Tim Duncan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Kobe Bryant and so many others who have cemented themselves as legends in the game of basketball share something in common: elite-level footwork.
In a sport that often attracts a viewer’s focus to the upper body, footwork is an essential part of basketball. It allows you a wider range of motion, and can keep your movements as efficient as possible, which is crucial in a sport where split-second decisions make all the difference.
The greats know this.
“I’ve always worked on it, always worked on it since I was a kid,” Kobe Bryant told Jonathan Abrams of the New York Times in 2009. “I just watched different players – Olajuwon, Michael, Charles – and just all kinds of footwork and just tried to emulate them.
“Playing soccer, I think, had a lot to do with it as well.”
Bryant had a background in soccer growing up, and he said it helped translate to basketball when it came to footwork. As someone who grew up with basketball and soccer as well, I would agree with the Hall of Famer: skills from one are useful when playing the other, and it starts with the feet.
But it does not stop at soccer. For the last few weeks, we have drawn several parallels between basketball and lacrosse, and footwork is yet another spot in which the two games overlap.
Like basketball, lacrosse is a fast-paced, split-second game where the mechanics of your movements make all the difference. In order to dodge around defenders, an offensive player must have quick feet capable of taking the most efficient strides toward whatever spot he or she wants to go.
Whether it is basketball, lacrosse, soccer, or any number of other sports, footwork is the divider between the good players and the great ones.
