Thread the Needle: Individual Fundamentals Fundamentals comprise the basic building blocks of any sport. Individual fundamentals are acquired through intense, repeated intelligent practice. The genetic ability to successfully master basketball fundamentals is out of a basketball player’s control. However, the player’s attitude, sincere passion and motivation are definitively within his or her control and largely determine an athlete’s success along with that of their respective team.
Being a selfless player within the TEAM concept is also critical to one’s personal as well as the team’s success. Selfless basketball play is playing smart to match your abilities to TEAM needs. Specifically, passing up a wide open shot when you are the TEAM winner playing HORSE isn’t selfless play. Your TEAM expects you to “spot up” and make that shot. Likewise, if you are only a fair 3 point shooter, the TEAM wouldn’t expect you to shoot a 30 footer in crunch time unless the shot clock is winding down with no better “looks” available. The flow of a basketball game is just as important for a TEAM as are fundamentals. The style of play is dictated to a large extent by your personnel. Launching a shot within 7 seconds after a change in possession–as the Loyola Marymount collegiate TEAM did repeatedly in the late 1980s–is an impossible goal for most teams. This team however, had the personnel to accomplish this with Gathers, Kimble, and a supporting cast of well conditioned transition–style players. Paul Westhead, the Loyola Marymount coach, perceived a major offensive advantage with his personnel employing this approach. He pushed his TEAM to basketball excellence offensively in many ways. All players, coaches, and fans love offensive hoops. A TEAM needs a potent offense to win games. Let’s get to the bare bones of individual fundamentals within offensive basketball: the shot.
Athletic competition affords participants an opportunity to display their skills in a contest against an opponent in any given sport. Basketball has innumerable physical and mental components at both the team and individual level. A player’s “game,” which we might define as a sense of the game’s dynamics at any given moment combined with mastery of its overall fundamentals, is critical to both him and the TEAM since most games are won or lost based on the basics. Through rigorous practice a player’s conscious volitional moves on the court become instinctive and to a degree, subconscious. Practicing game situations through thoughtful intelligent repetition develops confidence in one’s ability to perform the skills needed for success. In many situations the more athletic basketball team doesn’t win the game. Rather, consistent basketball success is more often achieved when practice and mastery of the fundamentals coalesce. Anticipation, conditioning, mental preparedness, nutrition, sleep, coaching and TEAM chemistry all come together on game night.
SHOOTING A basketball shot must be an extension of your mind requiring a subconscious memory move by repeated practice. A player cannot think for more than an instant what he’s attempting. The shot is instinctive from multiple highly similar game and practice situations. This isn’t dissimilar from a concert pianist relying on memory and instincts in a stressful concert situation. Shooting is essentially a natural motion with a simple instinctive thought of concentrated relaxation and flowing stroke motion. The shot is created by a crease in the defense (baseline cut, coming off a screen, great ball movement versus a zone finding a forecourt or post opening/ crease). A basketball shot requires confidence, commitment, and trust in your practiced ability. Simply what you have done in TEAM and individual practice needs to be repeated at the rim/glass in game situations. The shot is always a brief setup 1