I spent the last week working out Avery Smith, standout player at UW-Milwaukee, who is heading over to Italy tomorrow for his rookie pro season. One aspect of his game that pro scouts had questioned was his shot and after our first workout I could see why. It was inconsistent, didn’t have much rotation and his guide hand often “thumbed” the ball. After the workout he asked me what I thought he needed to work on and told him that his shot was what most people are going to question and rightfully so. We proceeded to spend the week focusing on his release and he made strides I didn’t think were realistic.
For example, the first night we worked out he never made it past the 7th spot in “Celtics 3’s”. Of the 8 times we did the drill only made it half way most of the time. 5 days and thousands of shots later he consistently made it to the last spot. Although Avery never beat the drill, my point is that he made huge strides in just a few days because he committed to shooting thousands of shots and believed in what he was doing.
Good luck to Avery and all the rookies striving with passion and purpose to keep their professional basketball dreams alive!
See Celtics Threes below, an excerpt of the Three Ball Threat download, available at the store here.
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The founder of Mike Lee Basketball Services (formerly Playmakers Basketball), Mike is known throughout the country for individual player skill development. He has been a speaker at several events and has also recently authored several instructional workout DVDs, which will be released over the next year. Titles out right now include, 25 Killer Scoring Moves, Secrets of Unstoppable Guard Play and Secrets of Unstoppable Shooting. Since 2006 Mike Lee Basketball has trained over 3,600 boys and girls through their skill development programs. Dozens of players that Mike has worked with have gone on to play collegiate basketball, some at the NCAA DI level. In addition to his own basketball services, Mike is a Nike Girls Skills Trainer and a member of the Nike sponsored, Ganon Baker Basketball.
From 2001-2006, Mike participated as a player and assistant coach at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. During the fall of 2006 he was awarded a scholarship to attend the Coach K and Duke University Leadership Conference in Durham, NC. In December of 2006 he graduated from the University of Wiconsin-Stout with a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology and a self-planned concentration in Basketball Entrepreneurship.
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