The Basketball Podcast: EP203 with Brandon Payne on Training Steph Curry

Brandon Payne Coach Quotes:

“Teaching and coaching shooting is a very individualized thing. One of the things I tell all shooters and all parents and all coaches is that shooting mechanics are as individual as your fingerprint and no two shooters are going to shoot the basketball alike. There’s so many things that go into the mechanics of the shot.”

“If you’re constantly giving verbal feedback, if you’re constantly picking things out, and most of the time, the most feedback I hear is all about the finishing portion of the shot, you’re missing the process that actually creates the shot.”

“Some of the cues that are important to us from a foot standpoint . . making sure that the shooter is always playing between their arches . . loading the big toes evenly . . If one foot is loaded more than the other, you’re going to get into a lot of compensating movement patterns up through the shot, so you’re not going to be a very consistent shooter.”

“You want to make sure that you’re as sound as you possibly can be from the ground up as a shooter. Because if you’re not sound from the ground up, everything you do above your waist is compensating.”

“Shooters are made and corrected in the weight room because movement patterns make shooters.”

“Precision and holding yourself accountable, every shot matters. There’s no such thing as a wasted rep. Yet every shot is either taking you forwards or backwards. And competing . . I’ve gotten to the point where we don’t do just any shooting around anymore . . everything we do is competitive, everything we do is either against a score or number against time.”

“You have to hold yourself accountable when you don’t succeed within your shooting competitions and find ways to continue to layer on difficulty. But the biggest thing we’ve started to do is understanding the value of doing heart rate match shooting; understanding that the value of low heart rate shots is pretty low. You have to match game heart rate in order for those shots to really have value.”

“Add some some variability to it [shooting practice] because it’s not very difficult for shooters to get really grooved at one range. And once the shooter starts to get mechanically grooved at one range, they do start to lose touch and feel at other spots. And so to add . . variability to what you’re doing, it goes a long way toward their ability to continue to develop touch and touch is something you have to work on constantly.”

“Also, variability from how you’re picking up the ball and shots off the dribble with his right hand, pick up left hand pick up crossover between your legs behind your back. We work in multi-angle variability as well.”

“Steph has three main reads he makes on every defender. Basically, [if] the defender takes something away, they give something up . . but not only understanding what’s going on with the defender in front of you, but understanding the help concept behind the defender. Because sometimes, if there’s a weak help concept behind the on ball defender, then you know you can make a move as a shooter and actually draw the help closer and create an opportunity for a teammate. So shooting off the dribble is not only a very effective tool for a guy like Steph as a scorer, but it’s also a very effective tool for him to get other guys open.”

“We’re also working on his [Steph Curry’s] processing speed, mentally, in game situations. He controls the game and he has to make so many decisions on the floor that we constantly have to challenge him mentally with a ball in his hand and we have to force him to make decisions, to change and react to the information that we present to him in stationary settings because that helps him in game situations when something changes in front of him.”

“Coachability with young players is a huge part of becoming a better basketball player. And you’re not going to get a lot of buy-in from young girls and young guys a lot of times until they actually see the things that you’re saying they’re doing on film.”

“The court essentially shrinks when you get with bigger, faster players. So your creativity and how you create space becomes a premium product for you because you’ve got to be able to do it to get shots off.”

“We’ve actually started teaching how to utilize the contact to help you slow down . . being able to go at full speed, but creating controllable contact to help you slow down, but also to control the shot blockers, to ground the shot blockers. We talked about nailing the shot blockers on the ground with contact. And you do that by creating controllable contact, and you’ve got to be the first person that is doing the hitting.”

Brandon Payne Breakdown:

1:00 – Golf Caddy Analogy
3:00 – Not Giving Repetition
5:00 – Interval Individualization
7:00 – Important Cues
9:00 – Push The Ground Harder
14:00 – Shooting in the Gym
18:00 – Breathing in Shooting
23:00 – Coming Off Screens
25:00 – Preparation For Shooters
27:00 – Shooting Off The Dribble Footwork
32:00 – Ball Pickup
34:00 – Overload
37:00 – Retrieval Practice to Permanent
40:00 – Catch and Shoot
47:00 – Landing
52:00 – Dell and Steph Curry
54:00 – Workload Management
59:00 – Conclusion

Brandon Payne Links from the Podcast:

Accelerate Basketball Training

Brandon Payne Instagram

The Underrated Tour