George is joined by Anthony Goods to explore representative shooting, scouting insights, and how coaches can better prepare players for real game conditions.
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In this episode, George is joined by Anthony Goods to explore representative shooting, scouting insights, and how coaches can better prepare players for real game conditions. They dive into contested shooting, decision-making, and the importance of designing practices that truly reflect the chaos and demands of competition.
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This transcript follows the original English audio.
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Welcome to the Transforming Basketball Podcast. Today's guest is a Stanford gentleman, which by the way, I don't know what that means, Anthony, you got to tell me, who spent 11 years as a pro overseas before transitioning to the front office as an NBA scout for the Detroit Pistons.
He's now an assistant coach at Arkansas State going into his second year, and he brings a wealth of lived experience to the court. Anthony, welcome to the show.
Hey, I appreciate it. I appreciate you having me on. It's definitely an honor.
I want to know, Anthony, like now you're going into your second year. So I would imagine like you're actually deep into, you know, recruiting and obviously spent the whole year kind of doing that. And that's your forte, like scouting, right? You know, what are some of the things that you were looking out for, especially as you prepare to, you know, pick up these high school players and the transfer portal too?
Yeah, the main thing we're looking to find in the portal and even with some high school players is just, you know, shooting and taking care of the ball. I think, you know, we did a great job in regards to our pace and rebounding and scoring the ball last year.
I think we were a top 40 scoring team and we were like top 6 in offensive pace. But we were also like a bottom 20 team, you know, turning the ball over. So That's one thing that we're looking to correct. And, you know, obviously Coach Pinault likes shooting at all positions.
It's also part of my philosophy. So yeah, this part of the season is fun because it's a little more, you know, back in my wheelhouse, you know, as I've been, you know, scouting the last 5 years. The main difference with college versus the NBA is the player pool is just enormous.
You know what I mean? You could— you're looking at D2, NAIA, all the lower-level overseas teams. And then, you know, obviously the 300-plus college teams, Division 1 college teams. So. Yeah. The player pool is huge and you don't know who's going in. You don't know what the market's going to be, but you know, you got to be prepared.
You seem very comfortable now, you know, by having your coach hat on. You're not that far removed being a player. How did you transition so easily into that role?
Yeah, I think it was something I— when I was a player, I loved to work out. Like, working out was probably, you know, one of my favorite things to do outside of playing one-on-one, obviously. But I think that when I would train, I wasn't the type to just like to listen to one trainer.
I wanted as many voices, as many ideas in my head. Sometimes I'd work with a trainer and then I'd just go work with another trainer and just treat it like, okay, it's a road game. Now I'm playing a different team. I'm getting different shots.
It's a different rhythm. So I kind of like to trick my body on the strength and conditioning side and the skill side. So it was something I was always curious about. One thing I felt like You know, scouting is like, okay, we get to evaluate all these players and then what?
You know, you can't really do anything. You're like, yeah, I think he's going to be a good player, but, you know, and you talk about the things that will make him a good player, but then you can't execute and see if it will actually work.
So that part was always missing for me, you know, and coaching obviously just sparked my curiosity from there. So yeah, I'm excited to be on this side of basketball though.
Yeah, I guess it, you know, from your scouting experience, it gives you now, and now being an assistant coach, full-time there at Arkansas State. It gives you that opportunity to, when you're scouting, and if you have the opportunity to bring players in, create that representative learning environment to actually see, you know, can they function in this chaos versus like, you know, are they good without the defense?
So I got connected. I saw a video on your Instagram and it was about how you were saying, you know, players shoot, I think it was 17% of their jump shots in the NBA wide open. But 90% of the practices or shooting practices are them practicing wide open shots with no defender, no form shooting, right?
And then you kind of, you know, if we want players to improve shooting contested shots, the type of shots they'll see in the game, then we have to create these representative learning environments for them at practice. Can you talk a little bit about that just from your perspective?
You know, one thing I always thought about was like, you know, again, I was a workaholic. It's like you put in all this work and all this extra hours outside of practice shoot 40% in game, but like, if you're not shooting 80% in practice, then that's a bad day.
And I just was always confused as to why the numbers were skewed. And I had a season where, you know, I was shooting the ball, kind of had in a slump towards the end of the season. And I didn't understand because I kept putting in reps.
