Creating Your Own Shot

 Note: This was originally posted on my old blog on Thursday, July 23, 2009.

You know what’s funny? My last post, you know the really long weird one about basketball and biology, well that post was meant to just be what this post is, a short note about what the phrase “creating your own shot” means. Somehow it turned into the behemoth that it now is. I wish I knew how that happened. Anyway, before this post gets out of hand too, I’ll get to the point.

You know when people say that so-and-so can “create his/her own shot.” They usually mean that this player is athletic and skilled enough to take his/her defender one-on-one and get a good shoot. I would say that this is only one way to create your own shot, but it is not the only or even most common way of doing so.

 

The way of creating your own shot that to me seems more relevant to real basketball is creating your own shot when you don’t have the ball. As a result of the fact that most everyone who watches basketball watches the player with the ball most people don’t recognize a lot of what happens in order for a player to get a good shot.  The majority of basketball players (those who don’t have incredible athleticism and skills like many NBA players) cannot get a really good shot in a game situation by going one-on-one. Instead, they rely on certain kinds of movement (screens, cuts, etc) in order to get themselves (or their teammates) in a position to score.

In all levels of basketball, but especially with young kids, there is a certain amount of luck that goes into scoring. Often you score because your teammate cut at a certain instant that caused your defender to turn his head which caused him/her to lose track of you just for a split second which caused him/her to be off balance when he/she recovered to you when you got the ball giving you the angle to get to the basket to score. Your teammate probably didn’t intend to cut at that perfect instant, but nonetheless his cut helped you score. At every instant tons of these types of things are happening on the court.

Anyway, if a player can recognize even some of these little things as they are occurring, they can take advantage of them and put themselves (or their teammates) in a position to score. An aware player is able to see that by cutting he might be getting his teammate open, or that by positioning himself in a certain place while the ball is on the other side of the court he is giving himself an advantage when the ball gets swung to his side. Players who are “good at moving without the ball” are just good at recognizing and successfully acting on all of these little occurrences.

The best players read and react to all these little things almost subconsciously. As you probably guessed players do not and cannot think through all of these little things and still play fast enough to be successful. Recognizing and acting on the tons of little occurrences that are constantly happening in a game of basketball is second nature to great basketball players. Some of this ability may be natural and God-given, but much of it comes from just playing the game. That is why it is often so painfully obvious when someone who has never really played basketball tries to play in a game. They just don’t have what people often refer to as a “feel” for the game. They don’t know how to react and interact with the defense and their teammates. There are so many things that experienced basketball players do naturally that are not easily noticed unless you are experienced in the game yourself. The most important of which is probably the ability to create shots without the ball.

A good way to think about this is to think about scoring like an iceberg. The part of the iceberg that is hidden underneath the water is analogous to all of the things that happen when a player doesn't have the ball that enable him/her to score. The tip of the iceberg is analogous to all of the things a player does with the ball that enable him/her to score. When spectators see what a player does with the ball that enables him/her to score they are usually only seeing the tip of the iceberg. There is a lot that the average spectator doesn't recognize that enables a player to score.

So, the ability to create your own shot by reading and reacting to all of the little occurrences of the game (whether you have the ball or not) is basically the foundation of scoring and something every basketball player should strive towards.