Re: You know what's amazing?

[Kestas <kkv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 01:38 PM 10/8/2002 -0700, you wrote:
> Kestutis,
>
> I think you're wrong on this one.  Shooting is very
> much a talent, as any coach will tell you.
Never mind what coaches have to say on the matter, it's an empirical 
question that in principle could be answered by scientific studies. Lacking 
that evidence, consider the following:
If shooting were indeed an 'innate' talent,  then you would have to agree 
that Europeans are 'innately' more talented shooters than American players, 
since most of the Euro players are good shooters, if nothing else. Why 
would that be? Moreover, why is it that some people are more comfortable 
shooting more difficult shots (3-pointers, off-balance shots) than easier 
shots? Do they have an 'innate' talent for a 23-foot shot, but not for a 
15-foot shot? For an off-balance heave, but not a 
square-up-and-set-you-feet jumper? If it's all talent, why can't anyone, 
except for a few Euro centers, shoot the hook shot anymore, which didn't 
use to be the case? Is it the lack of 'hook shot talent' in today's kids? 
It doesn't make any sense from the computational neuroscience or genetics 
standpoint. If it's an innate (i.e., genetically programmed) ability to 
accurately launch an object of arbitrary weight towards another object an 
arbitrary distance away, it should be both more general and scale with  the 
degree of difficulty.  I.e., if you can do the harder movement, you should 
be able to do all the easier movements of the same type with more ease. But 
that's not the case.

There is a far more parsimonious explanation for it: it's a combination of 
proper shooting mechanics and practice, especially early on. Most American 
kids play their first 5-10 years of basketball on the street, where the 
emphasis, at least these days, is not on learning proper shooting 
technique. Thus, most of them pick up bad habits during this critical 
learning period, which are very hard to correct later. However, these days 
most do practice "crazy shots" and three-pointers a lot, so they are better 
at them. In European basketball, most kids learn basketball under the 
tutelage of a coach. Shooting skill and proper technique are emphasized 
from early on.  Even the 7-3 guys can shoot the 3.  We saw what happened to 
Team USA, which was critical short on shooters, at WBC, where nearly 
everyone on the better teams was a good shooter.


> Some guys
> can practice all day every day, and they will never be
> good shooters.  Greg Kite, Chris Dudley, Ken Bannister
> -- league history is full of dedicated gym rats who
> never even became adequate shooters.  Greg Kite could
> take 5000 shots a day for ten years, and never make 27
> in a row.
That's where selection bias comes in. These guys were/are not athletes at 
all. They were recruited to play basketball because they are very tall. 
Thus, you're scraping the bottom of the genetic barrel insofar as general 
athletic skills are concerned. Being klutzes, these guys probably didn't 
participate in sports much when they were younger, and as a result had 
rudimentary basketball skills.   Moreover, their job was to bang bodies, 
rebound, and block shots.  I seriously doubt that these guys spent hours 
working on their J. Even if they had, I doubt they were working with a 
shooting coach to correct technique flaws and catch up on all the years of 
basketball practice they had missed as kids. Taking hundreds and even 
thousands of shots would just reinforce their bad habits.



> Other guys, meanwhile, can shoot from
> anywhere, off the wrong foot, double-clutch, you name
> it -- and it goes in.  I only wish all it took was
> practice to become a good shooter.
No, it takes forming good shooting habits and lots of practice early on, 
not when you're already in college or the NBA, plus some minimal starting 
conditions (you may not be capable of becoming a great shooter if you're a 
totally uncoordinated klutz, I'll give you that). Even so, some players 
were able to change their technique and become great shooters while already 
in the NBA, such as Jeff Hornacek.

I think you're just confusing a polished skill with talent. For example, my 
six-year-old is head-and-shoulders above kids almost twice his age in 
soccer ability. He can dribble through the entire team, score with 
impunity, tackle cleanly, you name it. The coach is astounded. Is he really 
talented? I don't think so. But he's been playing against adults and older 
kids every single day, sometimes for hours, since he was four. He's getting 
to be really good at basketball too, for the same reason. Some coach will 
someday marvel at his "natural" talent for basketball while it's anything 
but...
Kestas