balance
E- Elbow under the ball
E- Eye on the target
F- Follow through
 
George talked about footwork and planting your inside foot as you square up to the basket.  (either dribbling a certain way or meeting a pass)
 
The next summer we started holding shooting camps… for players of all ages.  I will take you through our progression of how we taught this skill.  I had our Varsity players attend also… free,  since they were going to help teach this.. we had two gyms side by side with 12 baskets.  My philosophy was:
 
“IF they can teach it, they can do it.”  (they did enjoy working with the younger kids and those kids liked having the Varsity players work with them)  I would walk around the gym as would my assistant and talk to every kid in the camp.
 
We started out with what we called BEEF Check.  We shot from 3 spots close to the basket… block – middle – block. 
 
1- We had the players take one dribble with their shooting hand, bring the ball up, then take shot and hold the follow through. Their non shooting hand was behind their back.
2- Then we had them do the same thing from the 3 spots only they could have their guide hand along side of the ball but not touching it.  We had them hold the non shooting hand in the position that they would have it when they finally could have it on the ball.
3- Then they took 3 more shots with their guide hand on the ball, but we emphasized that hand had nothing to do other than keep the ball steady on the shooting hand.
 
This was how we taught the fundamentals of BEEF.  After the BEEF check, we moved them back to maybe 8 feet and they went through the same process, 1, 2, &3.  After that we moved back to about 10-11 feet and used #3 only.  We ALWAYS emphasized the correct technique.
 
We moved to the free throw line (closer if the kids were too young and didn’t have the strength to shoot fundamentally correct)  and shot some free throws. We were constantly checking their form.
 
The next step was about footwork, he used what we called the ” Flip Drill “
We would have each player with a ball at one free throw lane line and the free throw line.
They would flip the ball out in front of them, plant the proper INSIDE pivot foot, square up and take the shot.  They would go both ways, right to left and left to right, this way they would get into the habit of planting the proper foot.  The reason we did the Flip Drill was so each player could go at his own speed and be comfortable.
 
The next thing we did was to have them use the dribble using the same technique as above…. again at their own speed. 
 
AFTER they got comfortable with the two drills above, we added a passer, making a V cut and going to the ball at a speed they are comfortable with utilizing the same techniques.  Passers on both sides of the court, shooter becomes passer and passers become shooters.  We started with bounce passes and after they got comfortable with this, we used chest passes.  We always emphasized that a GOOD PASSER will make a good shooter better.  ( I showed them that by purposely making bad passes to my Varsity players – I would get dirty looks at first until they understood what I was trying to teach – it was a good learning moment for them too )
 
We also taught different types of passes, dribble moves, pivoting at the end of the dribble moves, and a back pivot.  We had them come to a jump stop on the side line, back pivot into a triple threat, and I would call out shot fake a couple of times. The would make the shot fake and come back to the triple threat position.
 
At different times at the camp, we would have different shooting contests… I tried to break them up into groups where they could be successful and win a treat which was usually a freeze pop.  This was one of high lights of the camp.
 
We would play full court ( side to side in the gyms, could play 3 – 4 games that way if need be )  The game was to six, EVERY player had to score before anyone could score the game winner.  This promoted team work and leadership, they worked very hard to get that “one” kid his shot.  Sometimes I would choose who had to shoot the last shot, just to make things interesting.
 
At the end of camp we all got together, talked a little bit and gave out the awards (freeze pops)  We always made it a point to see that every one got a treat (by winning a contest)  by the end of the week.  The camp ran for six weeks at first but I found that it became a little long for what we were doing… even though the kids always showed up.  We brought it down to three weeks which seemed to work fine.

Basketball Coaching