Mar

13

Why can't people like Noah on the Knicks shoot more than 30% free throws, while making 15 big a year. He reminds me of Lenny from Of Mice and Men. Don't they pay free throw coaches in the NBA for their players making a minimum of 10 big a year? I know they practice free throws each day. My friend was manager at Coach K's teams at Duke. And he said Coach K used to make all the players shoot 10 free throws in a row or else they couldn't go home.

Jim Schatz, founder of the National Basketball Shooters Association, responds: 

Gosh, that's a long story but I'll try to be brief.

I forgot to mention the NBSA web site and membership has been inactive now since 2012 and I have been keeping it up in the hopes that some day I would be able to complete my mission. I direct two NBSA Championship format events, head to head competition, getting most of the top known shooters in October in Las Vegas and St. George Utah, every year since 2011.

I was able to form the NBSA with Chuck Leve's help. He was our original executive director. I wanted to improve shooting in game time and so did all the experts I was able to bring in as founders. My only mistake was not bring in enough money. Chuck left for a better offer three months later and he was the only one of the founders who understood what I was trying to do.

I was trying to set up basketball shooting events as a national sport and give expert instruction from the top NBSA ranked shooters who were also great teachers and coaches at all our events. Our core belief as a group was how can you teach free throw mastery if you can't demonstrate it.

Now to answer your question. The NBA is not really familiar with the mastery of shooting. Head coaches don't really know what to do because it's not their expertise and they do a lot of the hiring. There are many shooting coaches in the NBA that don't really know how to help. It's mostly friendships and seniority. The NBSA uses Noah Technology, www. noahbasketball.com among others technologies in our mastery of shooting instruction and the high school, college and pro teams that use this technology show the most improvement in shooting.

The real problem is the early instruction given to the kids. In basketball, the best players will have been coached by as many as 50 different coaches. It gets difficult to learn for some and eventually a player can adopt a negative picture of himself and that will unconsciously effect them.. It's also a mental shot so being able to relax at the line is paramount. Making shots is all based on confidence and that is developed in practice. There is a method to practice that works. It is not easy to come off the bench after sitting also. There is a term called "the drop off rate". That is the difference between your practice percentage and game time percentage. Players can drop off as much as 40-50% due to their inability to shoot with good fundamentals, a proven practice system and their inability to quiet the mind.

There is more but this is a good start.


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