An article describing Howard's FT evolution through the years. Pretty interesting. Here's the summary at the end. http://www.hardwoodparoxysm.com/2013/08/08/whats-wrong-with-dwight-howards-free-throw-stroke/
I think it's in his head. He's just thinking too much. It's like a golf swing. It needs to come naturally.
He should wheel a TV out to the free throw line and have a trainer stand there and constantly correct his form to match whatever he was doing in his rookie season. Do that for a couple hours every weekday till the season starts.
He was a 90% free throw shooter in high school. Either he altered his form, his mindset, or his technique didn't translate well when he transformed into the Hulk. I bet he'd sink more shots with a medicine ball.
Good article. But some things can't be fixed, or rather, a problem is overblown. Howard works on his free throws? Great, that's all I need to know. His free throw shooting is a proverbial mole on an otherwise beautiful model's face. He's going to defend the post, rebound, block/alter shots, and dunk on people's noggins at an elite level. And miss free throws, big time. This is what we've signed up for.
Pretty much! He shot like 82% in practice last year but just couldn't translate his success in practice onto the court!
I'm not sure if it's overblown or not, but I definitely have this attitude of just "living with his bad FTs" when we signed him. Just like you live with Shaq's FTs or T-Mac's 20 footers or Yao looking awkward against fronting. Of course, there's always that hope... It's been said this has been the case his entire career. That he's always done well in practice. For whatever reason, even when he was in Orlando, he couldn't convert in real game.
Drives me nuts when I see guys constantly tweaking how they shoot their free throws. Pick a routine, pick a motion, and STICK with it. It's the only way to build the kind of muscle memory needed to be able to consistently knock down your shots. It's like when pitching coaches mess with young pitchers' mechanics. They'll never learn to repeat their delivery if you keep changing their delivery. Need to get him back to being a 59% shooter for the stripe. You can live with that and it really kills the effectiveness of hack-a-dwight. But 49% is unacceptable.
And he'd do it with a sense of humor. I'd love to watch Murph work with Howard on his free throws. Heck, I'd pay money to watch them in person. It would be hilarious! Calvin stands 5'9" with shoes, and Dwight is... well, he's tall.
A part of their recruitment, the Lakers and the Rockets pitched Dwight his own TV show for their respective cable channels.
No kidding! Heck, I missed that. You're right. Tell you what... pitch my idea to Dwight, get him and Murph to do a regular free throw segment on his show, and I'll cut you in on a piece of the action! ;-)-
Meh, where do you think the break even point in hack a Howard lies? Hint: it is simple arithmetic and probably much lower than you think.
It's a combination of both mental and mechanics. First his elbow never extends second his hand motion is more of a flick than a follow thru. That weird flick causes major inconsistencies in release and arc. Add the short arming and just like the article states, I would start over from scratch.
Actually, I'm not so sure the math is so simple. For one thing, you basically eliminate opponent transition when you're shooting FTs, which incrasese defensive efficiency. Also, the biggest part of any Hack-a-someone is to lengthen the game, hence increase the variance of the outcome. Either way, I personally don't care about that. If teams are hacking Howard, then that means we basically have it in the bag since it's a desperation move. But Howard making more FTs is simply more conducive to winning. At the rate he goes to the line, even going from 50% to 60% would result in ~3 wins on the season.
His worst FT% seasons were both full of stress under performance on a team level. That might have thrown Dwight's percentage off due to mental issues caused by that stress. I think he is finally back in a position where he can be both wanted by the franchise/fans and be the #1 option again. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he came back to 55% - 65% interval in his first season in Houston.
