That milestone is his 5,000th missed free throw. He got through joining Wilt Chamberlin as one of two players in NBA history to miss at least 5,000 free throws. Coming here into the Suns' Christmas day game with the Spurs, Shaq was 5 missed free throws away from reaching that milestone. Well, he did it with 4:33 left to play in the fourth quarter after having made his last five from the free throw line. He would actually go on to miss two more afterwards to finish the game missing 7 of 16, and up his career total to 5,002 missed free throws. Just think, Shaq would have been the happiest man there at US Airways Center if not for Roger Mason's buzzer-beating three-point shot that gave the Spurs the win over the Suns. Since Hakeem Olajuwon was a bad free throw shooter when he started playing in the NBA like Shaq still is today, there is a good chance that he would have been among those players in NBA history to reach that milestone only if he never improved on his free throw shooting like he did over the course of his career unlike Shaq IMHO. Will we see a third player reach that milestone down the road? I doubt it.
dwight howard should have a pretty strong shot. started out of high school, hasn't ever missed a game, and gets 10+ free throws a game and makes between 50 and 60%, depending on the season.
He might have to play longer that Shaq has played to reach that milestone providing that he doesn't improve on FT shooting at all down the road. Or, he would have to start making FTs at less than a 50 percent clip. Careerwise, Shaq's career FT percentage is 52.5 while Dwight's is 59.9 and Shaq's FT attempts per game is 9.9 while Dwight's is just 8.1. I'm quite sure that he doesn't want to join that duo in that dubious category.
why are you so sure? will and shaq, not a bad company eh? to miss that many free throws, he'll have to be equally dominant offensively as will and shaq to get enough attempts. if he's going to be that great, i'm sure he doesn't care about ft shooting. just ask shaq.
I just know that if I was him, I wouldn't want to be remembered that way as a bricklaying free throw shooting artist. One reason that he should want to improve on his free throw shooting would be so that if he gets fouled on a shot he makes, then he would hate like heck to not convert on the three-point play opportunity. You should be glad the Dream is not among those few players who missed 5,000 free throws due to him improving on his free throw shooting over the course of his career.
He won't be as effective as Shaq is later in his career. Shaq is still 7'1", 330lb at 36. Dwight won't have a 40 in+ vertical leap at that age.
My goodness! Shaq efforts! It is enough! You can't ask him to do more than hakeem olajuwon, kareem abdul-jabbar, bill Russell is good! Only free throws it! You can restrict his score! ? You can restrict his cap risk? Rebound! ? Of course you can! So! Let this be his only weakness! In China we have famous saying that "gold without barefoot, perfect!" Believe me! Shaq should be "dot"! Isn't it?
i'm pretty sure neither shaq or wilt will be remembered primarily as bricklaying free throw artists. it'll be a sidenote to his career, for sure, but not what defines it. four championships and 9th (currently) on the all-time scoring list will trump that for shaq. and we know what trumps it for wilt. 100... women in one night.
Some other element I want to add to the game yesterday involving Shaq reaching the milestone of his at the FT line. On the Spurstalk forum, there is a thread titled "Stern Tried to Rig Christmas Game Today". It had to do with the scheduling, as well as not too surprisingly, the refs. Earlier in this thread, I did mention that Shaq did attempt 16 FTs. On that thread in Spurstalk, a comment that I would have made if I could have is "I wonder if the refs just wanted to witness watching Shaq reach that milestone of his (5,000 missed FTs) by calling as many fouls as possible involving him to enable him to have more than enough FT attempts to increase his chances of reaching it?" Well, here's the link to the thread if you're curious. http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=112861
um...you do know Pop was hack-a-Shaqing right? That would account for like 8 of his FTs. It would kinda be dumb to argue ref rigging, more like Pop rigging it.
I always thought Chamberlain was a good free throw shooter? Other teams should implement a hack-a-Hayes strategy so we can get Chuck Hayes to that milestone.
I doubt it very much that he reaches it. He would need to play in the league just about as long as both Shaq and Wilt have, which is something that I don't see happening due to him primarily being a rebounder and defensive specialist (a Dennis Rodman type of player) while not being much of a threat on scoring.
