Lonzo Ball’s Shooting Form: The TRUTH About His Unconventional Shot

Ever since the media caught a glimpse of Lonzo’s shot, a lot of people have been asking me why his shot looks different than most other right handed shooters…

So I decided to create a new YouTube breakdown video where I cover exactly why he shoots the way he does. I also explain how you can use that information to improve your own shot.

The information in this video also strengthens the case for you to find your own form.Every shooter is completely different and so you have to tailor your shot to your own personal makeup. You can watch the full video or read below.

When watching lonzo shoot, most people can see that his shot is a bit different than the conventional right handed jumpshot. 

The conventional shooting form that is taught is for a right handed shooter to bring the ball up their right side, in line with their right eye, and for a left handed shooter to bring the ball up their left side in line with their left eye.

Lonzo, although he is a right handed shooter, brings the ball up the left side of his body and up to the left side of his head. 

And Lonzo is not the only shooter who brings the ball closer to the opposite side of his face. There are many other shooters that do this. But it is much more obvious in Lonzo’s shot because he brings the ball all the way to the left side of his head and also has a low set point.

Whereas, Kevin Durant for example, also brings the ball up his left side And above his left eye, but he has a higher set point and he doesn’t bring the ball as far over to the left as lonzo does, so it’s not as obvious.

So why does Lonzo bring the ball up to the left side of his face even though he is right handed whereas most right handed shooters bring the ball up to their right side? Well the most likely explanation is that he is a left eye dominant shooter. So now the questions that we’ll cover are:

What is eye dominance?

What does it mean to be left eye dominant?

How is this relevant to your own shooting form?Well, we all usually show a preference for one side of our body over the other.

Firstly, just like we show a preference for one of our hands in that some of us are right handed and some of us are left handed, we also show a preference for one of our eyes. Some of us are right eye dominant and some of us are left eye dominant.

That simply means that just like someone who is right handed will prefer to shoot with their right hand, someone who is right eye dominant will prefer to aim or sight with their right eye by bringing an object, in this case the basketball, in front or in line with their right eye. 

And someone who is left eye dominant will prefer to aim or sight with their left eye by bringing the ball in line with their left eye. 

Now when a right handed shooter is also right eye dominant OR when a left handed shooter is also left eye dominant, this is called ipsilateral dominance (same side dominance).

The conventional shooting form, which is for a right handed shooter to bring the ball up their right side, in line with their right eye, is taught with the assumption that all right handed shooters are also right eye dominant. 

But this is not always the case…

Sometimes, a right handed shooter can be left eye dominant. So even though they are right handed, they will prefer to bring the ball up in front of or in line with their left eye (their opposite eye).

When someone’s hand dominance is on the opposite side of their eye dominance, this is called contralateral dominance or cross dominance. Same goes for a left handed shooter. The conventional form is for a left handed shooter to bring the ball above their left eye. But a left handed shooter can also be right eye dominant.

So in this case, you can see that even though DeAngelo Russell is left handed, he prefers to bring the ball above his right eye (his opposite eye).

Now I have I already showed some examples of basketball players who are cross dominant but this phenomenon is not exclusive to basketball. It is common in other accuracy sports as well.

Phil Taylor is a 16 time world champion darts player was well known for his cross dominance. While most right handed darts players line up the dart with their right eye, Phil Taylor is right handed but would line up the dart in front of his left eye.

And even when shooting a gun, many shooting coaches discuss techniques for cross dominant shooters to increase their accuracy by aiming with their opposite eye.

These techniques are actually very similar to the options basketball players use to address their eye dominance. Many times, a player who is cross dominant, can bring the ball up normally, with conventional shooting form, and never notice a difference.

But other times, if a shooter is forced to bring the ball up to their non dominant eye, in some case they will feel extremely uncomfortable and inaccurate and will often times do whatever they can to get the ball in line with their dominant eye.

So if you’re a cross dominant shooter, what can you do?Well when shooting a basketball, cross dominant shooters have 3 main options: 1. Turn their head to get their opposite eye behind the ball. Many times, a shooter will turn their head while they are shooting to get their dominant eye lined up behind the ball.

2. Bring up the ball directly to their opposite eyeThis is the option that you see with Lonzo but he took it to an extreme that you don’t see very often.And there are also some shooters who use a combination of the first two options.

Joe Johnson for example, brings the ball directly up to his opposite eye, but also has a slight head tilt. And finally The 3rd option and the one that I teach is to… 3. Bring the ball up your midline. 

So for those of you who are cross dominant shooters, this is the adjustment that I would recommend for you.

In my opinion, this is the best compromise for a cross dominant shooter because It allows you to bring the ball closer to your dominant eye without compromising your mechanics. So Lonzo chose option 2 – to bring the ball up to his opposite eye. But he brings it extremely far off to the left. So how does this affect Lonzo’s shot? Well, in general, a right handed shooter bringing the ball up as far to the left as lonzo does can cause a lot of biomechanical issues and can make it very difficult to shoot the ball straight and bringing the ball up that far to the left isn’t something that I would recommend.

But Lonzo has made some adjustments to his shot help him accommodate his unconventional form in order to push the ball straight and become an accurate shooter. If you are a cross dominant shooter, let me know in the comments below what you have been struggling with and let me know if the advice in this video or post helped you. And finally, if you’re looking to improve your shooting, you can click here to get access to exclusive shooting videos that I don’t release on YouTube. Most of the greatest shooters follow the same general principles to shoot the ball with extreme accuracy. And I think this is something that all shooters should know before they start training their jumpshot. So if this is something that you want to learn for yourself to drastically increase your accuracy and shooting percentage, then make sure you click here and get videos that will help take your shooting to the elite level.

Coach Faizal