A jump shot is better than a layup, Part 3

Several weeks ago, we posed a provocative proposition – a jump shot is better than a layup – and set out to prove it. In Part 1, we traced the historic evolution of basketball and how coaching philosophy and strategy differed from one region to the next, but finally collided in the 1930s and 40s when Stanford’s Hank Luisetti and Wyoming’s Kenny Sailors dazzled the country with their one-handed jump shooting. In Part 2, we explored the nature of jump shooting and its dramatic impact on basketball. Now, in this final post on the subject, we’ll offer three proofs for our proposition.

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A jump shot is better than a layup, Part 2

In Part 1 we traced basketball’s early history culminating in Hank Luisetti and Kenny Sailors’ historic appearances in New York’s Madison Square Garden where they challenged the orthodoxy of the day by shooting one-handed while airborne. In Part II, we’ll explore the evolution of shooting styles in greater detail and show how the modern jump shot transformed basketball in four key ways.

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A jump shot is better than a layup

When I launched my blog in 2014, I outlined ten immutable laws or principles that define the nature of basketball and govern its play. These laws are fundamental to understanding, coaching, and playing basketball. Once mastered they form a prism through which one can “see” the game, appreciate its simplicity, and master its subtleties. At the center of the ten is the all-important Fifth Law: A jump shot is better than a layup. For me it’s the cornerstone on which modern basketball theory rests and why I named my site better than a layup. Over the next few weeks, I’ll unpack this law in a series of three posts. Here’s Part I.

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Keep It Binary, Stupid

Basketball unfolds as a series of choices, one leading to the next. No matter how controlled or patterned a team attempts to be, the offensive scheme will inevitably break down requiring the attackers to improvise. 

Effective coaching exploits this reality by placing players in spots where their natural freelance abilities come to the fore and where the choices are binary – “either/or” situations where it is relatively easy for the offense to read the defense and act quickly.

Complicated offensive schemes that congest the floor, obscure the choices, and attempt to control too many variables reward the defense by creating uncertainty and indecisiveness. Too many moving parts complicate the reads, granting the defense time to react.

Conversely, offenses that create quick, binary decision-making are built around actions and maneuvers that shorten defensive reaction time. Effective offense reduces the number of choices by forcing defenders into “no-win” situations where a choice to respond in one way renders them vulnerable in another way. This makes it easier for offensive players to see or read the defense and seize the initiative quickly.

Basketball’s fourth law – Keep It Binary, Stupid – explores these principles.

Click here to read.

The Basket is True North

When I launched better than a layup in 2014, I outlined ten laws or principles that undergird the game and define its nature. Since then, I’ve presented detailed essays on the first two.

Time Trumps Territory is appropriately basketball’s first law for it is the cornerstone upon which the remaining laws are built. We learned that basketball is fundamentally a game governed by time, not by the space in which it takes place. We play within the dimensions of the court and are constrained by its boundaries, but we don’t capture territory. Instead, we pass through it and must assault the basket according to timelines established by various clocks: the game clock, the shot clock, and the various “countdowns” employed by the officials to govern different situations of play – inbounding the ball, crossing the half court line, etc. Additionally, we must contend with other forms of time that are not governed by an actual clock: tempo or pace, reaction time or long it takes for one player to react to the movement another player, and rhythm or how well the moving parts of the game are “timed” or in sync with one another.

There are no static lines or fronts in basketball. It’s not a stop-start-stop game during which the offense and defense align across from one another, snap the ball to initiate play, then, do it all over again in a contest to seize territory. Instead, the action is continuous and fluid, the teams seesawing back and forth between offense and defense, the position of the players constantly shifting in relationship to the ball, the basket, and the movement of one another.

And, it is in the midst of that continuous and fluid action that we discovered basketball’s second law, Space Shapes Time. One’s ever-shifting position on the floor in relationship to the ball, the basket, and the other players shapes time, either shrinking or stretching it. Identifying and reacting properly to the angular and spatial relationships between these elements minimizes the disadvantages of the slower players and maximizes the opportunities of the quicker ones. Spacing between players creates avenues to the basket or chokes them off.

In a game of time, characterized by ever changing spatial relationships, coaches and players need a set of navigation tools to help them recognize and make choices quickly. What are the principles by which you read or “see” the game and its myriad of choices? How does one plot the game’s “latitudes and longitudes” accurately? How does one develop “court sense”?

Understanding basketball’s third law – The Basket is True North – provides the navigation tools needed to answer these questions.

Click here to read Basketball’s Third Law