Blog Coaching Shooters
January 12th, 2008My friend Ray sent me an interview with Paul Westhead talking about Kevin Durant which he attributed to 20 Second Timeout. About Durant, Westhead replies:
Westhead: “I think that the easy reason for that [poor FG%] is that teams in their scouting reports are saying that the Sonics need Kevin Durant to score to win. So, you’re our best defender—stick him. They not only put their best defender on him but any time that he gets close to another offensive player, on a pick and roll or something—trap him, double him, stunt him. He’s getting high quality defensive coverage as a 19 year old who just arrived in the league. That’s not the easiest thing to endure. In a season or two or three, the best defenders probably won’t pull his shooting percentage down. He’ll have arrived and be able to shoot through that. But I think that it is marvelous in 30-plus games that this 19 year old is performing how he is. I think he’s off to a terrific start. I’m amazed that even though he is young looking and 19 that he has a mature game, that he does not get overwhelmed by this league.”
As for coaching shooters or shooting:
Westhead: “You’re asking the wrong guy—and the reason I say that is, my players, from good teams or bad teams, will say to you that I never saw a bad shot by a player on my team. They can’t take a bad shot.”
I want to give them the freedom to create what they think are good shots and once you start stipulating that I want you to shoot from here but not there and I want you to shoot this but not that then you start putting things in their minds that they have to make hard decisions about at a moment when they should be focusing on the basket.”
If you let a player take 15 or 20 shots, he might take what the world might say are a couple bad shots but he doesn’t want to take bad shots. He’s not going to go from three bad shots to eight bad shots because you don’t say anything to him. He’ll eliminate those bad shots–or at least cut down on them–on his own.”