basketball and have been for a very long time going back to the old teams that played AAU ball. But I can't for the life of me stomach the inability of teams to coach their players to have a better percentage making layups and close in shots. It is horrendous for so many teams. A certain amount can be blamed on the refs allowing lots of contact and not calling fouls but I see way too many blown layups and shots close in that are blown without the contact. I see some players going 3 for 8 and hitting a couple of free throws and being commended by announcers and coaches for having a "good game" and citing those shooting stats. But never a word about the 5 misses where 3 of them were misses on uncontested shots.
It would be one thing if you had one player on a team that is chronic with this or just one or two teams. But it is a problem of multiple players on a team and multiple teams. Watching 3 players on each team in a game consistently blow easy shots is just painful because it is so unnecessary. A lack of coaching players and drilling them hard on the fundamentals is very clear in these cases.
When you have a player who has bad layup percentages you correct problems of form and you also drill on it. Incessantly. For example drill them for 100 layups in a row over and over practice after practice and after practice. Then set a certain percentage of made layups during the drill as required. If the player doesn't meet the goal then you do another 100. Once they hit the first goal then move the percentage up and keep going. This may sound punitive but it isn't because as long as the coaching is providing correction of form and delivery problems you don't have to go through this very many times before the "fix" has taken root and things can get better from there.
I see dribbling that is horrendous from so many of the players. Dribbling the ball way too high and right up almost to their chest. It's no wonder someone steals the ball. In the front-court I see players who know they are in a crowd when they grab a rebound but they still bring the ball down and then try to stand and pump fake or bring the ball back up for a shot. Your chances of making it in those situations is often way less than the chance of getting the ball blocked, stolen or tied up. So much of this is fundamental basketball.
But so many of today's players are about the 3 point shot and players wanting to be Caitlin Clark type shooters. She is a unique talent. If you coach a player to just do shoot-a-rounds etc. and run weaves and pick and roll plays you can, apparently, have a player make it to the pros and have a career while being poor to middling on basketball fundamentals.
Not to pick on Angel Reese but I will use her as a classic example of bad form going uncorrected for years and still being a problem.
Her shooting form for a set shot or jumper is horrendous. Not just her feet but her placement of her hands on the ball and where she holds the ball. Her hands are wrong on the ball to get a shot to be consistently straight and for any fluid follow through. She holds the ball in front of her face for much of her shooting motion. She may also be watching the arc of the ball rather than keeping her eye on the rim but I haven't focused on that for her but given all of the other things it's a good likelihood. So because of all of this she sort of "flings" the ball as opposed to having the ball up above her head and shooting with a good smooth follow through while keeping her eye on the rim. This is all correctable with coaching and repetition through drills but it apparently didn't happen at LSU and here we are now.
So many of today's players in both men's and women's basketball just "play their game" and they never really improve or change and as long as they can have a few stats they survive for awhile and collect a check and maybe move on to a podcast etc. Larry Bird was Larry Bird not just because he had unique skill and vision but also because he worked hard and long to become Larry Bird and he never stopped working hard and long at getting better all the time.
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