I kept putting in reps. You know, I'm just shooting these, but I'm shooting these wide open shots so that next summer I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna have 80% of my shots gonna be contested. So I just, I didn't even have a trainer that summer.
I had my friend, he was 6'6. He used to hoop in college. And I was like, yo, you're going to guard me. You're going to contest every shot possible. And it was just a lot of like live reps, you know, representative training, as you said.
So that was like my first experience with it. But yeah, I mean, I think it all came from, you know, I had a conversation with Coach Joey Burton down in Atlanta. He's a shooting coach that, you know, I met years ago. And, you know, we were just talking about how just training and shooting and things like that.
And, you know, he brought up the topic. He's like, man, I think the way we need to, you We train shooting needs to change. And I was like, I agree. And I was explaining to him my experience from back then. And he was explaining to me different things that, you know, he does.
And that's where it kind of grew from there. And then, as I said in the video, I was doing a study on Steph Curry, Desmond Bane, and Duncan Robinson, where I tracked all of their shots. It was over like 2,000. And I was just tracking like closeouts, like how close was the closeout?
Was it an early high hand or early high hand closeout is when your hand is at the level or above the ball when the shooter's in the shooting motion, or was it a late hand closeout or uncontested? Yeah. And so I was getting all this data.
And then as I was finally breaking down the numbers, I started to look and I was like, okay, only 17% of them are unguarded. And then I just thought like, how many shots have they shot unguarded in their entire life? Like, you know, since I was a kid, I shot so many shots unguarded.
Like if I go out and, you know, have somebody rebound it for me, that's an unguarded shot that I'm shooting. It doesn't prepare you for the game. You know, I mean, it does in a sense, but you know, there's levels to it, right?
Yeah.
So I'm like, we don't treat 5-on-5 like that. We don't do 90% of 5-on-0 and then go into the game, which is 5-on-5, and expect to do well. That's where I was like, all right, you know, and then I started to really start thinking deeper as to, okay, what are some of the factors that is taking 80% shooter in practice down to 40% in game?
And now, you know, you start to think through those things and, okay, how can I implement this in a workout without killing the shooter's legs? And You know, so that's where I'm on this whole path of discovery.
That's amazing. I know Duncan Robinson, he works with trainer Hoopin Midge, who I had the pleasure of meeting when I worked at London Lions. He came down and all of their stuff is representative. You know, they might do some uncontested, like DL shooting to warm up, but then after that, it's all like uncontested, you know, really, really tough contest.
Got to get your release off quick. I'm curious, you know, you do have players that are I don't want to say conscious, but you have players that are already practicing in this way. But I would say most, and the majority of players, when they're practicing by themselves in the offseason, I would say do it without a defender, get their reps in without a defender.
I mean, you had the discovery of like, all right, well, maybe let's add a defender early. But why do you think there's maybe a reluctance to add a defender? And then on the flip side for coaches as well, why do you think more coaches aren't kind of leaning towards this way of training?
Yeah, I think there's reluctance, let's say, with coaching staffs, like, because you don't want to encourage a player to shoot contested shots, right? And again, let me preface all of this by saying, I think this is a great way to train for shooters, for guys that are already shooters.
Like, if you're trying to become a consistent shooter, I think, you know, there's a different pathway to getting there, you know, depending on your mechanics and whatnot. But nonetheless, I think that coaches don't want to encourage their players shooting contested shots, but My philosophy is that if he's a shooter, majority of his shots are going to get contested.
That's what defense is there for. That is, you know, assignment number one, priority number one is to run them off the 3-point line and force them into something else. So it's like, if we're going to shoot these contested shots anyway, why not become better contested shooters?
You know, so it's like when you look at the numbers, like as I was breaking down the contest numbers and, you know, we're going to throw Steph out of there. He's just otherworldly. But like Duncan Robinson, like if your hand is late, so obviously late in regards to his shooting motion, like your hand being below the ball, Duncan was a, I think he was a 38% 3-point shooter.
If you were an early high hand, he was 28%. And then for Desmond Bane that last year with Memphis, I believe his numbers were 40% on a late hand contest. And then he dropped all the way to 17% with an early high hand contest.
So I think that, you know, of course coaches want uncontested shots. We all want that in the perfect world, but basketball is an imperfect game. So I think that if we prepare for these, you know, imperfections that are going to occur, then maybe we take a 40% shooter and we turn him into a 43% shooter.
