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For those trying to fix Shaquille O’Neal’s free throws, don’t bother 10.08.10 at 9:05 am ET
By
Shaquille O'Neal is keen on taking advice when it comes to free throw shooting. (AP)

Shaquille O'Neal isn't keen on taking advice when it comes to free throw shooting. (AP)

New city. New team. Same routine.

Shaquille O’Neal has taken the third-most free throws of any player in the NBA (11,347), and trails only Wilt Chamberlain in the amount he has missed (5,974). But what he might lead the professional basketball-playing world in is something that no stat service will hand over – advice.

Wherever O’Neal has gone he has been besieged by legions of well-meaning observers who swear they have the elixir to the big man’s free throw shooting woes.

For those people, Shaq has a message: Don’t bother.

“I never take advice,” O’Neal told WEEI.com after Tuesday’s practice, saying he learned that lesson by his second season in the league.

“Actually taking advice made my numbers drop. Whatever you use to get you to where you are at you should never change.”

Where O’Neal is at is an incredibly successful basketball player, which a prolific ability to miss free throws. He has the second-worst free throw shooting percentage in the history of the NBA (.527), with Chamberlain the only player to have shot worse (.511).

(Fear not, even if O’Neal duplicates his 112-for-226 performance of a season ago — .496 – it will only knock him down to .526.

“I could care less. How many years has he played? I’m not smarter than anybody else he’s had. He’s only had Riley, Phil Jackson,” said Celtics coach Doc Rivers. “I’m not going to try and do anything with him. The day we signed Shaq I got letters, people, everybody giving advice. If you can get a hold of him, have at it.”

“Everybody would come up to him. Even players wanted to show him how to do it,” said Celtics guard Delonte West, who played with O’Neal in Cleveland last season. “He wants to do it his way. But you would be surprised, he’s been knocking them down in practice. We’ve been doing ‘Hack-A-Shaq’ in practice and he’s been making us pay for it every time.”

Unfortunately for the Celtics, the perceived improvement hasn’t translated into the games as of yet. O’Neal — whose 226 attempts last season were the fewest of his career — has taken five free throws in the Celts’ first two exhibition games and missed them all.

But while O’Neal isn’t keen on soaking in unsolicited advice, it doesn’t mean he isn’t going to take advantage the resources available to him.

What O’Neal can draw upon now is the expertise of one of the greatest free throw shooters of all-time, Ray Allen, who enters the season with the fifth-best percentage in the history of the game (.894). (For reference sake, Allen has missed 458 regular season free throws in his 14-season career. In the 2000-01 campaign alone, O’Neal misfired 473 times.)

“I won’t say anything to him about his foul shooting unless he asks. He’s been around long enough. I feel like if he wants to get better, or if he feels like he’s at a point where he doesn’t realize what he’s doing he’ll come to me,” Allen explained.

If he says something like, ‘I don’t feel good about free throws’ I might step in and say, ‘This is what I see.’ He actually said something to me earlier and I just gave him some advice. But they have to come to me first. I’m not going to over-inundate them with advice or knowledge with what I know, because what works for me might now work for somebody else.”

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  • http://twitter.com/max_in_missouri Max in Missouri

    Let me start off by saying I am as big of a Shaq fan as you are going to find anywhere….I have a ridiculous amount of loyalty to the guy since 1993 (his 2nd year in the league). Whatever team he is currently playing for is the team I am loyal to. In my eyes, the guy can pretty much do no wrong.

    However, free throws are the one thing about his game that really bothers me. He has said previously he would not shoot underhanded (“granny style”, so to speak) because it is demeaning. I’m not sure I agree with that take and honestly, it seems like it could really help his game. If he were able to make the shots underhanded and be effective (even 65% or 70%), I think he should do it. If he were ever to attempt that, particularly during his time with the Celtics as a “role player”, I think that would be the ultimate sacrifice for him to make and really make him a complete player. I think the “Hack-a-Shaq” defense is complete garbage that should be outruled, but so long as Stern is going to allow such a BS rule to be present, Shaq’s one weakness is going to be exploited.

  • LJP305

    Let me start by saying I’m a Shaq critic. I’ve been a Shaq critic since, in my opinion, he stopped trying to perform his best as a Laker in 2002-03 and the Lakers made a decision in 2004 that Kobe was a better bet for the future than “I got hurt on the job, so I’ll heal on the job” Shaq (a reference to the Summer of 2002 when delayed toe surgery until end of the summer which extended his recovery into the next playing season when he missed 25 games).

