re: Ben Simmons: I’ve never had somebody teach me how to shoot until I got to the NBA

As crazy as this sounds, it's probably true for most basketball players. I played in college, and I've never had anyone teach me how to shoot either.

I mean growing up, I've gotten some pointers here and there. But I got good at it by hours and hours of shooting by myself and trial and error.

Coaches teach us how to play basketball as a team. They don't work with you so much individually. We'd do different drills related to ball-handling, defensive footwork, rebounding, moves before dribbling such as jab steps, pump fakes, etc... but surprisingly shooting drills weren't done that much.

Free throw shooting at the end of practice was about the extent of individual shooting during practice.

If you wanted to learn how to shoot, that's something that you'd have to do on your own with a personal shooting coach.

Now, the gym door was always open for you to go in and get some shots up. It was expected. But I never really worked personally with a shooting coach.

Edit:... now that I'm looking back and thinking about it, we did do some shooting drills. Probably more than I originally thought.

And Ben Simmons' dad was a professional basketball player. He should have learned to shoot from him.