That's a win. You know what I mean? You take a 39 to a 41, that is a win over the course of a season. You know what I mean? Especially these guys are shooting, you know, 5, 6, 7, 8 threes a game. So, you know, that's kind of my whole premise.
And I think players, like, I'm reluctant to do it with certain players, especially if I know you're an emotional shooter, you know, because you need confidence. So now I'm kind of like masking as to when we're going to do contested shooting leading up to a game, you know.
But right before the game, we probably won't shoot as many contested shots because I want you to have confidence. So maybe we're just making shots in a row because I just want you to see that ball just going through, going through, going through.
And then, you know, some of the spots, like, actually, like in pregame, now I'm going to give you some soft And things of that nature. But yeah, I think there's all different kind of ways to contest. I don't think standing in front of you comfortably and just putting my hand in front of your face, I don't really think that is a contest.
That is a visual obstruction. But I think a contest like, yes, you have to make, you know, 6 out of 10. I'm probably gonna block one of them. I'm gonna strip one on the way out. I'm gonna try to disrupt your ball path.
Like, you know, these things are things that happen in the game that I think are more representative of what would happen, you know, in game. And I think this is what needs to happen.
Yeah.
to be implemented in our shooting practices.
Yeah, I love that you said it's like adding the variability to every rep because in the game, you know, the ball is going to be coming from a different direction. The contest is going to be, you know, maybe a different distance coming from a different direction.
It's going to be a bad pass. It's going to be different time and score, different fatigue levels. So being able to, you know, you can't replicate the game exactly, but as much as possible in like every single rep and in the workouts, I think is super important.
I do want to ask you, do you look at the type of misses as well? It's from your scouting. Like, let's combine those 2, scouting and the shooting. Like, are you looking at how players miss as well?
Oh, it's so funny you asked that because let's just say like right now we're looking at, we're looking at shooters, right? So I got like 20 different shooters that I'm looking at in the transfer portal and it's like, okay, they all shoot 40.
Okay. Now what? Let's look at their misses. You know what I'm saying? Let me see, because your miss tells me a lot. You know, like if you're missing like left and right more so than somebody that's just missing short and long, I feel more comfortable with the guy that's missing short and long.
We got less to fix, right? You know, and a lot of times, like when you watch the misses, you can tell if a guy's just shooting a little too much off of his palm or if he's pushing it. And then you can sometimes see more deficiencies in their mechanics and how they release the ball.
You know what I mean? Are they catapulting it? You know, is it coming off cleanly? So I like to watch the misses. You know, one shooting drill I actually do too is I tell, you know, the shooters to miss and hit the back rim.
Like, let's get 5 back rim misses to warm up. You know, let's get 10 back rim misses to warm up. Because it's like, if you can control the ball so much that you could hit the most— the smallest point of the rim, like, now when you're trying to make it, you know what I'm saying?
Aim small, miss small. You feel me? So That's kind of where my mind goes in regards to, you know, judging shooters. I do look at the misses. Like, if you're missing left and then you're missing right, now we got a problem. I'd rather you always miss left than miss left and right and short and long.
'Cause now, you know what I mean? We're all over the place. We got multiple problems here.
Yeah, man. Alex Sarama that founded Transforming, he was like, we were doing DL shooting once and it was like, all right, you make the first and then you have to hit the front of the rim on the second. And I was like, that's so interesting because I do think a lot of the time you spoke about shooters that don't have confidence.
They're just trying to make it all the time. Whereas now we're going to give you something else to aim for that kind of takes the emotion out of making or missing. Because I do think there's a lot of emotion attached to like, oh, did I make the shot?
Did I miss? But now you're trying to miss, but you're trying to hit a specific part of the rim. I think it's so interesting. On that note, do you have any other activities And drills that you do, you know, that are representative?
What I do is I try to increase like the cognitive load. And again, a lot of this just has to do with, it really just has to do with how much manpower you have. So, you know, a lot of times, you know, I try to, most of the time, like we're going to shoot like 10 shots and, you know, you have to get a number.
So depending on the shooter, like sometimes, you know, you got to hit 6 of 10 or 5 of 10. Or you got to get, you know, 7 of 10. And I'm going to contest in every couple spots. I'm going to block one, or I'm going to try to nick it, you know, on the way up, just to put something in your head.
And then there's the consequence at the end. Like, you got to run, you know what I'm saying? If you get, let's say, like, you go 5 of 10 and your goal is 7 of 10, now you got 2 down and backs. Because I think there has to be pressure.
