Stephen Curry and Shot Preparation

The picture above was posted on twitter. There are three things for players to see:1) In the left-hand frame, he sells the move to the left prior to the crossover. Even though he has planted and appears to be in the process of changing directions, his shoulders sell the move to the left. Whereas this view is a poor angle to see the left side of his body, Curry appears to have a good shin angle to change directions with his foot outside his knee and knee outside his hip.2) In the middle frame, his stride is too long to explode to the basket (at least from this view). Curry likely had decided to stop and shoot, so his long stride with the negative shin angle may have been a strategy to stop his forward momentum. To accelerate to the basket, a player would want a slightly shorter step to land with a positive shin angle with nose over his toes.3) In the final frame, Curry is already shot ready. He stops on balance with shoulders over knees and knees over toes. He also picks up the dribble with his right hand on top of the ball  and his elbow back behind his hip. This enables a player to lift the ball into his shot in a straight line. A lot of players like to swing the ball to the middle of their body. Good shooters pick up the dribble with their shooting hand and bring their weak hand to the ball rather than swinging the ball to the middle of their body to meet their non-shooting hand.By Brian McCormick, PhDDirector of Coaching, Playmakers Basketball Development LeagueAuthor, The 21st Century Basketball Practice