Free throws are the easiest shots in basketball, and yet teams lose game after game because they can’t make as many as they need to. Just earlier today, Brazil’s Marcelo Huertas cost his team a chance to tie the game in the final seconds because he couldn’t make both of his free throws. Great players like Wilt Chamberlain, Shaquille O’Neal, and Dwight Howard have historically cost their team several points per game throughout their careers because of their poor free-throw shooting. And one man thinks he can change all of that.
“It has always amazed me that such great athletes are such poor free-throw shooters,” he said. “They make so much money, but lose games because they can’t shoot free throws. I could take any one of them, and make him a better free-throw shooter, a 90 percent shooter……”Think of all the games in the NBA that have been lost by poor free-throw shooting. It’s something that’s easily fixable. It’s not rocket science. It’s simple stuff,” he said. “I guess, the NBA just thinks I’m too old, too short, to teach it. It still puzzles me.”
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard a great free throw shooter talk like this about great NBA players who have trouble from the line, specifically O’Neal and Howard. Here’s some video of Rick Barry explaining (PG-13 language included!) how he could get to Shaq to 70% if Shaq would shoot his free throws underhanded, as Barry did. I’ve heard a lecture from a man who overhauled Shaq’s free-throw stroke over the course of a summer and had him shooting in the 70% range during game-simulation practices, only to watch Shaq get nervous and revert to his old form before the season started.
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- mjc - Aug 30, 2010 at 7:03 PM
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Look at what Hoopla did with that entire Wiz team though…they were one of the best in the NBA. Also, it allowed a player like Brendan Haywood to be on the floor when the game was on the line (defenses could not implement hack-a-haywood strategy). Haywood’s FT% jumped from low 60s to a solid 70%
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- mjc - Aug 30, 2010 at 7:04 PM
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Look at what Hoopla did with that entire Wiz team though…they were one of the best in the NBA. Also, it allowed a player like Brendan Haywood to be on the floor when the game was on the line (defenses could not implement hack-a-haywood strategy). Haywood’s FT% jumped from low 60s to a solid 70%
