Good Shots vs Great Shots

Ask any coach from high school to the WNBA and they’ll tell you the most important factor in determining wins and losses is shot selection and it probably has something to do with the fact that if you were to look at all the NCAA data from the past 10 years, you’d see that the #1 correlation between wins and losses is effective field goal percentage.

That’s why nothing makes a coach cringe more than watching players huck up terrible shots.

One such coach who’d had enough of this was PGC Founder Dick DeVenzio. In fact, it drove him so crazy he invented his own way to teach players good shot selection.

He called it LONHOBIRS

LONHOBIR is a made-up word for good shot selection—a thing that almost all players are terrible at. The word takes the first letter of each word of the following phrase: Shoot Layups Or (shots with) No Hand (up) On Balance In Range.

As Dick used to say…

You’ve got to wonder (unless time is running out) why anyone ever takes anything but a layup or a shot with no hand in the face on balance and in a good shooting range. If you can’t get the shot you want, pass off. That seems easy enough, yet players instead want to flip up a scooper or let go of a flying hook or a fade-away jumper. What for?

Most players just don’t give much thought to percentages. A big mistake seeing how important it is to win (and to your coach!)

WATCH: What’s A Good Shot Vs. A Bad Shot?

What Most Players Get Wrong With Shot Selection

Notice what isn’t a part of Dick’s shot-selection training or Chad’s classroom teaching in the video above?

Notice how neither of them say:

“You’ve made your last three shots, so keep shooting”

Or…

“You feel hot, so keep shooting”

Or…

“You really want to score and show off to your boyfriend or girlfriend, so keep shooting”

Great shot selection isn’t emotional.

It’s objective.

The more often players evaluate shots through this lens, the faster those decisions become.

Eventually, they stop consciously thinking about LONHOBIR altogether. They simply recognize good basketball.

Shot Selection Questions To Ask Yourself (And Your Players)

• Watch a great catch-and-shoot player on film and pause it the instant the ball leaves the passer’s hand. Pay attention to how their feet are already moving into position. Their hands are already up. Their body language looks decisive. Nothing about the shot is a surprise to their own body.
• Now watch an average shooter in the same moment. Their feet are typically flat, their hands are down, and the entire shot, footwork, balance, and release, has to happen in the same fraction of a second the great shooter spent only on the release.
• This is why the same “open” shot looks rushed for one player and effortless for another. It was never about the shot. It was about everything that happened before the catch.

For Coaches: How To Build This Habit At Practice

1. What excuse do you have for shooting shots off balance and out of your “sure-shooting” range?
2. Why do you shoot when there is a hand in your face?
3. Why won’t you pass off and wait for a higher percentage opportunity?
4. Why do you ever take a bad shot in a one-on-one match?

Sometimes, even good players make very little sense.

What This Looks Like on the Floor

• A possession breaks down, the shot clock is dying, and a player catches an open (but rushed, off-balance) three. It goes up. It’s a “good” shot by the letter of the law, open, and a bad one by every other measure.
• Compare that to a player who, in the exact same situation, recognizes the shot isn’t hers and instead drives into a crowd to draw a foul or kick to a teammate for a shot she does trust. Same 24 seconds. Completely different basketball IQ.
• Over a season, the gap between a team that hunts good shots and a team that hunts great shots shows up as points, but it shows up first as confidence. Players who only take shots they trust, shoot with less hesitation and more conviction.

For Coaches: How to Build This In at Practice

Shot selection is a skill you can chart and coach with the same rigor you’d apply to any other fundamental, but only after players have heard the standard, watched it identified on film, and practiced applying it themselves.

• Say the standard out loud, early and often: “open isn’t the same as right.” Players need to hear this named before they’ll start applying it under pressure.
• In film review, show the difference directly, chart shot quality on a simple scale, not just makes and misses, but whether the shot was “earned” (in rhythm, in a trusted spot) or merely “available” (open, but rushed or out of rhythm).
• Have each player identify their own top 2–3 “green light” shots — the shots they know cold — and hold them accountable to hunting those specifically in scrimmages. This is where the standard becomes a habit they own.
• Build small-sided games with a rule: a made shot only counts if it was a “great” shot by the group’s own standard. This forces the team to police shot quality together instead of leaving it to the coach alone.
• Praise the pass out of a good-but-not-great shot as enthusiastically as you praise a make. That’s the habit you’re actually trying to build.

The Car Ride Home

The scoreboard only tells you what happened. It never tells you whether your player took the right shot to get there, and whether your coach is happy with their decision-making or not Consider asking this:

What shots did coach want you taking out there tonight? Do you have clarity from him/her on what shots you have the green light to take?

These questions do something subtle but important: they shift the conversation away from makes and misses and toward decision-making quality, which is the thing your player actually controls. A missed great shot is a good night. A made good-but-not-great shot is still worth a conversation. Keep the ride home focused on the choice, not the bounce.

This Week’s Challenge

Write down your top two or three “green light shots”, the shots the coach has given you the thumbs up on. Be specific: the spot, the setup, the rhythm.

In your next scrimmage, take only those shots, even when a merely “good” open shot is available. Notice what happens to your shooting confidence when every shot is one you already trust.

Open isn’t the same as right. Know the difference before the ball finds you.

Shot selection is one of the core basketball IQ habits built into every PGC course, because a player who knows their shots plays with more confidence than a player who simply knows they’re open.