Triple Threat Position

One of the things I’ve learned from playing and not playing basketball is that you have to be a threat in more than just one way. On the basketball floor you receive a pass and instinctively move to triple threat position from which you can dribble, pass or shoot. The idea is to be unpredictable so that the defender never knows which of the three you’re about to do. But study an offensive player’s tendencies and you can easily tell whether or not he/she is a real “Triple Threat”.

By my sophomore year in college, the mechanics of my jump-shot had changed so often that I couldn’t repeat the same shooting form twice in-a-row. Elbow in, Fingers on those seams, am I using my legs? Check, check and check. And when one thing was adjusted, another technical aspect of my shot seemed to go wrong. So I spent the summer after my sophomore year doing nothing but shooting. The previous summer I had spent it lifting and gaining 10-12 lbs. of muscle. During the summer of ’94 I wanted to become a marksman. And to some degree I did. I was now a double threat who could dribble and shoot.

When I started my junior year, however, coach had a conversation with me…kind of a preseason observation and he said it looks like you’ve been shooting a lot all summer. Your shot looks good but how much basketball did you actually play? Truth was I hadn’t played much except for the college summer league games that were held at CSULA (Cal State Los Angeles). Any basketball trainer will tell you that you’ve got to play against high level competition as much as possible during summer to make the gains against live competition. I didn’t do that because I was so consumed with becoming  a better shooter. Drum roll for the outcome.

I had become a predictable player. We have a term in basketball called a ‘Black Hole’. You don’t want to be one and you dang sure don’t want to play on the same team as one. They get the ball and no one ever sees it again because they cast it up, jack it, they shoot it every time. I wasn’t a Triple Threat. I didn’t defend well either so I was an athletic 19-year old with an aggressive mind-set and no real value for the team. It’s funny how universally applicable basketball terms can be. Imagine that the principle of being a Triple Threat doesn’t materialize unless YOU ARE A THREAT TO POSSIBLY INVOLVE OTHERS. It’s not until the defender thinks you might actually utilize your teammates that you become dangerous. The selfish player will almost always ensure defeat the same way a selfish parent can destroy a child or a selfish spouse his/her marriage. Dribble, Pass, Shoot and the details will produce an outcome of which you can be proud.