[help] guiding hand won’t stay put
Posted May 3, 2019, 2:39 PM UTC
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You have a really strong thumb flick (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing if it isn’t messing up your accuracy or rotation. Kyrie’s shot is like that too). I don’t want to break your shot, so take this with a grain of salt, but lessening the strength of your thumb flick might make it easier to keep your guide hand position; that doesn’t mean try to remove your thumb flick completely. I’ve seen so many good shooters break their shots because coaches told them otherwise.
It’s hard to visualize, but I like tapping my guide hand on my shooting forearm and holding it there once I release. Steph does this a lot and it seems to help with aim horizontally.
Other than I would just aim to visually see my guide hand end in the same place every time I follow through. Pick a place (I aim for my guide hand to finish on the inside of my shooting eye/nose bridge) and keep shooting till it’s consistent.
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Thank you so much for your feedback!! I’ll definitely take the tips into consideration.
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I also didn’t realize the issue was my thumb so this will definitely help me in the right direction.
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No problem, real hoopers are in this together lol.
And I just want to say again that the thumb flick won’t make or break your shot “usually”. I have a very light thumb flick and it doesn’t effect my shot (I never miss side to side). I’d say with a strong thumb flick like yours you have to worry about the inconsistent rotation you might be putting on the ball and having a flat shot (which are both fixable with changes in other parts of your form).
While your shooting arm is releasing the ball your guiding thumb is pushing it forward. That’s why so many kids and small guards have a thumb flick — they’re, effectively, adding more range to their shot by pushing the ball forward.
I’d say take a couple days to try out a lighter thumb flick, and if you’re losing massive amounts of range, I would err on the side of caution for changing it. Making sure it finishes at the same spot every time should be the focal point.
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Thanks again man!!!
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I practice close to 10 hours a week, probably put up 700 shots a session, but I still sometimes screw up and get my guide hand involved with the shot. When it happens, I just fix it and keep shooting with the correct form. It is really difficult to stick to the form off the dribble though.
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You can try pressing all of your guide hands fingers and thumb togheter. This helped me a lot in getting a shoot not affected by the guide hand.
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Hi everyone, I have been having this issue for as long as I remember. But it's gotten significantly better but still bothering me... I can't seem to find any help as google research with the guiding hand issues usually results with issues relating to guiding hand thumb pushing the ball which doesn't really pertain to my problem.... any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time.
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You can hold a coin between your thumb to get rid of thumb flick if you want but thumb flicking isnt bad you just need to learn how to control it
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Haha he’s got a killer cross ! Thanks for taking your time to provide feedback, gonna have to get those reps in.