Author: Dr. Jirka Poropudas
In basketball, time translates directly into space. A quicker release leaves defenders less time to close out and contest a shot, creating cleaner looks and higher-percentage scoring opportunities.
To benchmark elite performance:
- Stephen Curry: ~0.40 seconds release time
- NBA Average: ~0.60 seconds release time
In the Spalding TF DNA app, the release time is measured from the exact moment of catch to the point of release from the fingertips.
The Amateur Pitfall: Practicing Too Casually
Amateur players overwhelmingly train at a leisurely pace, with typical casual practice release times exceeding 1.0 seconds. When forced to shoot faster in competitive situations, their shooting accuracy drops and collapses entirely past a certain threshold.
Figure 1 presents the average shooting percentage for the Spalding TF DNA users from the 15-foot range. The figure illustrated show the shooting percentage drops for release times that are under 1.0 seconds. This indicates that the shooters maintain a solid shooting percentage at their natural rhythm, but their accuracy decreases when they rush to get the ball off faster, that is, in more game-like tempo.
Real-Time Audio Feedback in Shot Training
When retraining motor patterns, repetition alone is insufficient without immediate feedback. The Spalding TF DNA app addresses this by allowing players to set a target release time and receive instant audio feedback after every shot. This reminds the players to concentrate on improving their release time and helps them build a sense of how the quicker shots actually feel.
To evaluate the impact of this feature, we conducted the Spalding TF DNA Feedback Study . In the release time part of the study, we set a release time under 1.0 second as the threshold for an "acceptable" game-speed shot and tracked the proportion of shots meeting this benchmark across the shooters’ training.
While 0.60 seconds represents elite NBA performance, the 1.0 second limit represents the critical entry threshold required for amateur players to transition from casual shooting to contested game speeds. One should note that individual player will have set different target values for their release time.
Release Time Study Results
At baseline, only 15.5% of user shots met the acceptable threshold. Over 10,000 repetitions:
- Group A (Without Audio Feedback): Reached 16.9% acceptable shots (a +1.4 percentage point improvement).
- Group B (With Audio Feedback): Reached 21.9% acceptable shots (a +6.4 percentage point improvement).
Over 4.5 Times the Total Improvement
Real-time audio feedback significantly accelerated the rate of adaptation: users receiving real-time release feedback achieved over 4.5 times the total improvement of the control group over the same training volume. Most importantly, there was no difference in the improvement of the two groups’ shooting percentage, that is, the Group B did not suffer any harm from shooting more quickly.