Omer Asik and Dwight Howard should....

Asik is solid for big man at shooting free throws.

 

Dude...if they were good enough to nail the first free throw....there'd be no question they could nail the second. You're asking them to become 35% foul shooters. Welcome to Andreville.

 

You can't be serious...

 

They shouldn't deliberately attempt to miss the 2nd one, but the one who is just not shooting the free throw should already position himself really well to try and snatch the rebound :grin:.

 

If they were good enough to bounce the ball in the right direction, they'd be good enough to actually sink the free throw. Since we can't trust them to sink the free throw, we can't trust them to miss the shot in the right way either.

 

The thought went through my mind last night that when they're both in the game, other players should try to miss the 2nd FT.

 

Still waiting for someone to post the chandler parsons free throw dunk, the MJ like one

 

Here's a few rough numbers.

If you are a 50% free throw shooter, you will average 0.5 points on the second free throw.

Best offensive rebound rate last season was 31.4%. Most likely, this rate would be much lower for offensive rebounds on missed free throw.

Assuming 1.1 points per possession, the average points scored off a missed free throw would be 0.35 points.

Missing free throws on purpose won't work.

After a little more looking, I found some old data that says offreb% off missed free throws is around 14%.

 

It is easy to become a good FT shooter. You just have to put in work and pride. After every practice the two pair up. Each guy shoots 10 FTs and then the next guy shoots his set of 10. The winner lets say D12 made 8 and Turkey makes 6. 8 -6 is 2. What ever the difference x5 pushups, this case Turkey would do 10 pushups. And if they tie since its a set of 10. Then 10 - (whatever both # they tied @) and they both do push ups. Every round you add eachothers free throws scores together to achieve a goal lets start with 50 made or 100 made.
This how I always end my practices with my teams that I coach. And when we play in league or tournaments our bigs actually always get atleast a split at the FT line or go 2/2.
These guys are pro's and get paid millions to play a game. What pisses me off is when these guys don't work on fundamentals FT's and been in the league for X amount of years and get paid millions.
D12 and Turkey don't leave practice until you guy make you FT goals everyday. If Dream and Yao can be a weapon from the FT line you guys can too.
Also practice the big to big hi-lo pass to feed each other and elbow jumpers.

 

If they are probably not going to make the free throws anyways, whats the point of missing on purpose???

If you are bringing in your wing players as well to help with offensive rebounds on a wild free throw you run the risk of other team being able to fast break off of a missed free throw which would be extremely frustrating and embarrassing.

I think it makes much more sense for Omer and Dwight to just simply GET BETTER at MAKING free throws.

 

Theirs a question asked about this on the Sloan MIT analtyics Confrence a few years back from a audience member who said, why don't they just practise more.

The answer from the panelist (Cuban if memory serves me right) said this

- assume your a 80% shooter in practise
- now Cuban says if u make this FT I'll give u 10 million dollars, the theory here is it doesn't matter if your an 80% FT'er if the nerves are their, they will affect your shot
- then Cuban says now if u miss this FT then I'm going to shoot u in the leg, again the premise is to act as nerves coming from either the scoreboard, the crowd etc..

Practise actually doesn't make perfect.

 

Are big men more affected by nerves than guards? I know nerves are a factor -- Nick the Brick proved it -- but it's generally true that guards are much better shooting free throws than big men. There's something outside of nerves that causes this phenomenon. Either:

* Big men really just do (or did when they were young) less practice on outside and free throw shooting because they're focused on their inside game, or

* Their large size has allowed them to prosper in the league despite their lack of shooting touch where a smaller guy who couldn't shoot would never make the cut, or

* Their large size is actually an impediment to shooting well

 

Hold that thought.

 

I don't think that's a good idea how about they just try to make them and keep practicing at it

 

I think 60% is solid, it gives 1.2 ppp. That is pretty good. 50% is 1 ppp, that is decent, but not good enough. People can still do a hack Asik, and players under pressure does a poorer job in free throws, although Asik did well last time when they hacked an Asik.

Howard...man that is a different story. I would be happy if he can do 50%...

 

This pretty much sums it up. They shouldn't try to miss free throws, but the other guys need to be aware that it is likely not going in. There's no added benefit of deliberately trying to miss.

 

This doesn't sound like a bad idea to me. Especially against poor rebounding teams.

Let's say Dwight tries to make the shot, and there's a 50% chance it goes in. And let's say there's a 25% chance that if it misses we get the offensive board. If EV for a possession off an offensive rebound is 1.2, then that's a total of 0.65 expected points.

If instead he misses intentionally, let's say there's a 50% chance we recover it. That comes to 0.60 expected points.

So, on average, you'd likely be better off just trying to make the free throw, even if the chance of getting an offensive rebound on a miss is much less. But its close.

 

Not sure why fans tend to be fixated on late game FT in a way that seems misaligned with reality. The whole fouling late in the game strategy isn't a proven winning one. If you're a 50% FT shooter (as our big men, who everyone says is atrocious at the line, essentially are), you're getting 1 PPP. That's pretty good. You have to be like Drummond level of bad FT shooting for this strategy to outright work.

Some claim it throws the team out of sync and out of rhythm. While true, it also gives the players time to set up a defense after the FTs (usually) and time to rest up late in a close game...so that they can expend all their energy on defense. The "Foul Bad Shooters Late in a Close Game" strategy really only seems to work when the fouling team really catches on fire...it has less to do with the abilities of a 50% FT shooter.

Everyone was lauding Asik in the playoffs for being clutch on those FTs when OKC was doing hack-Asik. Well...he made 1 extra FT over the span of those fouls than what his season FT% would have predicted lol.

Personally, I don't care at all if the opposing team starts fouling Asik and Howard late in close game (when they're down) and Asik/Howard only make 1 of 2. 1 PPP? I'll take it.