Shake True Blog

One of the most basic basketball concepts is Triple Threat Position, where you have the ball in the shooting pocket, in a ready position to shoot, pass or dribble.

I am a great advocate of getting the ball into the Triple Threat Position upon receiving it, however I am going to deviate from that idea for now and explain why it’s also important to recognize opportunities to do good things with the ball when you keep it above your head after receiving a pass.

Keeping the ball above your head means to have your arms fully extended upward and having your elbows locked. Your wrist and forearm do all of the work here, so it’s important to practice strengthening these parts of your body to have success with keeping the ball high.

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Shake True Hoops Alumnus, Natalie Achonwa, was recently named to the 2008 Canadian Women’s National Basketball Team. We wish her the best of luck in Argentina and expect great things from her.

Having had the opportunity to spend several days at Shake’s Shelldale camp over the last 3 weeks has been a great experience for me to say the least. As promised by Joe, it has been a lot of fun, and a great growing experience for me as both a coach and a player. But one thing that has really stuck out to me is the way in which the camp focuses on not only improving the basketball skills of the camp, but also teaching them valuable skills that can be applied to life outside of basketball.

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Well then,

What a week.  Hard work in balmy weather!  Hydration and sunscreen were definitely the major themes of camp this week.  That said, there was a lot of basketball that went on too!

In the kind of heat we faced this week, it is extremely difficult to stay focused and maintain work ethic.  Indeed this week seemed to ooze lethargy.  I too found myself sluggish at times.  But its at times like these that I noticed the individuals that are truly dedicated to executing what they have been instructed to do.  In particular, I was very impressed with the efforts of Tien.  She maintained energy in all her drills, and was very vocal on the court…and this from the smallest, and probably youngest, on the court.

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Instead of moving aimlessly, it’s great to have an idea of where and how to move when you don’t have possession of the ball. There are a few things you should do to increase your ability to get to a spot where you can receive the ball in a scoring position. All of them require you using some misdirection and changing your speed.

1. Beat your defender to the basket. If the person who has the ball is doing their job and has their head up, seeing the court, you should be in a great position to receive a pass that will lead to a scoring opportunity when you beat your defender to the basket. In order to do this, you must first give a misdirection, to throw your defender off balance, followed by exploding to the basket and calling for the ball, while showing a good target. If everything goes well, you should have an easy lay-up.

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Being able to visualize is an important tool that is vital to a complete basketball game. Along with the physical tools such as a strong body and the ability to manipulate that strong body to do what you want it to do on the court a player needs to develop their mind to handle the successes and failures that are inevitable in the game of basketball.Everyone is going to miss some shots. Most people miss more shots than they hit. If you are able to hit more shots than you miss, while shooting a large volume, you are pretty good and will probably play professionally some day. However, very few of us fall into that category.

Because most of us tend to miss more shot attempts than we hit, we have to develop a sense of understanding that after the ball is released one of two things are going to happen. Either the ball will go through the hoop or it will not. Those are the only two outcomes. If you are able to recognize and envision that those two possibilities are the only ones that exist, then you will be on your way to being a much better basketball player.

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Eight more to go.

The first week of camp was an undisputed success. Everyone had a lot of fun playing and learning basketball, listening to Jay entertain us with his masterful guitar playing and taking in Coach Brian’s delivery of The Naughty Boy by Hans Christian Andersen.

The daily nutrition was refreshing, capped off by Subway courtesy of the MacDonell on Friday.

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