Yeah, for most of his career he couldn't, but he managed to perfect just about every other aspect of his game in order to play at an all-star level, so that's what I'm hoping Rubio can become. That or develop a reliable shot.
I get confused by the guys who are good free throw shooters but poor jump shooters. Shooting is one of those things that guys can improve pretty easily with practice. LeBron couldn't really shoot early in his career, but now he's really good. Rondo has gotten pretty decent at those midrange shots teams were daring him to shoot, and so far Tristan Thompson looks like he might add 10% to both his FT and FG percentages this year, which is insane. That said, a lot of guys don't put in the work. Dwight Howard should be able to shoot free throws passably by now. What the hell does he do all summer?
Part of the issue is that shooting takes years to master, and if you've done it a certain way your whole life, it's hard to break your shot down and start from scratch. You can bang down open jumpers in practice, but with a 6'9 dude running at you, your release point needs to be much finer; add in the effects of fatigue, and it's a hard thing to perfect. If you have a slow, low release, it's going to be hard to speed it up enough to get to NBA standards. As for free throws, it's a weird combination of muscle memory and physical limitations. Dwight is super tall and has huge hands, which makes it harder to coordinate shooting at a basket. Somebody like Nash or Curry has been shooting free throws amazingly their whole life, it's not like they just worked really hard during an off-season. ALL OF THE BEING SAID, you can totally add wrinkles/shots to your game. You just have to really work hard at a particular thing. It might take a whole off-season to add a step back from a single point on the court.
The big hands argument is bullshit because there are plenty of big guys with big hands who are great free throw shooters, and are Dwight Howard's hands really that much bigger than Kevin Durant's? The reason guys like Howard and Andre Drummond can't shoot them is because they never worked at it because they never had to. I'm not saying it doesn't take hard work, but it is literally their job. I'm a computer programmer. If I couldn't touch-type, it would be perfectly reasonable for people to expect me to learn how, especially if I had a three month long vacation every year.
I didn't say it made it impossible. I just said it added another layer of difficulty. I agreed that they could improve, I just pointed out that 3 months really isn't that long when you're talking about erasing 20 years of muscle memory. It simply isn't as easy as you're implying it is.
Dwight also literally refused to ask his 90% free throw shooting teammate because it would "cloud his mind" and he had to shoot them "his way." If your way of shooting free throws leads you to shoot them at a 57% clip maybe you should stop shooting them your way.
At least in Howard's case, it has been three months a year for almost a decade. And short of a massive mental block or mechanical flaws bordering on disability, I'd be surprised if a person could shoot a thousand free throws every day for three months and not become at least decent. 90% isn't going to happen, but 70% should be doable. It's a lot easier to go from bad to decent than it is to go from good to great. In Rubio's and Rondo's cases, I suspect that they've neglected their jump shot because they've worked harder than most at the ball handling and passing skills that have made them stars. There isn't really anything wrong with that.
OK, but what do you think Dwight does all practice? Sits there and sighs while eating a pint of Ben & Jerry's? You don't just wake up one day as good at defense and rebounding as Dwight is. Part of what people forget with free throws is that in addition to being really hard to improve upon, they matter less than we think they do. We notice them their failure grates on our sense of decency. But ultimately, you only take so many free throws, and a slight percentage increase only does so much. If Dwight suddenly became a 70% shooter, this would be a net gain of 1.1 points per game. For Rondo, it'd be even less since he doesn't shoot very many: becoming a 75% shooter (he is a guard, after all) would mean a net gain of 0.4 points per game. It might actually be the case that the amount of effort it would take to do that requires neglect other things that are also important for winning basketball games.
Its more than just points though. Its the fact that he can be intentionally fouled with very little risk due to his poor shooting. That changes everything in late game situations.
How does it feel to see Jeff Green light it up night after night now that he's the best player on the team...coming off a year where he did this once every 10-15 games?
Except when they gave up 137 pts and got blown out by the Clippers, but who's really keeping track of 2 games ago.
From ESPN.com on the KOBE-LESS LAKERS BEATING THE HOUSTON ROCKETS. (Caps for istealcheese to make him feel bad about his ridiculous statement above).
[/quote]Last nights game was a fucking heart breaker, I still think the Rox have a few kinks to work out and a whole lot of work to accomplish on the defensive side of the ball but its early in the season and I'm not even batting an eye. An entire NBA season is a marathon not a race, given we looked like shit against both LA teams, we will bounce back. Hack-A-Howard is total bullshit imo. I wonder if Stern wants to watch the last 5 mins of every Rockets game turn into a HS game of 21!!! Howard does need to raise his FT%, never the less. I feel good about this team and the way their coach is running the show. I hope to shut you up by the end of this season Parker.......oh wait......aren't you a Celtics fan? Nevermind......[/quote] It doesn't matter what Stern wants; he's on his way out, and even if he weren't , there's nothing you can do about it mid-season, if at all. And the Rockets are not winning it all(at least not this season). There's too many "kinks" that have to be worked out, kinks that will expose themselves more during a playoff series. I could see the Rockets getting into the second round, maybe the Conference Finals, but that's it.
Yeah, if Dwight goes 5-16 from the line and misses 5 of his last 6, you're gonna have a bad time. On the other hand, that's pretty unlucky and a lot of it is going to be random, unpredictable variance. The night before, he made 9 of 12 free throws against the Blazers.