What is Wrong With The Pro Shot Shooting System and Why You Need to Stay Far Away

What a great world we live in.

You can be an expert simply by calling yourself one. You can put out videos and gather a following of dedicated defenders even though the way you go about your business may be a bit on the disingenuous side. 

Normally, I would laugh things off and go on my way. But a couple of days ago I was introduced to  videos put out by "The Pro Shot Shooting System" and besides being a bit dumbfounded by the information presented there, I was taken aback by the outright vicious attacks that were made by the author. He has accused people he has never met of being liars and insinuated that these same people were ignorant of the very actions they have dedicated hundereds if not thousands of hours of their lives, to make a livelihood for themselves and their families. To top it off, he was introducing concepts to the game of basketball that I could not sit back and let go unanswered. Below, I take on the Pro Shot Shooting System (herein to be known as Pro Shot) and try to make clear to parents, coaches and players, just what exactly it is and why it is bad for you, your children and most of all, the game of basketball.

What Pro Shot is billed as, is a "revolution" in the way people shoot a basketball. Of course the author and defenders of this revolution, will point to people like me and say we are old school or an old dog that refuses to learn a new trick. They will have to drag us along kicking and screaming, but the new day has arrived. They will stand arrogantly and point to those of us that disagree as close minded and against innovation. Now for the record, I have been coaching basketball for over thirty years, mostly on the high school and college level, and in that time I have changed philosophically from a slow down half court ball control coach, to a run, shoot and pressure full court type coach so I would say I have been more than open to change. I have seen fads come and go and have seen brilliant strategies and systems of play withstand the test of time. I would say I can tell the real deal when I see it. Conversely, I can tell a fad and or a mistake when I see it as well. Pro Shot is no innovation. It is poorly thought out, disingenuously presented and full of so many holes in its philosophy, you can play all the PGA majors on it.

The Pro Shot system is based on one concept and one concept only. Players are never squared to the basket and therefore all players were LIED to when they were taught to be squared. In light of that fact, pro shot developed a "new" way to shoot a ball. The basics of the system are based on four concepts. Hop, Turn, Dip and Sway. There are one or two others, but these four are the basic ideas behind the revolution. Let me first try and explain each and then I will dive into the concepts and their presentation.

Hop-The premise on the hop is that every player should catch the ball on a hop. This hop allows the player to land with both feet simultaneously thereby allowing said player to choose either foot as their pivot foot. Interesting idea of course, but far from innovative. 

Turn-Next comes the turn. Being that no player is ever square to the basket when they shoot and if they are they are rarely successful, the turn is really one of the two pillars of the system. In essence the turn is done on the floor and not, say, in the air. What the turn does is point the shooters feet at basically 10 oclock or 1030 since when most shooters finish their shots they are pointing in that direction anyway. Why not start them there? By doing this, the players right foot or lead foot and their lead shoulder will be perfectly aligned with the basket. 

Dip-Pro Shot contends that every shooter dips the ball before they shoot instead of shooting it where it is caught. The premise, as it is with the hop and the turn, is that most players don't realize they are dipping the ball, but they ALWAYS are. Therefore, one of the staples of the system is the dip. Combined with the hop and the turn, players will get their shots off much quicker by doing these manuevers-yes even taking the time to dip the ball- and at the same time, will vastly improve their sucess rate.

Sway-or as the author says, sweep and sway. Sway is defined as the shooters feet coming out in front of their shoulders on the release creating power and arc on the shoot and allowing the players range to increase greatly. The claim on the sway is that it loosens the tension in the shooters shoulders allowing a much more free and easy shot and movement. What it will also do is keep shots from missing short. The author makes and very often repeats the claim that 90% of all shots miss short. The sway keeps that from happening.

At first glance, some of these ideas are not so out of whack. I'm not even sure I disagreed with some of the concepts. However the more I watched, the worse I began to feel about Pro Shot. Let's first start with the hop.

The hop is basically a jump stop or maybe a bunny hop if you will. As I said above, not all that revolutionary. Nor is the concept of landing on both feet and leaving open the opportunity to choose either foot as the pivot foot. Personally, as a teacher of players for over three decades, I have gone a few ways on this, but am always drawn back. I think the most fundamental way to teach the pivot foot concept, is to give players a clear cut option. That option is the weak-hand foot. Now since I try to never speak in the negative when teaching, I break it down this way. A right handed shooter, is a right footed shooter. A left handed shooter, is a left footed shooter. What that means is-and this is extremely important for all that is to follow in dissecting Pro Shot-a right handed shooter would be best served by using his left foot as his pivot foot almost exclusively. I am quite sure there are some that will disagree with me and that is their perrogative. However, I do think for most coaches who drill and coach fundamentals, there will be almost unanimous consent on this idea. Besides being a powerful foundation, it is clear and concise. Players know what to do, how to react, and have clear instruction laid out for them. Plus and this is most important, there is less margin for error when the players knows exactly what to do. The Innovator of the revolution calls the pivot foot an anchor. I call it stability. I hope to go further in depth on this concept later on.

