There are many things that make up a successful basketball shot. Without legs supplying the correct amount of power and arc, most shots will be doomed from the start. What happens with the arms, and specifically the elbow of the shooting arm is essential since that is a large part of a shooters 'guidance system'. Fingers are critical, since that is really the only contact the shooter has with the ball. The wrist matters, since without it there is no real rotation on the ball.  The list of fundamentals is long (and I have a list of tips covering all these already posted at Ezinearticles.com)

However in my view, none of those things are "THE" key to shooting. In 40+ years, I've seen just about every basic rule of shooting violated at some time...and seen the ball go in the hoop. There was one boy my son played with that literally had sideways rotation on his shot...not backwards, but literally sideways...never seen anything like it, but the kid could put the ball in the hole.

I've asked myself why these often ugly shots will go in the hoop, and I'm sure there are a number of ways to explain it. I think it boils down to this...the mind's eye is a powerful thing. These shooters have confidence, belief, certainty and that can in many cases overrule other factors.

The key to successful shooting is in the mind of the shooter. It’s that picture in the minds eye of a successful shot going in. People call it 'confidence'.

University of Chicago Psychology Professor, Mihalyi Czikszentmihalyi author of Flow – the Psychology of the Optimal Experience has found that the kind of "confidence" we see in great shooters occurs when a person enters a postive mental/emotional state while immersed in an activity. He has called this state The Flow, since one of its main characteristics is a mental state where things just seems to flow naturally. The Flow state is what allows achievers to be both productive for long periods and able to overcome setbacks on the way to success.

I'm a fan of Maxwell Maltz and his body of work regarding "PsychoCybernetics". In short, his view is that our brain is a goal seeking mechanism....you give it instructions and it carries them out. Give it negative directions, you get negative results...positive and clear directions, you get successful results (you'll have to read his book to get the details). This is exactly what we are asking of a shooter...to have his or her brain to send electrical impulses down the spinal cord to instruct the legs to bend "just so", the wrist to snap back a certain number of degrees, the fingers to maintain a particular degree of firmness, etc.

Looking at it from the negative, I have seen really great shooters...shooters who could knock down 50 consecutive free throws in practice...make only 6 of 10 in a game. Why? Clearly their body knew how to shoot. They had practiced enough. The missing link was in their MIND...they saw a picture in their mind of a miss...and that acted as an 'order' to their brain...which dutifully carried it out. So just at the point of release, instead of being in a state of flow, one finger tensed just enough to throw the rotation off just enough to miss.

If you are not a shooter, you may be skeptical that this is some psychological mumbo jumbo. If you are a shooter, you will have had this experience. If you don't recognize it, it may be because you've never really thought about it. But at its core, "confidence" amounts to a mental expectation of success...a belief that "the hoop is a as big as the ocean and I can't miss". And that in the end is nothing more than a series of images, since it is images that we all think in (to prove it, if I say “horse”…what comes to mind…an image of a horse or the letters h-o-r-s-e?  Either way, you’re seeing pictures)

This explains the phenomenon that experienced coaches have seen...kids who are 'gamers'. They don't play well in practice, but they shoot lights out in a game.  You also have the opposite phenomenon; players who kill in practice but seize up in game.  Why would that be? My belief is that when that game starts, gamers mentally shift gears. They take off their normal clothes and put on a cape...and they are now 'super shooter' in their own mind. The competition triggered an altered state of consciousness that started a flow type pattern in the players mind...they relaxed, letting the incredibly capable and complex brain take over… and shots start pouring in.

It also explains the most feared of all basketball words...choke. No athlete wants to 'choke'. But what is choking? In my view, nothing more than a deeply held fear...or negative mental picture. Instead of seeing that ball go in the hoop, the player imagines all the terrible things that will happen should they miss.  “I’ll be the laughing stock of the school”.  “My teammates will be angry if I screw up”.  And since they are focusing on that negative image, the brain dutifully orders up that result, thinking that is what the player wants (after all, the player 'ordered' it). I'm sure for some, this sounds too “spacey”, but while that may have been true 40 years ago, today sports psychology all but accepts what I am writing as common fact.

This mental imagery/flow perspective also explains why all great free throw shooters have a routine...two dribbles, toss the ball in the air, look at the rim, etc. Its not dark magic, but what it does is (a) trigger a positive chain of events and normally a positive mental image and (b) allows your body to take over and keep your mind from getting in the way.

You should learn correct form. You should practice until it becomes automatic.  These are very important skills to develop. But if you practice thousands of times, correctly, you will only become great if you can relax and let your body do all it’s been trained to do. And in order for that to happen, you must have a positive mental image of a successful shot before and during that shot.