Angel Reese, Habits, and Shooting Practice

What is correct when discussing skill execution? Are there absolutes?

A video of Angel Reese shooting stationary corner three-pointers went viral this week. I hesitate to write about her practice because she gets so much unwarranted criticism on social media, but its omnipresence provides a starting point for discussion about habits, practice, and shooting.

Angel Reese and Deliberate Practice

[This is a longer video of what I saw on social media. I only watched the first 20 seconds of this video and provide only as context for those not perpetually online.]

Social media believes Reese is a bad shooter, and every Internet expert commented about her shooting technique. Most criticized her step-in on the catch. In the clip, she shot left-handed (I honestly did not know she was left-handed) and stepped in with her right foot. Nearly everyone disparaged this step, asked if she even had coaches, and demanded somebody be fired for this atrocity.

My purpose is not to write about Reese specifically, but to provide general observations. She stepped with her right foot so her right foot was parallel to or in front of her left foot. I would correct this, as shooting with the contralateral foot forward increases the propensity to twist or rotate to generate force. Few comments pertained to the length of her step, and instead focused on the foot. The critics believed stepping with the contralateral foot was the most incorrect instruction possible and the “literal opposite” of the correct shooting technique.

Why is a right-foot step for a left-handed shooter wrong? We see this as wrong because it is not how we were taught, and years of experience performing a skill in a certain way has established a strong habit. Anything different than this habit feels weird. This is one reason people stop improving. In fact, this is a central tenet of K. Anders Ericsson’s deliberate practice. He believed it took roughly 40 hours to develop competence in a skill and most people stop improving because they lack intention and concentration in their practice. They keep doing what they have done already. They reinforce their habit.

Change is hard. Change is weird. Change feels wrong, especially after years and years of established habits. Therefore, most players revert to old habits after a few repetitions. They lack the intention and concentration necessary to establish a considerable change to their habits.

Years ago, I worked with a high-school senior. I thought she was good enough to play in college. She was a great shooter, but she had a slow set shot that would not work in college. I asked if she wanted to work on changing her shooting style, but she said she did not want to play in college. She just wanted to have a good senior year. We continued with her same style, making minor refinements.

After the season ended, she changed her mind. She decided to play in college. After her first year, she returned home and said she needed to change her shot. Our goal shifted. She was ~40% three-point shooter, but on low volume because she needed time and space to shoot. Our challenge was to maintain the 40% three-point shooting, while changing her shooting style to enable greater volume and a greater variety of attempts.

Improvement is not just increasing percentages. Maintaining percentages while increasing volume is also improvement. The ability to make more and different types of shots is improvement.

We started with shots close to the basket to re-establish a new shooting habit. I was in and out of town all summer with camps, so she practiced largely on her own. She played in an adult Asian summer league every summer, and I implored her not to shoot three-pointers, her greatest strength, because she would revert to her old habits. She decided to use the league to improve her playmaking skills, while practicing her new shooting habits individually.

She returned to college and shot just under 40% in her next season, but attempted almost two additional three-pointers per game, nearly doubling her output from her first season. She had changed her shooting habits because of her focus and concentration every day during the summer. Very few players persist through the awkwardness and the initial decrements in performance. Very few players would eschew three-pointers, their biggest strength, during a summer league. She was different.

I was taught a right-foot step in for a right-handed shooter from my very first official practice. Everyone I know developed this habit, and everyone initially views a left-foot step in for a right-handed shooter as weird or awkward. However, is that because of our well-learned habits or because there is something definitively wrong with using a left-foot step in?

I was taught offensive basketball starting with the triple threat and triple threat moves. The left-foot pivot foot for a right-handed shooter makes a jab step-shot easier because the right foot remains in front when shooting. Jab stepping with the left foot would require a longer backward step and possibly a pivot to return to the desired shooting base. The shooter likely would lose any advantage gained by the jab step. If we eliminate the jab step-shot, as few players shoot these, are there other reasons we must use the same foot step-in?

Many people referred to rhythm. However, how much of one’s rhythm is based on the habits accrued through years of performing a skill in one way? When someone says “I’m trying to imagine stepping into a jump shot with the same foot and it makes no sense”, is he referring to rhythm or habit? After years of practice, can one distinguish between the two? At the end of Reggie Miller’s career, using a shooting technique nobody would teach, did he feel like his shot had no rhythm or had his technique become such a habit that anything else would have felt weird?

