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My Lack of Basketball Skills Explained


ZZ

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Tonight our CYO basketball team had its first practice and it looks like this year we'll be a force to be reckoned with amongst the other schools in our vicinity. However, I'm not sure if I can claim any part of this team's skill. I may account for 1/100 of our team's entire skill. In order to make myself feel better, I can explain why this is so using some fairly simple physics. Some undesirable facets of my game include:

My layups

I have a tendency to miss shots that some might consider "impossible to miss." There's an art to this. Normally, coaches tell their players to just aim for the square on the backboard and hope for the best. However this doesn't account for the speed of the basketball player running towards the basket. This speed must be accounted for, since you want the ball to just knick off the backboard and fall in the net. It's all relative motion. Therefore, you're supposed to take into consideration your speed, then add the extra desired speed when you throw the ball up, and only when done correctly will you score. 

My Jump Shots:

Although my mid-range jump shots have signifcantly improved, this does not mean they are high percentage. Let's start with the beginning of the "jump shot." In order to provide the most efficient jump, it's best to keep your feet no further than 6-8 inches apart from each other. Then, the jump. The jump determines how much initial velocity in the Y-direction the ball will have before I launch it at a certain angle (giving it an added speed of vsinθ and vcosθ in the respective y and x directions). The value of θ, the launch angle, determines if the ball will go in or not as well. An angle too high will send the ball off the backboard (or even short), and an angle too small will send the ball under the hoop for a turnover as well. Lastly, you have to account for your momentum before the jump occurs. If you were running forward, even if you stopped, you will tend to be moving forward into your shot and your displacement from the hoop with have changed, as well as the momentum the ball has before an impulse is applied (similar to my layup issues).

Jumping:

Lastly, although it's quite basic level physics, jumping contains physics. It's all about the force you apply to the ground, which the ground will apply back to you - Newton's Third Law. Playing as one of the team's "Big Men," I have to jump often for rebounds and jump balls, and I often lose out because people who have been able to develop stronger jumping muscles have an advantage in that category (if they aren't taller than I am already). 

 

What I good at? I guess I'm on the larger side...

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