    Arguably Shaq likely would have remained a Laker and won at least 3 additional championships by now if he did four things as a Laker: 1) regularly come to training camps in shape (as he did the 1st season with Miami but as high work ethic Kobe does always); 2) agreed to reduce his annual salary (from $25-27million to $20million as he did in Miami); 3) not harped about being the offenses’ focal point (i.e., “I need more touches”); and 4) not disrespected his boss Jerry Buss (“I needed a real owner like Micky Arison, not a guy that parties with girls three times [younger than him] — when you’re 60, hang out with 60-year-olds, not 20-year-olds. You can quote me on that. I’ve got nothing else to say about Jerry”). Further on disrespecting his boss, in 2003 Shaq was campaigning for a contract extension of $30 million per year. During training camp in Hawaii, Shaq threw down a powerful dunk, and as he was running back down court on defense he looked up at Jerry Buss in the stands and bellowed “You will pay me”. Then he did it again, and again.” This combined with a less than stellar work ethic made the Lakers’ decision who was a better future bet easy.

    Shaq’s free throwing is one of his Achilles heels that prevented him from being the best Center ever to play in the NBA. The other is his less than stellar work ethic. Comparing Shaq’s free throwing to Kareem’s illustrates my point. That is, in college (UCLA) Kareem Abdul Jabbar made 62.8% of his FTs (439/699). However, in the NBA, especially after becoming a Laker, Kareem improved his FTs to 72.1% (6,712/9,304) over his career for regular season games and 74% (1,050/1,419) for the playoffs — thus avoiding having a hacking strategy by opponents named after him. Kareem was paid well to play professional basketball and he showed his appreciation by improving his performance in all areas of his game.

    Shaq on the other hand made 57.5% (369/642) of FTs in college (@LSU where presumably he wasn’t paid $millions), but his FTs declined to 52.7% (5,862/11,121) over his NBA regular season career and 50.5% (1,168/2,315) of FTs during NBA playoffs (during which he was paid $millions). Shaq did inspire the dreaded Hack-a-Shaq strategy by opponents (which keeps Shaq on the bench the last few minutes of close games) and the NBA’s last 2 minute foul-away-from-the-ball protection rule. Given his size and ability, Shaq could have done more during his NBA career like committing to conditioning, staying in basketball shape, defending the pick-and-roll or making FTs. But the lure of Hollywood and non-NBA related activities like pilfering the Shaq Vs idea from Steve Nash, making movies and rap singing were too appealing for Shaq to spend sufficient spare time practicing free throws. Shaq recently said “I’ve got to pass Wilt Chamberlain in scoring,” which is impossible unless he stops taking-off 25% of regular season games, plans on producing nearly 30% of the Celtics’ scoring during the next 2 regular seasons (was Doc and the 3 Amigos listening?) and improves his free throw percentage. The likelihood of all that occurring is very close to zero. So Shaq must have been trying his hand at comedy in commenting about passing Wilt (time that might have been put to better use practicing FTs). However surpassing Wilt likely would have been possible had Shaq made more of his FTs during his career which might very well had been possible if he had come to and toiled within the NBA with a, say, Kobe-like work ethic.

  • Tony

    Just leave the guy alone. The man has 4 rings and has taken a huge pay cut to play on this team. He is an NBA Legend,lets enjoy him these next 2 seasons.

  • LJP305

    Yo Tony,
    First, Shaq is not an NBA legend (noun: a story handed down for generations among a people and popularly believed to have a historical basis, although not verifiable). Second, points raised in my retort (which I notice you do not address) are factual, verifiable and respond to the earlier post. Third, why do you say “leave the guy alone”? By his statements, actions and decisions, Shaq neither asks nor demands to be left alone — as you put it. Are you a Shaq defender or one who prefers kissing up? Finally, many sports fans who I might add pay to enable athletes to perform want and have a right to enjoy those performances too. When athletes fail to perform their best for reasons they control or can remedy, or when athletes stay beyond their productive years, enjoying such performances can be difficult if not impossible for fans.

  • JC

    What minimum number of attempts are you using as a standard for bad free-throw shooters? Chris Dudley (691-1508, .458) was worse than Shaq or Wilt ever hoped to be. He played 886 career NBA games, so I would think he rates as the worst, unless there’s someone who was even worse.

