Breaking Down DeMarcus' Shot

[greybeard]

I am not a shooting expert but did stay at a holiday Inn Express last night so here goes, and I will give the short, short version:

1. In the Marquette game, I noticed a change in Nelson's foul shooting after the first six, that might be worth mentioning.

2. The change I noticed was that he began allowing a complete breakdown of his right arm in bringing the ball up to shooting position.

3. Ideal shooting position (such rules are always made to be broken) is to create an "L" in the shooting arm. Nelson began creating a "V" and a collapsed "V" at that.

What's the diff? Here's my speculation, unsupported by a single fact:

1. Such a breakdown precludes a meaningful connection between the momentum started by the bigger muscles below pushing into the ground, on the one hand, and the import extension of the shooting arm and ultimate release of the ball, on the other hand.

2. The extension of the arm then becomes more a function of the deliberate firing of flexor muscle in the upper arm, that is, to say, the tricep, and the release of the wrist (pronation) becomes more a function of the deliberate firing of the extensor motion of the forearm muscles.

Why is this a problem? My guess, it makes distance control a complete crap shoot. Those smaller muscles are hair triggered. Trying to deliberately control them is dicy business, especially when you are tired and/or under pressure. Expanding angles in the elbow, and then wrist (the latter is a machine that gives off a tremendous multiplier to the forces already created, not to mention direction) give the shoot tremendous momentum if expansion takes place in proper time.

Allowing the energy created below to create the timing of such expansions gives you your best shot. (Pun intended.) Trying to control them with the hair-triggered muscles in your arm does not.

Just a theory.
























Trying

[SilkyJ]

I am not a shooting expert but did stay at a holiday Inn Express last night so here goes, and I will give the short, short version:



haha, potd.

I'll differ to a doctor on the rest.

[Lord Ash]

Very interesting, because his free throws DID seem to break down and flatten out a bit late in the game, although I certainly did not watch as closely as you!

[dw0827]

I am not a shooting expert but did stay at a holiday Inn Express last night so here goes, and I will give the short, short version:

1. In the Marquette game, I noticed a change in Nelson's foul shooting after the first six, that might be worth mentioning.

2. The change I noticed was that he began allowing a complete breakdown of his right arm in bringing the ball up to shooting position.

3. Ideal shooting position (such rules are always made to be broken) is to create an "L" in the shooting arm. Nelson began creating a "V" and a collapsed "V" at that.

What's the diff? Here's my speculation, unsupported by a single fact:

1. Such a breakdown precludes a meaningful connection between the momentum started by the bigger muscles below pushing into the ground, on the one hand, and the import extension of the shooting arm and ultimate release of the ball, on the other hand.

2. The extension of the arm then becomes more a function of the deliberate firing of flexor muscle in the upper arm, that is, to say, the tricep, and the release of the wrist (pronation) becomes more a function of the deliberate firing of the extensor motion of the forearm muscles.

Why is this a problem? My guess, it makes distance control a complete crap shoot. Those smaller muscles are hair triggered. Trying to deliberately control them is dicy business, especially when you are tired and/or under pressure. Expanding angles in the elbow, and then wrist (the latter is a machine that gives off a tremendous multiplier to the forces already created, not to mention direction) give the shoot tremendous momentum if expansion takes place in proper time.

Allowing the energy created below to create the timing of such expansions gives you your best shot. (Pun intended.) Trying to control them with the hair-triggered muscles in your arm does not.

Just a theory.

Trying

Damn, but I need to get HDTV.

[Channing]

i always thought Demarcus was just shooting a slider at the hoop . . .

[captmojo]

The firing of the extensor motion of the forearm muscles becomes accumulatively more difficult on the third night of consecutive games.

[greybeard]

Go ahead, make fun; wait until one of you guys stay at a Holiday Inn Express. :o

I thought adding that bit about the flexors was impressive.

Now that I think about it (always dangerous), the real problem is that, when you use the flexor in the upper arm (bicep) to go beyond 90 degrees, the flexor is so compressed that when you use the extensor (tricep) to straighten the arm the extensor does not fully release and therefore works in opposition and wreaks even further havoc with distance control, the hair trigger problem notwithstanding, is my guess. All youz would agree I take it, right. Of course, right. ;)

[captmojo]

GB, your astute observations of the muscular and skeletal mechanics of the athletic human form is well known here, and I'm only trying to lighten things. My point, other than previously mentioned, was to say that Nelson was most likely suffering from a factor of fatigue. That will change motion mechanics.

[greybeard]

GB, your astute observations of the muscular and skeletal mechanics of the athletic human form is well known here, and I'm only trying to lighten things. My point, other than previously mentioned, was to say that Nelson was most likely suffering from a factor of fatigue. That will change motion mechanics.

I took your comments in the vein they were intended and enjoyed the humor. Just trying, with my analogy to the big nasty, to play along is all. Threw in a bit of sensory overload gobbeldegook for the same purpose. Like my boy T said on the air after a 4 man reunion golf match during which a rancid cigar he had given me caused me to puke near the 15 th green, "And he missed with that too." Then, I wasn't trying.

Anyway, I never got to play long enuff for fatigue to be a factor. Badaboom.

[greybeard]

Seriously though, I do think that shooting from the broken-down position is an extremely dicy proposition. The one guy who stands out as having done so effectively was, if memory serves, UCLA's Wilkes. They didn't call him Silk for nothing. I seem to remember his using the straightening of his body in coordination with the beginning of the straightening of his bent right arm, with his lower body forces joining in around where the shooting arm reached the vertical, but I could be wrong on this.

BTW, the curve-ball thingie, said in jest, is a common feature in the shots of kids who start too young and who throw the ball at the basket using the back of their shoulder. Most have an overbent shooting arm to begin with and are throwing the ball wide of the target--for righties to the left. The real kinesthetic of them manage to make adjustments that put the ball on target. Muscling the ball to the basket in that fashion is no substitute for figuring out how to use and sequence the various machines in one's body to produce a repeatable shot.

Most of us figure that out by watching older guys who make it look easy and effortless. I think that shooting 3s, especially from way behind the college 3 line, brings some lingering "bad" habits in some shooters to the fore.

Sort of like golf; we get away with flaws in our swings with the lower irons, but not with the fives on up.

I have long been (like iin always) plugged into this stuff, way, way before I ever heard of extensors or flexors, which was just about yesterday in dog years. (I have no idea what that means.)

[captmojo]

No disrespect to you. I'm glad I was taken in the spirit I gave it.

Wilkes had one of the funkiest deliveries of a shot I've ever seen and I have yet to see anyone since who has successfully duplicated it. The motion of coming up with the arms and then circling the ball over his head before releasing was flat out weird, but it worked for him so I assume Wooden never asked him to change.