A Conversation About Shooting & Development in Golden State with @DubNationHQ

A player's shooting mechanics are like a Rolex; thousands of little pieces working together in unison to create something beautiful.

Recently, my friend

Eric Apricot

from Dub Nation HQ asked me to sit down for a conversation to reflect on my past life as a shooting coach for NBA players, delve into Jonathan Kuminga’s shooting mechanics, and share my experiences playing against Steph Curry in our high school days.

Naturally, I said, of course! Eric graciously gave up his time to appear on the Low Man Help Podcast this year to talk about Golden State, and I owed him a return trip¹.

Conversation Timestamp:

• 00:19 The ascent of Malik Beasley, his (my) first client

• 02:31 Steve Kerr (not) developing players

• 04:34 Jonathan Kuminga

• 19:14 Brandin Podziemski

• 21:56 Buddy Hield

Jonathan Kuminga

In our conversation, I often discuss with Eric how Kuminga pulls the ball up when he shoots. The key point to understand here is that while we are identifying one aspect in the shot during our conversation, that doesn’t mean that changing the pull would lead to success.

Kuminga pull shots: The pull is a symptom, not the cause. This is an important distinction.

Shooting the basketball is an exercise in kinetic linking power.

If you change one piece of the Rolex, it won’t fit with the others. Every habit within the shot must work in unison; changing the pull means you must change other habits as well, so that the shot fits together. The pull is a symptom, not the cause.

This year, Kuminga shot 31.8 percent from three across the regular season and the playoffs on 176 attempts. It’s not a huge sample size; his 6.5 attempts per 100 possessions would rank him 232nd out of 287 players with a minimum of 100 attempts.

Within Kuminga’s mechanics, there is a lot of good stuff to work with, but it’s not linked together efficiently. Without knowing his injury history or the mobility of his ankles and hips, it's impossible to determine how long it would take him to make the necessary changes to excel as a shooter. However, I’m confident that a high-level shooter is waiting to break out with the proper molding.

Brandin Podziemski

This year, Podziemski shot 36.4 percent from three across the regular season and the playoffs on 376 attempts. A decent sample size; his 8.9 attempts per 100 possessions would rank him 132nd out of 287 players with a minimum of 100 attempts.

Podziemski’s WIMS movement and Shot Prep footwork provide a nice base to build his game upon.

The word out of Golden State publicly all year on Podziemski’s shooting was that they believed he was a good shooter. Even when he was in a slump, they thought he would break out of it and encouraged him to keep shooting. The film backs that belief up.

Podziemski’s mechanics are solid; he understands WIMS movements², and the majority of his shots exhibit good kinetic linking. The key for Podziemski is his shot prep footwork:

When his feet are moving and he’s using great three-step shot prep footwork (Power → Load → Rhythm + Balance) into shots, he’s got the ability to reach great/elite shooter status. Currently, Podziemski falls into the average to slightly above average shooter category because his feet can become slow and lazy at times.

Most of the time, his bad shot prep shots felt more like mental mistakes. Overthinking whether he should shoot or not, due to an under coverage, or a lack of confidence following a previous miss.

Guys who are elite shooters in the NBA have the best shot prep footwork in the league. They’re relentless about the small details, and their footwork is crisp. This allows them to consistently generate and load massive amounts of power quickly and transfer it efficiently.

Great shot preparation also allows them not to think about makes and misses. It gives them a mental reference point of doing everything right they know and then living with the results. This makes it much easier to maintain a base level of confidence, even if a few shots don’t go in.

Here’s a look at a project called A Blueprint I sent to Malik Beasley before his 2019/20 season. Many of the habits in here apply to Podziemski's shot and game.

Here are a few more pieces that came out of projects done during my two years working with Malik Beasley:

Steph Curry:

I went 1-1 against Steph in my high school career. I doubt he remembers playing against me; he’s had quite a few bigger rivals to deal with since his high school days.

00:19 Playing against Steph in high school

01:01 Looking up to Steve Nash 01:19 Steph then and now

01:47 Fearing Steph

02:55 Beating Steph in high school

03:41 Was Steph underrated(TM) ?

04:45 Athleticism covering for bad game reads

06:24 Steph's shot is not a push shot, Steph is outerworldly

08:37 NBA guys who can shoot in a gym and not in the game

10:47 For more Marc Campbell

Curry would still be criminally under-recruited even in the current basketball climate. No slight at him, just what people wouldn’t be smart enough to see his impact with all the transfer portal nonsense. He would most likely attend a lower-level P4 school and excel in the same way (if he were with a progressive-minded coach like the one he had at Davidson).

1. Plus… I’m always willing to nerd out with someone about shooting!

2. WIMS = Where Is My Space