In general, I am in favor of the jump stop when used intelligently and in certain situations. Coach John Chaney once told me to try and stay away from shooting jumpers off the jump stop because the odds are that the player will go either left or right in the air, usually not straight and he would therefore be shooting at a moving target. I am not sure I believe that concept applies to the bunny hop, but I do understand his point. While the "hop" the innovator is referring to is at times more of a bunny hop, it does become a bit of an issue with young players at an early age and I have seen this hop have a derogatory effect on young shooters. As players grow and get older, some are very comfortable with a bunny hop and that has its place to be sure although it's not something I would rely on. However, the author points out that MOST if NOT ALL guards in the NBA are hop shooters. Now of course to illustrate this point, he only uses shots that come off the hop...ummm...well he thought he did. In his Kyrie Irving shooting form video, the author goes to great lengths to point out that Irving is a hop shooter. That is until roughly the 3:52 mark where the next two shots he puts up are off the 1-2 step. Now, that just caused me to laugh as did earlier in the video when he talked about pulling the 3 off the dribble and he showed a clip of Step Curry doing exactly that...except he did it off the 1-2 step. Ooopppsss. I think what was most disappointing in that video was the author leads the viewer to believe that Irving was using the Pro Shot System when nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, Irving is a right footed shooter and regardless of how he shoots-whether off the hop or the 1-2 step-Irving is always shooting with his right foot forward in the video because he is a right handed shooter. Of all the things in Pro Shot that are misleading, this is the worst and here is why.

What Pro shot claims is that a player is never square to the basket so any and all coaches who teach players to be square to the basket are perpetuating a lie. He goes to great lengths to be sure the viewer knows coaches are LIARS. He inserts clips of Jim Carrey and others to illustrate and leave no doubt, that anyone who teaches or claims to use this concept as a shooter is an outright liar (ie Kevin Love and Steph Curry who evidently are not only liars but too ignorant or stupid to realzie they are). I am sure he could have found a way to disagree with the concept without calling people names or degrading anyone who disagrees with him. I suppose in a revolution you must demonize the enemy to gain a groundswell of support. However, in this case Pro Shot is misguided and wrong. 

The essence of Pro Shot is to take the final result of shooters and develop a system that piggybacks on the very concepts it works hard to destroy. The bottom line is this. Yes, make no mistake about it, players are sqaure to the basket, but most any coach who teaches to be square to the basket, will be demanding in a shooting foot forward concept. That player, even with his right or left foot extended, is still very much square to the basket. Whether that coach teaches it off the hop or the 1-2 step, any coach who understands balance and shooting, will demand right foot forward. I personally try to teach it as a heel to toe relationship. The heel of my right foot (being a right footed shooter) should be just above parralel to the toes of my left foot or to be more accurate the side of my left foot, should fit right into the groove of my right if I bring them together. Some of course will have other ways to teach lead foot forward, but that is how I do it and to date, my players have been pretty successful. As for width of the feet, shoulder length is the desired ideal but that varies and changes depending on the player. Personally, I like feet a little wider than that, but that is my own quirk and I don't believe I have a right to suggest that is truth from on high. That is what works for me and I think helps players, especially young ones, succeed. 

Pro Shot actually ignores totally, right foot forward. What he does instead is claim that players turn and therefore are never square. No, they don't turn per se, but right foot forward-or shooting foot forward-naturally leans the body in such a way that yes the player is leading with his right shoulder BECAUSE HE IS A RIGHT FOOTED SHOOTER. So those who want to claim that players turn, may do so I suppose, but they do so while ignoring the fact that the shooter has a solid base, is square to the basket and has great balance. Pro Shot in essence takes the end result of a squared up, "anchored" balanced shooter and builds a system off of it without ever acknowledging or recognizing that it is the very thing he disparages, that leads the player to that end result. It is akin to taking a Michealangelo painting and after it is done, paint over the bottom right hand corner and claim it was THAT bottom cornered paint job that was the reason the painting was so good. No it was so good because the artist who painted it, did all the heavy lifting, used solid fundamentals and constant repetition in order for you to come along and falsely claim it was your concept and your paint job that made the painting what it was. Same thing here. Whether the shooter is a 1-2 shooter or a hop shooter, the innovator claims that it is the turn that makes the shooter successful. No, it is the squared up, right foot forward concept that makes the shooter successful. All you have to do is stand in front of a mirror, spread your feet and push your lead foot forward just a little. Are you going to claim you are not squared? That is in and of itself ridiculous.

So what? What is so wrong with the Pro Shot system anyway? 

