SALT LAKE CITY — If you’re like me, you’re happy that the Clippers, Pistons and Rockets have been eliminated from the NBA playoffs.
Not that we have anything against those particular franchises. It’s just that we don’t want to see any more of the maddening Hack-a Jordan, Hack-a-Drummond and Hack-a-Howard stuff that is making some NBA playoff games unbearable to watch.
Those three players — DeAndre Jordan, Andre Drummond and Dwight Howard — are the poster children for what used to be called Hack-a-Shaq — named for another poor foul shooter, Shaquille O’Neal. It’s the practice of fouling a poor foul shooter by grabbing him when he doesn’t even have the ball, assuming he'll miss one or both of his free throws to your team's advantage.
In this year’s playoffs, Jordan shot 37.3 percent on 22 of 59 from the line. Howard was just 14 of 38 for 36.8 percent, while Drummond was a dreadful 11 of 34 for 32.4 percent. During the regular season, they weren’t much better, with Howard at 48.9 percent, Jordan 43.0 percent and Drummond at NBA record-low 35.5 percent.
So what’s the solution? There are two ways you can go about this.
One, you can alter the rules to not allow intentional fouls, perhaps giving teams possession after the free throws if a foul is obviously intentional. Or you can keep things as they are and force teams to choose between playing a bad foul shooter or keeping him on the bench.
As much as I hate watching the Hack-a-Whoever, I lean towards the latter. I say, make these guys learn to make free throws, even if they must swallow their pride and shoot underhanded, aka granny style. If they can’t learn to make free throws better, then they’ll just have to sit on the bench.
Nobody, as far as I know, has tried granny style in the NBA in the past 35 years or so since Rick Barry did it. He retired as the best free throw shooter of all time at an even 90 percent (he has since been slightly surpassed by three others — Steve Nash, Mark Price and Steph Curry).
Back when I was a kid, a lot of big guys shot underhanded free throws, including Wilt Chamberlain for a time. Chamberlain was a terrible free-throw shooter — 51 percent for his career — but he was slightly better when he went granny style.
Old-timers may remember Utah all-American Billy McGill shooting underhanded, something he did quite well, averaging 71 percent for his career back when most foul shooters weren’t as good as they are today.
Barry was quoted a couple of years ago by a Detroit radio station as saying, ”What’s the big deal if you do something that’s a little out of the ordinary if it’s successful for you?”
He went on to say, “It really is quite perplexing to me as to why someone really doesn’t want to try to shoot that way. Certainly there are a bunch of guys out there that would be much better shooting it that way as opposed to shooting the abysmal percentages they shoot.”
It makes perfect sense. Wouldn't you rather do everything you could to be a better player and help your team win than be embarrassed to try a method of shooting because you might get laughed at?
One player who is actually considering going granny style is Drummond. Just last week his coach, Stan Van Gundy, was quoted as saying Drummond was open to the possibility. Drummond is still quite young at age 22 and with a big contract looming, perhaps he is willing to try something new.
"As far as shooting underhand or anything else, it's fair to say my discussion with Andre yesterday and the discussions [general manager] Jeff [Bower] and I have had and staff — everything is on the table," Van Gundy said last week.
One modern player shooting “granny style” free throws is College of Charleston guard Canyon Barry, who, surprise, happens to be Rick’s youngest son. This past year he averaged 19 points per game while shooting 87 percent from the free-throw line. He told Yahoo, “there are less hinges you have to account for” and that he gets “a lot of good rolls, good bounces" with the soft shot.
Charleston coach Earl Grant said Barry gets a lot of grief from crowds because of his granny shot, but adds, “it's hard to say much when he goes to the line and makes the shot.”
So it might be embarrassing for Drummond if he has to resort to shooting underhanded free throws next season. But can it be any more embarrassing than only making 35 percent from the free-throw line?