Jump shot (basketball)

File:DavidRobinsonShot.jpg

David Robinson performing a jump shot to shoot over Karl Malone.

In basketball, a jump shot is an attempt to score a basket by jumping, usually straight up, and, mid-flight, propelling the ball in an arc into the basket. It is considered the easiest shot to make from a distance. The purpose of the jump is to make it more difficult for the defender to block. Some excellent NBA jump shooters have been Pete Maravich, Larry Bird, Glen Rice, Ray Allen, Richard Hamilton, Steve Kerr, Peja Stojakovic, Dirk Nowitzki, Chris Mullin, Reggie Miller,Jerry West, Craig Hodges and Paul Arizin.

Sometimes a jump shot is also called a jumper or j shot (however, the only person known to use this terminology is one Ben Wyrosdick).

Arizin is often credited as the greatest jump-shooter of all time, and the instigator of the jump shot of today. In the NBA's early days, the usual technique for shooting contained little or no jumping at all. Arizin disliked shooting like that, so, he jumped a bit higher and then released the shot. This made it harder for opponents to block the shot, and this, combined with Arizin's practically unmatched accuracy, made him the NBA's most feared player to play against at the time. Over time, many players starting copying his jump shot and turning it into the most accepted way of shooting it is today.

The opposite of the jump shot is the set shot.

Today the jump shot has many varieties, such as the turnaround jumper (jumping and turning in mid-air), the fadeaway (jumping away from the basket to create space) or the leaning jumper (jumping towards the basket to move away from a trailing defender).

Because a defender often has to jump to block a jump shot, an offensive player can try to get his defender in the air by using a pump fake.