There has to be fatigue. And then obviously, I just trust myself closing out more so than the managers because, you know, guys jump forward and, you know, you don't want to land on feet. And then sometimes I'm running out, sometimes I'm not quite running, sometimes I'm jumping my hardest and trying to get a piece.
You know, you throw a lot of different wrinkles in there. So if I do have the manpower, if I do have somebody contesting that I trust, now I also try to throw wrinkles in. Like I'll say extra, and now you have to make the extra pass as you're getting into your shooting motion to disrupt rhythm.
Like auditory cues, I think are good sometimes, even if I don't have somebody contesting, I try to throw auditory cues in there. As we're trying to meet our goal, just to throw off rhythm. So I could say flyby. So he pump fakes, he takes a sidestep right before he shoots.
I say extra. Now he has to kick it to me. I kick it back to him and now it's flyby again. You know what I mean? Just to add some difficulties. But I think the best exercise is just closeouts and having to decision make.
I was recently doing kind of like a one-on-one where we had a screener. I had a defender who was going to close out. And then so the offensive player had to run off the screen, try to get his shot off. If he couldn't, he can kick back to me.
Every time the pass comes back to me, the defender has to jump to the ball. You know, he has to jump to the ball. I hit back to the shooter and now they have to close out. And then he's basically just moving on one side of the floor.
Point for a miss, you know, for the defense, point for a make for the offense. So that can get kind of tiring, but it kind of gets them, you know, moving and passing and then moving to another spot, you know, quickly, a little more game-like.
So. I did that the other day as well, but yeah, I think there's, you know, in trying to develop the best practices for, you know, I guess representative shooting, you definitely have to, you know, put as many obstacles and cognitive load as possible.
Somebody gave me the idea of trying to have them like count backwards, you know, while they're doing certain activities. So now your mind is concentrated on something else. So that might be something that I try to implement as well. You know, in the game, because there's just so many decisions and so many things you have to think through while you're on the court in game.
Absolutely. I think that's awesome. It's like keeping it simple where it's just, you know, a one-on-one game with a contest coming out. And I think it's as simple as that. Like maybe a coach can contest, or if you have enough bodies and players, there's no reason why you can't just go one-on-one and the, you know, the defense is contesting and then they start, you know, 2 or 3 or 4 steps back, however is needed depending on the level of the players.
And then, you know, I love what you said about having the consequence, having a goal to reach just makes it more representative of what's actually going to happen in the game. I want to talk about, so, you know, it's going to look messy, right?
So transitioning now, managing this mess, how do you make the players feel like even though they're unsuccessful, like maybe you get a player that, you know, shoots 40% at 3s and they go through one of these sessions for the first time and they're You know, 1 for 10, 2 for 10, whatever.
How do you get them comfortable that this is actually making them better versus them going 6 for 10, 7 for 10 by themselves?
I think, you know, like with anything, you got to prime your subject. Like, look, you're not going to shoot your normal practice percentage, you know, as we're contesting. So try not to get frustrated with that. But with guys that do get super frustrated, if I find that, okay, you know, he's kind of breaking down, fatigue is really starting to set in.
I'll just break away. We'll just like, okay, let's get 5 in a row real quick. You know what I'm saying? Just so they see the ball going in. And I usually like to end with some uncontested 5 in a row from 5 spots, you know, 7 in a row, depending on the shooter, of course, 3 in a row, just so they see the ball going in.
You know what I mean? So usually with the frustration, I think you got to prime your subject. Like, look, you're not going to shoot, you know, your percentage. I'm going to block some. I want you to remain calm. Your main focus is to remain calm, stay locked in on the goal regardless of what happens.
Don't, don't get tied to the result, get tied to the process. Because I think in game, you feel the stress of somebody being in your space, just like if you're waiting in line at the grocery store, somebody's too close to you, right? So you feel that, but it's like, it's all about contesting shots and all this other stuff is about just feeling calm under chaos.
And so that's the main goal of everything is just feeling calm under chaos. And then executing the same shot as if you were unguarded. And, you know, usually it's usually in the beginning of the workout where we're contesting shots that they start to struggle and then they start to like settle down.
Like, okay, I know the contest is coming. I'm feeling better. And then you start to see the numbers rise a little bit. You know, they get a little more comfortable.
