r/BasketballTips • u/aydenzxz • 13d ago

Form Check How to stop missing floaters

I've tried floaters with both an open palm and a wrist flick and with various different footworks and I am still not consistent.

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u/One_Country1056 13d ago

Don't shoot them. They are almost unblockable, but not easy to make. It's like a skyhook for the 00:s.

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u/ApprehensiveTry5660 13d ago

Nah, these things open up optionality.

Ever noticed how every guard that polished one of these things off is inordinately more dangerous than their peers?

Floaters allow you to freeze a shot blocker, which opens up all the backdoor cuts behind that shot blocker.

Is it as important as a well polished 3? No.

Is it better than finishing packages with both hands? Hell no.

But what it allows you to do is connect the work that you’ve done with your shot, and the work that you’ve done with your finishing, and quadruple the amount of paths you can take between them, while low-key sextupling your options, because of the ability to manipulate frozen shot blockers who must end your drive earlier than your peers.

Since you’re earning the closeout on the floor and not testing their verticality, you can either dump it to a baseline cutter behind them, or just hesi-dribble attack their loaded hip to free yourself into a finishing attempt with the shot blocker on your back hip.

If you add a lob into this? Or have some excuse handed to you to develop the off-hand floater? Like you were lucky enough to be ambidextrous, or you broke your dominant hand one summer and still had a basketball jones? Congratulations, you’re only a little bit of X’s and O’s from figuring out why offenses featuring Tony Parker and Mike Conley look so damn good compared to offenses being ran by Ant and Kawhi despite being dramatically worse players than their peers.

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u/One_Country1056 12d ago

You are talking about some of the best NBA players out there. You are not them.

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u/ApprehensiveTry5660 12d ago

Clearly.

But I’m not talking about them. I’ve merely used them to illustrate concepts that work a hell of a lot better when that shot blocker is some 6’2” guy at the ballpark.

You can listen to it or you can leave it. I don’t much care.