Shot Selection

I love the topic of shot selection. As a coach, I feel shot selection is often the single-most influential factor when it comes to winning or losing a game. The team that consistently gets the “better” shots over the course of the game will leave the gym with more points on the board nearly every time.

Within coaching circles there may be some debate as to what the definition of a “good” shot is for their team, but the most important thing as a coach is that your players can articulate what the shots are that you want to take as a program. In our program we want our players to be able to do three things when it comes to understanding shot selection:

1. Know the shots we want to get.
   

   In our program there are two key areas we consistently try to get our shots from: inside the paint and outside the three-point line. And each one of our players know if they want to get more playing time, they need to be able to be able to get to the paint and knock down an open three.

2. Define their SCOT.

   We define a player’s SCOT as his scoring spot. We don’t want players that may shoot from anywhere at any time. We want players that know from which spots we expect them to score from, and we expect them to put in the practice time not just taking shots, but MAKING SHOTS from those spots. As a coaching staff, we want to define the 2-3 most likely spots on the floor a player will shoot from and make sure those are the spots he shoots the most from during practice.

3. Never settle for “good”.

   I’ve found that at the high school level, most players are satisfied with taking “good” shots. And most coaches allow “good” shots to be the ones that are consistently taken by their team. Not us. We want our players to pass on the “good” shots and take advantage of the “great” ones. So many times a “great” shot is just one more pass away, and teams fail to take advantage of it.