Basketball has grown in popularity over the years and is now one of the most common sports worldwide. Various methods used in basketball include dribbling, shooting and passing. There are several different shooting techniques used in basketball to get points, let us look at a couple essential ones.

A layup is a shot that is performed by leaping from below the net, pushing the ball up near to the basket and tipping it over the rim and into the basket with one hand. Alternatively the ball may be bounced off the backboard instead and into the basket. All moves involving this kind of one-handed reach and movement is known as a layup and is considered the most basic shot in basketball.

Essentially there are 2 types of layups, the underarm layup and the over arm layup. While there are several various types of layups, they all fall into one of these 2 categories.

An undefended layup is a very successful shot and refers to when the ball handler is able to get up to the basket without a defender going up too to try to block him off. The main difficulty in doing a layup shot is going around the blocks of the taller defenders so if the shot is unblocked it will surely be more successful.

A slam dunk which is perhaps the most popular of all basketball shots is simply a layup done by a player tall enough to reach over the rim of the basket, who then drops or slams the ball into the basket from above rather than just tipping it over the rim. A safer layup is done by holding the ball in both hands instead of only one and taking 2 steps to the basket.

The finger-roll is a type of underarm layup that entails the use of the wrist and the fingers to ‘lay’ the ball in the basket. The movement of the wrist and fingers causes the ball to spin and roll around the rim before falling into the basket.

A jump shot is another well-known basketball move in which the player jumps straight up and throws the ball while in mid-air into the basket. The jump shot is thought to be the easiest long-range shot and gives the benefit of being tricky for a defender to block however, taller defenders will make it a hard move to carry out. A variation of the jump shot is a turnaround jump shot in which a player turns in mid-air to make the shot.

Another basketball shot is the bank shot which relies on the backboard for getting the ball into the basket. It is primarily used in mid-range jump shots. The goal of the bank shot is to hit the backboard at an angle which slows the ball down and heightens the likelihood of it dropping through the basket.

The various moves used in basketball are very stylish and useful for shaking one’s opponent to the net. Therefore if you are interested in playing the sport, here are a couple of the moves that you should know.

Dribbling basically speaks about when a player is moving while bouncing the ball constantly at the same time. The wraparound is another basketball move where the person with the ball (ball handler) is bouncing the ball with one hand and dribbles it behind his/her back to pass it to his/her opposite hand. This move is primarily used when an opponent (defender) moves in to snatch the ball from the ball handler.

Another basketball move is the spin move where the ball handler turns his/her body to stand between the defender and the ball instead of facing the defender. This move can be performed while the ball handler is dribbling or while playing in a post position. But the abrupt spin can make the ball handler a little confused but if done properly it can successfully throw off the defender.

A crossover dribble is a move where the ball handler changes the pace at which he/she dribbles the ball to puzzle the defender. If the defender is moving in one direction and the ball handler does a crossover, it is hard for the defender to change directions so quickly and in some situations the defender might even fall down which is known as an ankle breaker.

Another move is the behind the back dribble in which the ball handler bounces the ball behind his/her back and changes it to the other hand. This move is different from the wraparound because the ball is not meant to go around the body as it is in the wraparound move. This move is most useful if your teammate is occupied, to get closer to the hoop with minimum space between yourself and the defender, or to outrun the defender.

In a 2 person basketball game there are some moves that are used which are not typically used in a game between 2 full teams as there is more space to run around and fewer defenders to think about. One of these is a give and go move where the ball handler passes the ball to his/her teammate and quickly goes to an open spot to receive the ball. This move is usually used to take the ball closer to the hoop while being able to move quickly to another position.

One more 2 player move is a back door play where a player gets behind the defense, receives the ball and gets an easy score. This move is usually pulled off when the defenders are focused on the ball handler and are not paying attention to the other player or the open space behind them.

If you desire to learn these and other basketball moves, check out a couple of the video tutorials available on the internet.

I receive a hard copy version of Inc. magazine each month, delivered to by my friendly mailman. He’s been delivering our mail to us for years. The magazine is arriving for free, though I cannot recall how or why this arrangement occurred, perhaps it was from remnant sky miles on airline programs which remained unused, or for which I’ll never accrue sufficient miles for anything. I like Inc. magazine and think many of the articles are interesting and thought provoking, once you can find them. In the March 2010 issue, for example, the reader first finds content on page six with a short profile accompanied by a large photograph, on page 14 there is a letter from the editor and on page 17 there is reader mail (hopefully email).

If we want to be generous and don’t refer to the inside cover as an actual page, the reader is provided with three pages of content in the first 17 pages of the magazine, or a ratio of 82% advertisements to 18% content. Continuing on to page 41, there is approximately 14 pages of content out of 24 pages, which is a happier ratio of 42% advertisements to 52% content. Overall, in the first 41 pages I found 17 pages of content which translates to roughly 40% reader content and 60% advertisement. Of course, if I had the patience, I would have analyzed all of the pages of the magazine. But a quick Google search led me to a web site called Magazine.org, which states that the average (traditional) magazine is about a 50/50 ratio between ads and content. Overall, I guarantee my down and dirty research to be somewhere between relatively accurate to completely anecdotal and spurious. Feel free to contact me as you browse your own magazine pages counting ads versus content should your due diligence and subsequent findings prove otherwise!

Let’s compare my Inc. Magazine findings with an online magazine. I would estimate that the online magazine I review daily has a ratio of 60% content to 40% advertisements, which is much better than the paper based version of Inc., or the Magazine.org estimate. However, and this is an important caveat, whenever the reader selects an online article to read, content always appears. In a traditional magazine, it’s somewhat more challenging, and certainly more time consuming to find the table of contents and then leaf through the publication to arrive at page 41 to read your article. We all have a propensity to browse paper based magazines page by page until an article catches our eye.

It’s rare that a paper based magazine shows up at our house. From time to time we might receive a promotional copy, but our online propensity continues to grow. We receive the New York Times on Sundays though we have questioned how long we will continue to subscribe to the paper based version. Our Boston Globe and Boston magazine delivery days have long since passed. We continue to embrace a virtual and online centric manner of content consumption, which is easier, faster and more environmentally friendly. We seem to quote Yahoo, blogs, and online resources far more than we now say, “I read an interesting article in the paper.”

Consequently, I think there is no doubt that online magazines are on the right track from a content and delivery standpoint. That said, there are several things they could do to enhance the reader experience. For example they could place all ads to the right of the content instead of the top and right. They could make the font bolder and more readily viewable for the average reader. They could add a more graphical reader interface, and perhaps even offer writers the ability to post photos. Nonetheless, they provide an invaluable service to writer and reader alike, offering searchable and extensive content, without charge, an opportunity for new writers to publish and an eco-friendly, non paper based delivery system that is sure to render traditional paper based magazines obsolete in the coming decade. In my opinion, though it is early in the game, the score
looks like online magazines 1, paper based magazines 0, in what is almost certain to be a long term rout.