What you need to know? The game of basketball is 90% a mental game, the other 10% is physical.                  The physical aspects of the game that one must grasp are hand and eye coordination,         balance, elbow alignment, wrist mechanics and most importantly follow-through.  Hand-Eye Coordination         Shooting a basketball is harder than professional NBA players make it out to be, there's so much more involved than what meets the eye. Contrary to popular belief, the correct way to shoot a basketball is with one hand while using the other as a guide hand. So by proper hand placement, the shooting motion becomes easier.  Balance         Balance is a basketball players best friend, just like in physics lab where we have to calibrate instruments and level surfaces, same concept in basketball, if the shooter is not balanced or is off-kilter, it can dramatically affect the power, trajectory, and flight path of the ball. Elbow Alignment     If you take a closer look at someone shooting a basketball, you'll notice a "shooting box". Its a close to perfect 90 degree angle starting from the wrist down through the elbow and then on to the shoulder. Using proper form, the least resistance from the body is used when the shooting box is close to 90 degrees as possible. That is the first part of elbow alignment, the second includes keeping your elbow under the ball when shooting, this improves power as well as accuracy by making the shooting motion more stable. Wrist Mechanics     The proper way to shoot a basketball is not from the elbow or shoulder, but from the wrist. It is commonly well known that basketball players have very strong wrists. By using the shoulder and elbow, a shooter elevates the ball into the proper shooting path than by a flick of the wrist (more or less) releases the ball towards the basket, so the wrist action is what translates to the shooting motion. Follow-Through     The follow through can be argued as the most important step in shooting a basketball. By following through it allows for a clean release off of the shooters hand, and proper back-spin on the basketball. The ball should come off the first and middle fingers when released. As previous coaches have said to me over the years, let the hand come forward and end up in a position similar to if you were reaching up high into a cookie jar.