Try A Little Confidence

Larry Bird is legendary for his basketball savvy and
competitiveness but when the NBA published "The
Perfect Team: The Best Players, Coach, and GM's -
Let the Debate Begin!", they focused the chapter
about Bird on his confidence.

You've probably heard how he strolled into the locker
room preceding the first 3-Point shooting contest at the
1986 All-Star weekend and announced. "Hey, guys,
which one of you is going to finish second?"

For some people that might just be a a psych-out
technique, and he was a master of that, but that's
because people knew he could back up what he said.
That kind of confidence was well earned.

Jackie MacMullan who wrote the chapter on Bird
details why:

"Bird spent hours after practice preparing for the
competition with Celtics teammates Danny Ainge and
Scott Wedman, two excellent long-ball shooters. He
left nothing to chance, importing red, white, and blue
balls into his workout, knowing they would be used in
the competition and would be worth a point more than
the regular balls. He positioned the five racks around
the three-point arc in deliberate fashion, always placing
them in the same spot, with the seams lined up
uniformly. He simulated timed rounds and tallied his
results in his head. By the time he arrived in Dallas,
Bird wasn't just the most confident contestant, he was
also the most prepared."

Any shooter wanting to improve couldn't do any better
than to take to heart what else Larry had to say:

"At that point of my career, I had all the confidence in
the world. When I took a shot, I believed it was going in,
every time. I had taken so many shots, I couldn't
imagine missing. I only thought in positive terms. I've
always done a lot of shooting on my own in the summer.
I got to the point where I could hit eighty to a hundred
in a row without missing. That leads to a feeling of
'Give me the ball. I know I can make it.' "

How much will you do this summer to build your
confidence?

Shoot for the Stars,

Dean Delker - The Dean of Shooting Hoops

P.S. You can become a master at anything you
want if you're willing to put in the training time.
It has been said it takes 1000 hours to develop
mastery at a task, and you can cut that as much
as in half with great coaching. Get a dynamic start
on reaching mastery in shooting with Coach Tom
Nordland's one hour Swish video available at:

http://www.deandelker.com/swish.html

P.S.S. Coming very soon too - Tom's Swish 2
video. Twice as long. Twice as much detail.
Twice as much learning.

Copyright, Delker Enterprises, Inc. 2006