Earlier this summer, I wrote in the Hard2Guard Player Development Newsletter that the floater is one shot which separates the better high school gu
ards from average guards who tend to penetrate too far.
The floater is one of the more difficult skills to teach. The floater requires a great feel for the shot and for scoring. There is an element of timing, balance and rhythm that is hard to teach through explicit instructions.
Therefore, I prefer to demonstrate the shot and allow players freedom to work on the shot and master their own way to shoot the floater. Some players shoot off one foot; some shoot off two feet. However, players with great floaters avoid defenders and use the shot to score over bigger players.
In the Newsletter, I promised some videos of players making floaters:
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I too teach floaters/runners. One of the key teaching points for me relates to not applying too much force on the ball, as these shots are easy to overshoot. My instruction is, and you can see this on several of the floaters in the video, is to not flex the wrist past neutral during the shot. Basically I want it to be a push shot with virtually no wrist contribution at all (although with increasing distances from the basket wrist flexion needs to be used). With a moderate amount of practice the “no wrist” floater becomes a consistent shot, relatively easy to control.
Agree. I say to shoot it like a shot put, just more vertical.
The most common mistake that I see with young players is the lack of balance and underestimating the effect of their momentum on the shot, especially players who lean away from their shot and fail to shoot the ball straight.