For starters, we can look at the 10:30/10:00 stance that is a foundation of the system. The questions that immediately came to mind for me and I am sure others were plenty. What happens to my feet when I am in the left corner? Are they facing the baseline? Does that seem logical or balanced? What about off the screen? Do I hop and thereby allow my defender to easily step through? Does this system work in anything other than ideal uncontested circumstances? By eliminating the jab step since there is no need for it, what happens if I get jammed?

I can't go through all of them, but suffice it to say, I and others have plenty more. Do shooters end up with their feet out in front of them after they release the ball? I think if you look at most of them, they, at some point after the release, probably do. BUT THAT IS THE RESULT OF EVERYTHING THAT CAME BEFORE IT, not because they used an exagerated method to get there. To prove his point on the dip for instance, the innovator uses video of Steph Curry dipping the ball as if he was an endorser and user of the shooting system. A couple of things on that. One-most of the time, he is catching the ball in his shooting pocket because he gets the pass from an NBA player passing it to him and therefore what seems like a dip is actually Steph catching it in rythm, NOT CREATING THE RYTHM WITH A DIP. Second, when Curry has time to shoot like most any good shooter, they will  naturally bring the ball back to their shooting pocket. I would rather see catch and shoot, but shooters are shooters because they know how to shoot. Dip or no dip. The claim is not only misleading but intellectually dishonest. On that note I did want to address the videos of the three players demonstrating the concepts being taught. I found it laughable that when asked to show the viewer the 1-2 step, none of these awesome shooters made a shot. But as soon as the hop, turn, dip and sway were introduced, alas everyone was Steph Curry. It is as if anyone who uses the 1-2 step to shoot a ball will never make a shot. It is amazing how players have existed or made any shots before the advent of the Pro Shot System. 

One thing on sway. The innovator claims that 90% of all shots that don't sway-seemingly because of the 1-2 step-fall short. Of course he offers no evidence to support his claim other than a video of a girl with bad shooting form missing a shot short-off the 1-2 step of course. I challenge Pro Shot to cite these statistics since he never offers any except to claim the 90% number over and over again. What I have learned in my life is that just because someone says it is so, does not make it so. Can someone, anyone, please cite the 90% statistic for me with evidence to back that up? Where is the source that enables him to make and constantly repeat that claim? I ask that because in my experience, that statistic is implausable. Please cite for edification. Thank you. 

A point on the turn itself. When talking about teaching kids, I think this is a very dangerous issue. As it is now, players have major issues, even in the league, with being too closed on the release. Now we are going to teach that as a concept? When taken in conjunction with the hop, the room for error here is great. Play it forward at game speed. Say what you will about the hop, but it is far less stable than the plant foot/shooting foot concept otherwise known as 1-2. What the plant foot does is force the player to gather himself and if taught correctly, the player will be in a shooting position on the plant because he is playing low. This is where Coach Chaney's advice is actually very astute. It is true that one may be able to gather himself on the hop but when taken at full speed with the turn concept, the opportunity to "overturn" and be off balance and or closed is far greater and has added an element-hop/turn-into the game for young players that is far too unstable and leaves the player open to error at a much higher rate. All you need is one tweak, and the player is off whereas the plant foot does indeed anchor and stabilize the player before putting in motion the shooting foot. 

I could go on forever, but at some point I have to bring this to a close. I did want to address one last thing. Pro Shot makes the claim that shots are too slow when shooters have to bend their knees to shoot. I would agree in principle with that concept. However, what Pro Shot never takes into account, is that shooters who can really shoot, NEVER CATCH HIGH. Most players who understand shooting are already bent ready to receive the pass and before it reaches their hands are stepping in to shoot. If you play high, yes, bending your knees will take longer. However if you catch and play low like every player should, you are already shooting the basketball on the catch, without rushing it, sacrificing your mechanics and or balance, and you surely have ten toes to the rim as much as possible. Once the player shoots the shot, his feet just may sway or turn to 10:00, but again that is because of everything that led to that point, not because he made it a point to end up that way. 

Lastly, Coaches, please think things through before using such a flawed and disingenuous system to teach your players. Any coach worth his or her salt, knows that the game slippage on something like this would be enormous. Forget the fact that the innovator disparages the jab step and claims there is no longer a need for it in Pro Shot. Why would you take that away from a player? Do youself a favor and watch players shoot. Almost all of them will have their foundation in the 1-2 step. The 1-2 step can play off screens, play off jabs, off the dribble and most importantly, does not need a utopian set of circumstances to use it successfully. I am more than open to having further discourse on this issue and quite honestly, I may need to do another post since I have barely scratched the surface when it comes to all that is misguided in this system. Nevertheless, feel free to engage me and discuss or debate what is written here. Parents and coaches, if you would like your players to become good shooters, but more importantly good fundamental basketball players, keep them far away from "The Pro Shot Shooting System." To all those of you who will claim that it has had great success to date, I refer you to Reggie Miller and ask "Would you teach your child to shoot that way?" My point being, with repetition, all things are possible. However, if you are after consistency and long term success, do yourself a favor and stay away from Pro Shot.