What's Inside Season One: Pure Shooter
Every season in Buckets has a job. Season One's job is to build a player who can catch the ball, stay balanced, and get a good shot off — from anywhere on the floor.
It's called Pure Shooter. Nine moves. Here's what's in it and, more importantly, why.
What This Season Is Really Teaching
1. Catching on balance. Almost every move this season starts with a catch. That's on purpose. Most kids lose the shot before they ever shoot it — they catch flat-footed, or off-balance, or with their feet pointed the wrong way. Season One drills the catch until it's automatic, because everything downstream depends on it.
2. Finishing off two feet. This is the one I care most about. As a head coach I've worked with, I've almost exclusively wanted kids finishing off two feet. You see it more and more in the NBA now, too — the best finishers in the league gather on two.
Here's why. One foot commits you. You've launched, you're going up, and the only thing left is the layup you already decided on. Two feet keeps you on balance, makes you much harder to knock off line, and leaves you options — pump fake, up-and-under, whatever the defense gives you.
3. Catching on the move from three. The higher tiers of this season stop letting you stand still. You toss the ball out, approach, catch, square up, shoot. Steph Curry is never standing still, and neither should your kid be.
We track left and right separately, and that's deliberate. You will almost certainly be better going one direction than the other. That's not a flaw in the system, that's the whole point of tracking it.
Catch, jab, rip, pull-up. That footwork is foundational for kids at this age, and it's what I built entire personal training sessions around. That's exactly why it's in Season One. Everybody wants to shoot threes. The kids who can get a clean look from fifteen feet are the ones getting buckets.
The Nine Moves
Moves stack — you don't lose the old ones, you add to them. They open up as you level, and by the time a player hits Certified they're cycling six variations every session.
| Move | How it works |
|---|---|
| Three-Point | |
| Catch & shoot, straight on | Catch on the hop, hands and feet ready, then shoot. |
| Catch on the move, left | Toss ball out ahead, approach from the left side, catch, square up, and shoot. |
| Catch on the move, right | Same, coming from the right. |
| Mid-Range | |
| Catch, one-dribble pull-up | Catch, on balance, hard dribble downhill, gather, pull up. |
| Catch, pump fake, go, one-dribble pull-up | Catch, short pump fake to sell it, one dribble downhill, gather, pull up. |
| Catch, jab, rip left, one-dribble pull-up | Catch, jab, rip opposite direction, downhill, one dribble, pull up. |
| Catch, jab, rip right, one-dribble pull-up | Same move, other direction. You'll find out which side is your weak one. |
| Finish | |
| Two-footed finish, close range | Full speed, jump off two feet on balance, finish with the hand on that side. |
| Free Throw | |
| Set Shot | Set shot if you can, with your regular free throw routine. |
Why It's Built This Way
Nothing in Season One is exotic. There's no behind-the-back, no step-back, no crossover. That's Season Two's problem.
Season One is the stuff that actually shows up in a game for a young player — catch it clean, be balanced, finish on two, get a good look. Every rep is tracked, so you can see which zones and which directions are actually improving instead of guessing.
This is genuinely what I'd have my own kids working on right now. That's why it's the first season.