One reason we teach the right-foot step-in for right-handed shooters initially is to give young players extra force as they shoot. This is the second step in an immature throwing pattern. First, children throw a ball wit no step. Next, they step with the same foot as their throw; generations derogatorily termed this “throwing like a girl” because pre-Title IX, many girls did not play sports and therefore never progressed to an adult throwing technique because there was no purpose. The adult throwing technique is to step with the opposite foot to create a stretch from the front hip to the back shoulder. An adult shooting technique does not follow this same progression because of the vertical component, but you do see this on long-range shots, like this Steph Curry three-quarter shot off a left-foot step:

And, to avoid the comments that a one-foot shot differs from a two-foot shot:

In my time as a college coach, watching many highlights of potential players, it appeared the contralateral step was more common in Australia than the United States, and also common in the better shooters. This is not to suggest these players always stepped right-left into their shots, but that it was more common. I believe players should use both feet just as we teach them to use both hands. With practice, the right-left step-in is just as smooth and rhythmic as a left-right step-in; I prefer the right-left step in now, despite never using it as a teenager.

Finally, all three of Curry’s three-pointers to beat France at the Paris Olympics used the wrong footwork: First, he steps in with his left foot in the exact same way as Reese in the video; second, he steps right-left into his shot; and finally, he shoots with his left foot forward.

“Curry’s the greatest shooter ever. He can get away with it.” Sure, but also, he’s the greatest shooter ever because he shoots successfully with any footwork. Variability is an asset. The best shooters I have coached invariably can shoot off a jump stop, right-left, and left-right. They have generality in their skill. They are not limited to a certain execution.

Beyond the argument about habits, feel, and rhythm, nobody knows, based on the small clip, if her coaches wanted Reese to shoot like this on all shots or if this was a drill as part of the workout to practice something specific. These were practice shots, not a game shot, and not even game-like practice. We can only speculate as to the purpose of the practice.

Drills solve a problem. Years ago, a father and his two sons drove two hours so they could work with me on their shooting. One of the drills, out of the entire hour, asked them to step in to their shots right-left (right-handed shooters). The father said afterward they would not be back because I did not know what I was doing because nobody steps in to their shot with their opposite foot. Same argument social media espoused unanimously this week.

I do not remember the exact purpose with his sons. However, around the same time, I worked with another player who had a big right-foot step as he shot. However, when he shot free throws, he shot with his feet nearly parallel. He did not step with a big right-foot step because he watched a certain shooting video, as his father suggested, but because he could not decelerate properly. He used the big right-foot step and the turn almost like a hockey stop to meet his momentum, as Lee Taft says.

We practiced with a right-foot step-in to change his deceleration pattern. When stepping left-right as a right-handed shooter, players can rely entirely on their right foot to decelerate because they shoot with their right foot forward and a slight turn to the left regardless. However, to stop right-left and shoot with the right foot forward, they must anticipate the stop because the left-foot step should be a half step to maintain the right-foot forward shooting stance. Practicing the right-left step-in changes their deceleration pattern and teaches their body to decelerate properly with greater flexion in the knee and hip. Then, we return to the left-right step-in and attempt to maintain the same deceleration pattern to prevent the long right-foot step and turn.

The drill — shooting with a right-left step-in — solved a problem, which was the player’s deceleration. The drill was not game shooting, game-like shooting, or attempting to change the player’s specific shooting habit. Instead, the drill was a small perturbation to improve a specific aspect of the overall shooting technique: The deceleration, which also improved the shooting stance, with feet closer together not spread wide with an exaggerated turn, and the force transfer from horizontal to vertical. However, viewing the drill out of context, many experts would have drawn the same conclusion as the father and run to social media to criticize.

Pertaining to the Reese video, assuming the same as did the twitteratti that she was practicing her game shooting and not focused on something specific, how do we expect a below-average shooter to improve through shooting the same shots in the same way? A below-average shooter getting reps on reps on reps is reinforcing the below-average pattern or shooting style. Improvement requires change, not more, like the college player above.

Based on the few shots in the clip and the middle of the competitive season, I would incorporate different shooting drills and reduce instructions. I would avoid giving her more things to think about, while using drills to perturb her shooting habits and force some changes. Once those changes started to take hold, we use more repetitions to stabilize the new habits.

Based on the coordination between her lower and upper body, I would use medicine-ball shooting to start each session. I imagine some combination of changing her force generation and transfer would improve the rhythm and coordination of her shot.

Next, I would warm up with some of my movement shooting drills, and especially some of the ones focused on quickness to reduce thinking and cognitive control. I would use the X shooting and quick hands drills.

I also would use the 180 Drill, as I felt last year that balance affected her finishing, and there is nothing to suggest anything different when shooting.

Other ideas would depend on watching her more and would be specific to her. This is more about the general thought process of designing practice programs to improve shooting during the competitive season, not specific to Reese, as I watched two shot attempts and have not watched her in a game in over a year, maybe since she left LSU.

Change is not wrong, but change always feels weird. Sometimes, change requires an intermediary step that may seem incorrect, but it is a step toward the desired result. Again, drills solve problems. Simply shooting more in the same way will not make major progress or change habits. The practice must de-stabilize the habits first.