The morning shootaround—a chance for players to get into the gym in the morning on a game day-has been a part of the routine for NBA teams since the early ‘70s.
But as the 2014-15 season progresses, it appears the Raptors are bucking the tradition—at least for home games. With the exception of the first contest of the season, head coach Dwane Casey and his staff have all but done away with the practice.
The consequences of that decision vary based on who you ask.
“[Shootaround] has a different purpose for everybody,” said Indiana Pacers forward Chris Copeland after his team went through the practice Friday morning. “Some people need their mornings to rest, but other guys want to get up and get the blood flowing. It really varies player to player.”
Copeland laughs at the suggestion that the main reason he does shootaround is simply because his coaches tell him to. “Without getting into trouble, I’ll say that I understand the benefits of the morning shootaround.”
The invention of the shootaround is credited to Bill Sharman, who won four titles as a player with the Boston Celtics between 1957-61, and one as the coach of the iconic ’71-72 Los Angeles Lakers team that starred Jerry West, Elgin Baylor and Wilt Chamberlain.
“As a player I found that on game day, if I practiced in the mornings it loosened me up and I didn’t feel sluggish that night, like if I just watched TV or read during the day,” Sharman told me last year, shortly before he passed away at the age of 86.
While playing on the road, Sharman would seek out local gyms to get some shots up, and only after his teammates noticed the impact it had on his game did they start to join him. When he got his first coaching job, with the Cleveland Pipers in the ABA, Sharman made the morning shootaround mandatory for the entire team.
“It didn’t make me very popular for a while there,” he joked over the phone from his home in Southern California, “[but] 40 years later, I feel a sense of pride to have contributed something that has helped elevate the game to a higher level.”
In Sharman’s day, he stood out because he did things like (gasp) watch his diet, and placed a value on concepts like ‘routine’ and ‘repetition.’ But today’s athletes grow up in a decidedly different professional environment. Their training cycle is seemingly 24/7, and players spend their summers and off days in the gym honing their craft.
“It’s always good when you can step onto the court,” says Pacers veteran C.J. Miles. “But, at the same time, if somebody said we didn’t have shootaround tomorrow, I’d be like [eagerly clapping his hands together] ‘Ok!’”
That being said, Miles does see the important shootaround holds. “There’s no question it’s become a big part of what we do in terms of forming habits,” he says. “It’s why so many guys have their specific routines—and the shootaround becomes a part of that.”
The Raptors have continued to hold regular shootarounds while on the road, where the extra gym time also provides an opportunity to get a sense of the dimensions and feel of each arena, as they vary from city to city.
Miles can relate: “Ten years into my career I don’t really feel it anymore, but my first couple of years in the league when I’d walk into a new arena, the reaction was ‘Woah’ and you definitely needed a little more time to figure out the space and sightlines.”
At home this season, Casey’s club has been conducting on-court walkthroughs just a couple of hours before game time, and one team staff member says there isn’t any sign of going back to the old routine.
And why would they? The Raptors are 10-3 at home, after all.
