A flat jump shot works in an empty gym and nowhere else

Arc changes how much of the rim the ball can see and how badly a hand in the face hurts.

Shoot a basketball on a flat trajectory and the hoop, from the ball's point of view, stops being a circle and becomes a narrow ellipse. The steeper the ball comes in, the more of the opening it can use. That is a geometry fact, not a coaching opinion, and it sets the floor under every argument about shooting form.

But the interesting consequence is not about the rim. It is about defenders.

A flat shooter is depending on a small margin for error in the vertical dimension, which means small disturbances in release matter more. Now add a hand. The shooter has to get the ball over a defender who is also rising, and a flat release means the ball spends more of its early flight in the region where an arm can reach it. So the flat shooter faces a choice at the moment of release that the high arc shooter does not: keep the normal mechanics and risk the block, or lift the release and change the shot he has practised ten thousand times.

Both options are bad. That is why you see shooters whose numbers are excellent in catch and shoot situations with space and mediocre the moment anybody is near them, and why the gap between their open and contested percentages is wider than it is for shooters with a higher release.

There is a limit at the other end, obviously. Very high arc costs distance control, because the ball spends longer in flight and small errors in force accumulate, and it becomes hard to maintain from deep range or when tired. Somewhere in the middle sits an angle that keeps enough of the rim available without demanding excessive force, and most good shooters have found it without ever being told a number.

What I would take from this practically is that shooting development spends too much time on the hands and not enough on entry angle, and that the diagnosis is easy: watch a shooter from the side, not from behind.

And there is a scouting version. Before you sign a shooter on a catch and shoot number, look at what happens to that number with a defender inside four feet.

If it falls off a cliff, you have not bought a shooter. You have bought a man who is good at practice.