Everyone will have heard the expression “big touch” referring to a player who made a basket with several rebounds on the rim or some similar analogy. It’s really a sarcastic comment, because the implication is that the shooter planned it that way, but it was actually a lucky shot or a series of lucky rebounds, etc. I want to elaborate on “shooting touch” and possibly shed some light on this aspect of shooting. You may already know that I don’t place much importance on my feet when shooting other than 6″ bend in the knees and feet should be shoulder width apart. I also don’t think there’s a big factor in whether the foot dominant is slightly in front of the other or perfectly square or directly below the shoulders.
We all know this from before the “peach basket” era. Since I’ve been doing shooting clinics, I don’t remember anyone telling me that the last thing they think about when they release the ball from their shooting hand is which part of the hand dominates the touch and feel of the ball. By this I mean that players are simply not aware of the importance of finger correlation in throwing the ball. Of course, I would say that most players are completely unaware of hand placement or ball grip alignment. I’m referring specifically to the free kick here, where a player has time to do it, but when you watch players on TV take their dribbles or their so-called repertoire or routine before a free throw, you’d be surprised how few players even watch the ball and make sure the hand is properly aligned before shooting. Go ahead, I dare you to look and see if I’m right. However, this is very important. This is when it gets to the heart of the matter.
Since I just don’t think the natural human makeup can be relied upon to be a great shooter, I feel like our natural makeup isn’t perfect enough when it comes to shooting a basketball or engineering precision. As a human entity, we are 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 could never achieve the efficiency numbers that I did in later life because I learned to shoot mentally and physically and not just physically.
The shot begins cerebrally. It is a matter of mind over matter. Process over product. Beginning 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 time of the shot. Now this is where the rubber meets the road. When we throw the regular inflated ball, ask yourself what you are doing at the time of the throw. Why do you think most of the other players are different? They are not. As a whole, we have not been trained from the perspective of the shooter. We have been formed 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 in the professional ranks? Not many. You see the gap we have to deal with.
You’ll notice how much time I spend isolating individual fingers and their involvement in the shooting 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 is a total inversion of what they are 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 the shot straight. And what guarantees that the shot goes straight? The index finger does.
There is a definitely different feel to shooting 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 difficulty 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 one throws a ball, the shooting wrist has a tendency to jiggle or at least sway 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 notch 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 should have an even energy generated from the tip of the index finger to the wide base of the little finger and wide 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 get it into the subconscious before you can make it work for you. This is a case where you really have to get in tune with super fine muscles. If you can feel your capillaries at the tips of your fingers, then you are on the right track. Good shots are really a case of fine muscle mastery and not large muscle control. Not only do you want to feel or control the energy generated by the ball, but you also need to know how much input to the ball each finger delivers. The amount of force generated by each finger must be responsible 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 gain control of your physical faculties through total mental knowledge and understanding. Shooting isn’t just throwing the ball toward the basket and hoping for the best. You can control the destination of each shot as you pull the trigger because you have really calculated the distances and the direction because you now have a perfect understanding 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 ball of the thumb and ball of the little finger. Just to give you an idea about incorrect finger placement, I attended the 2009 NBA All-Star Weekend and Jam Session where everyone has fun playing basketball. There was a booth called “Get-a-grip” and there was a display of a giant basketball with a hand on it. Below were about a dozen balls with professional players’ hands etched into the balls where people could match their hands to their grip on the balls. Well, the bad thing 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 irregular follow-ups. The strongest part of the hand is the index finger when it is aligned with the inside of the forearm which forms an imaginary ruler or gun barrel.