Yeah. They start to adapt, right? To like the environment. They start to adapt to the different constraints in the environment.
Yeah. For sure.
Outside of shooting, what is the most non-representative habit in coaching today? And how can we start transforming these habits?
Man, I think that the most non-representative habit, I think, is just, I think a lot of it is just the pitch and catch. You know, I think a lot of times we pitch and catch and, you know, guys are just shooting from the 3-point line.
You're just pitching it from under the basket. I mean, it's rare that these passes are coming from there.
Yeah. Offensive rebounds, right?
Yes. You know, Occasionally somebody gets trapped, you know, under the box and then, you know, he pulls behind and you'll find it from there. But it's rare that these passes, you know, unless it's like a baseline drift. But that's one thing, you know, and I think another thing I would probably say is as coaches, and this is not necessarily in regards to training, but I think a lot of times we don't correct the right way.
Like, you know, you could tell somebody to like play harder than What does that mean? Like, don't miss. Like, what does that mean? Like, make it. What does that mean? You know, I think we need to be a little more specific with our instruction and not telling them exactly how to do, but like getting them to think, like, you know, so when I'm shooting with one of my players and he's missing right, I'm like, why do you think you're missing right?
Why do you think you're missing left? Why do you think you're missing short or long? You know what I mean? Is it your sequencing? Is it How the ball's coming off your hand. Is it coming off your ring and your pinky finger? Like, you know, we've had so many different players, you know, on our team this year that shot the ball completely different.
I've never seen these type of forms before in my life. So, but it was great just to kind of see like, okay, this is how this guy typically misses. This is how he typically misses. This is what I think could fix that problem.
So I think by asking more questions instead of giving instruction to players, I think you help them figure out.
Yeah.
You know, problems to their own shot. You know what I mean? Because I was the type of person, like, I used to just think too much. Like, okay, it's a little off. I used to judge my makes. I read— every shot tells a story.
You know, you can make it left, you can make it right, you can miss it left, you can miss it right, you can make it short, you can miss it long, make it long. You know what I mean? So, but I think like every one of those problems has a solution.
And if you don't start asking the right questions, you'll never be able to figure your own body out to understand why you're shooting it left or why you're shooting it right.
Also on that note, I think, you know, there's a lot more players than there are coaches, generally speaking, you know, around world basketball. So I think, you know, if coaches really want to maximize their teams, they would do a great job, like ask questions, because then you don't have to always have the answers either.
Because if you're one coach coaching a team of 12 players, it's going to be very hard for you to have an answer every single time there's a problem for each player. As opposed to them figuring it out for themselves. I think that's a great point.
Anthony, I just want to say thank you for your time and, you know, really enjoyed this conversation. And it's so interesting just to kind of hear it from your perspective and like, obviously you taking the time to look into these makes, you know, it's crazy examining when the, when the contest hand is over the ball versus below the ball.
You know, it's really interesting, but it just shows like how dedicated you are to You know, your craft really as a coach. Before I let you go, I do want to ask you one last question. And we ask all our guests this. It's our transformative tip question.
If you could leave coaches with one piece of advice that would instantly transform their practice environments, what would it be?
I think just making the players go as hard as possible, go as hard as they're going to go in the game. I mean, everybody's full speed is different. Their game speed, I should say, is different. But I think so many times, and I'm a victim of this too, it's hard to get them, you know, in practice, just shooting around, whatever it is, to go game speed.
But, you know, I always tell, you know, my players, like, if we're going to shoot this slow, we might as well just form shoot. This is form shooting. This is not, you know, game shooting. And I think that the goal for every coach is to get their players to play hard.
And I think, you know, just as a player, sometimes you don't know what that looks like or what that feels like. And this is one thing I think, you know, Coach Bonone is great at. He just showed a player the other day is like, I want you to run from here to here.
Like, that is a sprint. I want you to sprint to the basket. You know what I mean? That is showing a player, this is how you run hard. This is how you drive hard or whatever you're trying to tell them to do. But yeah, I think that's the most important thing is like, if you're trying to get them to adapt to the game, they have to be moving at their game pace to see what it really truly feels like.
Because as we all know, basketball's a timing issue. Once that time is thrown off, you're not getting the right reps.
Absolutely. That's the first time we've had that answer. That's a great answer as well. Thank you once again, Anthony. It's been a great conversation.
Thank you. I appreciate it.
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