Form Shooting with Young Kids

Form shooting is such an important part of shooting that it can't be ignored.  If you take a look at the pros when they are doing their pre-game warm-ups they almost always start with some sort of form shooting and build up to regular shots as they progress through their warm up period.

For young kids who are just learning to shoot it is so important they grasp the fundamentals as early as possible.  In order to do this, you as a coach need to introduce form shooting as early as possible and encourage kids to do some sort of form shooting both at practice and at home.


So what is form shooting.  The best way to start with youngsters is by having them use a smaller ball which will be easy to control.  For young kids I even like to use the SKLZ control basketball which is smaller than a regular ball and thus easier to control one handed.  After solving the ball issue we can go thru the steps I take when explaining how to form shoot.
  • Line up your feet a short distance apart from each other.  This is usually a little less than shoulder width apart.
  • Your shooting foot (right foot if right handed/left foot if left handed) should be slightly forward (about half a step).  
  • Your feet don't necessarily have to be pointing to the basket.  They can be pointing a bit off center (left if you're right handed or right if you're left handed).  By doing this you help get you're shooting foot, shooting hand, shooting elbow, and shooting shoulder all aligned and pointing straight to the basket.
  • Knees should be bent about 45 degrees.
  • Hold ball in one hand like you are serving a pizza with your wrist flexed back.  The ball should be aligned with your shoulder/elbow/ and hand of the shooting arm in line.
  • In one motion, straighten the legs and come up to your toes.  As you do this the ball should be coming out of your hand.
  • The last 2 fingers to touch the ball should be the middle finger and the index finger.  This release point is very critical.
  • The arm should fully extend and the wrist should be fully flexed forward and pointed toward the basket.  This is called the follow thru.
This drill should be practiced over and over again.  Once this basic drill is perfected by shooting from about 2 feet away from the front of the basket there are progressions that can be followed.  We will cover those in another post.

Take a look at this video for a good description of form shooting.

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