The Art of Shooting basketball clinic co-ordinated by the Maccabees Basketball Club in collaboration with the Everything Basketball Foundation began Thursday at the Pike Street, Prasad Nagar basketball court.
The programme included the participation of novices as well as players from the Inter-Guiana Games Junior Elite Programme and was conducted by President of the foundation Kezqweyah Yisrael and former junior national basketball captain Kestor Gomes.
More than 20 junior players turned out on Thursday to participate in shooting drills and benefited from shooting tutorials conducted by Yisrael who said that the idea behind the clinic was to help correct some of the bad shooting habits.
“We hope to teach the fundamentals of shooting because if you look at most of the players that we have in Guyana, their shooting technique is flawed. The other thing that inspired us to start this clinic was because shooting is one of the areas in local basketball that needs a lot of work,” he added.
Some of the topics that the clinic plans to focus on are proper shooting techniques, hand and eye coordination, proper body alignment and balance, bad shooting habits, methods of training, tips and techniques to improve shooting percentage as well as misconceptions about shooting.
Yisrael also said that shooting was one of the most important components of a top basketball player’s game and that it can have positive or detrimental effects on the performance of an entire team.
He explained to the participants that European basketball has been able to catch up with basketball in the United States because of improved shooting.
The camp will continue at the same venue next Tuesday and Thursday before moving to the Cevon’s Court on Aubrey Barker Road in the South Ruimveldt area for a few more sessions.
Some of the players from the Junior Elite Programme that participated on Thursday were Kevin Evans, Jermaine Slater, Tyrone Hamid, Travis Burnett, Yannick Dundas and Sean Lashley.
Yirael said he was grateful to the following sponsors who have assisted the clinic as well as some of the other projects of the Foundation and the Maccabees basketball club. Those are: Auto Supply Ltd, North American Resources Inc, Correia Mining Company, Benjamin Park, Hits and Jams Entertain-ment, E&A Con-sultants and Peter Robinson.
