Breaking Down President Barack Obama's Hoops Game
Now that Barack Obama has made his 2015 NCAA tournament picks, it's time to pick apart his hoop skills. It's only fair.
We're not the first to do it—former NBA commissioner David Stern audited the Commander in Chief’s game in a 2012 interview with Reuters TV: "He's not that good. I'm a loyal Democrat, but he's not as good as he thinks he is."
We're here to help, Mr. President. We asked professional shooting coach David Nurse to go into more detail about how to fix POTUS's game.
1. Shot motion
I'll give him credit. He does have a smooth release and a soft touch. But there is plenty of room for improvement here.
His release is egregiously slow (still quicker than Ricky Rubio’s, though) and clocks in at around 1.1-1.4 seconds. To be an effective shooter and have the ability to get his shot off in game situations, he needs to get his release time down to 0.7-1.0 seconds. I’m not saying he needs to be Steph Curry, but he does need a quicker release time.
Obama needs to focus on attacking the pass when the ball is in the air so he is ready to shoot when the ball arrives in his hands. Obama releases his shot slightly across the mid-line of his body and actually more on the right side. This causes too much variation for a shooter with the extra body torque motion.
Over the course of a game, it's hard to consistently replicate this motion the same way every single time. From the looks of it, he’s been watching too much Kevin Martin game tape.
Rumor has it that when Obama was in high school, he was nicknamed “Barry O'Bomber” for his long-range shooting ability, per David Maraniss of The Washington Post.
As a shooter, if you could pick the single most important aspect in the shot motion, it would be the follow through. This is what controls the shot and takes it from hoping it goes in to knowing it goes in.
Right now Obama is hoping it goes in.
And we just can’t have that type of uncertainty with our Commander in Chief. All great shooters know that you must extend your follow through and lock the elbow out directly above the ear, in order to consistently shoot with the ideal arc trajectory of 48 degrees.
Obama does not lock his elbow out and does not "snap" up into his shot. He does not regularly hold his follow through either, which hurts a shooter’s consistency.
3. Can only go left
The scouting report is out. Obama can only go left.
To lock down Obama, the defender only needs to focus on forcing him to his right hand. This makes the defender’s life that much easier, closing off half of the court from the start.
Even David Stern knew it, per Reuters TV's Robert Wolf (h/t The Huffington Post).
4. Know your role
Phil Jackson, Pat Riley, Scott Brooks, the list goes on and on.
Some role players are simply better suited to be coaches. Honestly, I think this is where Obama’s true calling is—on the sidelines calling the shots.
Most great coaches in NBA history were role players with the ability to understand the role of a player and the role of a coach. Obama has this talent; he just needs to embrace it.
Per ABC News, he took over control of his daughter Sasha’s basketball team mid-season, which made sense.
That's more like it.
David Nurse is a professional shooting coach who has worked with NBA, college and professional basketball players around the world.