  • LJP305

    I don’t have a minimum number of attempts in mind, and I don’t think it’s a question of who is worse. The article and initial comment were about Shaq’s FTs. Generally I analyze the body of work a player produces over their career and comment with regard to accepted performance measures — FTs & FT percentage in Shaq’s case. I feel that the best players improve their performance in all key areas if they are fortunate to compete professionally. As I mentioned earlier, Kareem Abdul Jabbar is a good case in point regarding FTs but Shaq is not. But when Shaq says things like “I’ve got to pass Wilt Chamberlain in scoring,” it’s fair to point out why this is impossible and a key factor is his poor FTs.

  • Shaq_Rock

    LJP305, quit it. Get over it. Shaq left the Lakers, boo-hoo. He gave you 3 championships, be happy with that, or at the very least, just be grateful. Without Shaq in the the 2000-2002 line-up, the Lakers wouldn’t have won the 3-peat. He was your 3x Finals MVP (not Kobe). He was more consistent, than Kobe (even now). Forget about Shaq demanding the offense should go through him…. if you read Phil Jackson’s book, PHIL WAS THE ONE WHO WANTED THE OFFENSE TO GO THROUGH SHAQ EVERYTIME. Kobe, being the hot young-gun (back then), wanted to be the focal point of the Lakers offense (even if his field goal percentage is nothing to brag about). In the 2003 Finals? The Lakers would have won, but Kobe determined to be the “man”, hogged the ball. When Phil Jackson called him on it, he childishly refused to shoot, even when he was open. Phil Jackson set the record straight, and wrote everything in his “The Last Season” tell-all book. Phil and Shaq had a last meeting, and wanted to know what “the kid” (Kobe) wanted. Kobe was the one who caused the rift, not Shaq, and not Phil Jackson. So, yeah, Shaq could have won more championships for the Lakers, if only Kobe played team ball, and do what the head coach says, and that is – “pass the ball to Shaq”.

    Just how big of an impact Shaq was on the Lakers roster…well, when he was a Laker, you won 3 championships, and in his last year, you were in the NBA Finals. When he left, THE KOBE-LED LAKERS FAILED TO REACH THE PLAYOFFS. All, verifiable facts.

    Sure, the Lakers eventually became champs again, but only after they got Pau Gasol. Before Gasol, the Lakers were pretty mediocre.

    It’s not really fair to compare Shaq’s stats with Kareem’s and Wilt’s. Different eras, different styles. But what is enough for now, is that Shaq has won everything in the NBA, and more. He has 4 championships, 3x finals MVP, 1 MVP, rookie of the year, all-NBA selection, etc…etc…etc… and he has been included among the lst of top 50 Greatest NBA Players of all-time. Those accomplishments SHOULD BE GOOD ENOUGH, EVEN TO SHAQ’S MOST UNREASONABLE DETRACTORS.

    About Shaq saying that he wants to surpass Wilt Chamberlain and shouldering 30% of the Celtics offense…pure works of fiction. He never said such things. He was thinking that he should have placed higher in the list of top NBA scorers if he made half of the freethrows he missed. he was making fun of himself, actually. He could have broken Wilt’s scoring record, but he didn’t because of his freethrows. That’s what he said, you were putting a spin on an innocent remark to villify Shaq, which shows your bias. About getting 30% of the Celtics offense, from the get go, Shaq has accepted his reserve role as a Celtics. Even in Phoenix, he was OK to be merely the number 3 or 4 scoring option (even if he eventually lead them in scoring anyway, since Amare was injured). Even now, Shaq accepted a reserved role and be a bench player, but he ended up starting anyway, and putting up better numbers than Jermaine O’Neal and Kendrik Perkins.

    About Kobe’s work ethic…I don’t see a difference, really. He is as inconsistent of a shooter today as he was during his early Lakers season. He is as much of a ball-hog then as he is today. Quit harping about Kobe’s work ethics. He lives and breathes basketball, so what. Basketball is a child’s game. It’s entertainment. It’s not meant to be a way of life. Did he finish college? No. He should have put that “work ethic” in his studies, like, say, ummm….Shaq has a doctorate, you know.

    When all is said and done, looking ahead, 10 years from now, when both Shaq and Kobe stop playing basketball, Shaq will always be remembered as an entertainer, while Kobe, outside of LA, will always be remembered as that guy who was said to have raped some girl.

    You take shots at Shaq during his last two seasons as a player? Tsk. Petty. Compare Shaq’s over-all career, despite his freethrows, he will always be considered as one of the best centers to have ever played the game.

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