Wait a minute.
"Having long arms" or "big hands" is not a relative, it's an absolute.
So if you could correlate shooting ability to these, you might have a case. The explanation could then have something to do with physics - long/short stroke, leverage etc. But I doubt it (and I'm a trained Mechanical Engineer).
Personally I'm pretty sure you wouldn't find any correlation.
However, "having long/short arms compared to height", how would that correlate? How does the 6'9" arm know it's attached to a 6'5" or a 7'1" body? How would that affect shooting?
Doesn't make any sense to me.
The "big hands argument" and the "being too tall argument" (not mentioned here, but elsewhere) don't make any sense to me either.
Let's assume you give a great NBA free throw shooter (6'6" with normal arms & hands) a WNBA ball and lower the rim 5". That would simulate a taller guy with bigger hands. Let him practice for a week. There is no doubt in my mind he will still be a great free throw shooter.
IMHO, shooting has to do with fine grained, precise body control, which is basically something you are born with. I believe it's mostly a brain-neurological-muscle thing. Some people just seem to have it right from day one, some people never get it after 10 years of practice. It's easy to see who has "it" - their movements and stroke are fluid. Their whole body is involved in what they do. Like when throwing a ball (or shooting a basketball) it's not only their arm that is involved; it's more like a power wave that starts from their feet and moves through their body, arm, wrist and finger. It's perfect coordination, and quite beautiful to watch.
I used to be an amateur youth coach and I've seen many kids develop. Those who got it right at 8, were in 95% of the cases the best ones at 18. Massive practice can get you a long way, but with the same amount of practice, but without that coordination talent, your ceiling is much lower.
Everybody keeps complaining about the poor free throw shooting of guys like Big Ben, Shaq, Dwight and Dre. But just by watching their stiff, non-fluid shooting attempts just tells me that they will never be good even after a million shots. They just don't have that talent. It's not about your height, length or hand size.
Topic: The Best shooters have shorter arms. (Read 52835 times)