Andre's Foul Shooting

[Chief00]

Quite frankly, makes me recall a Larry Bird story - a guy who was a poor foul shooter and never stayed after practice to improve his foul shot - missed critical foul shots in Larry's HS State Semi or Finals game - I forget. At any rate, Larry never talked to the guy again. Not because he missed but because he did not stay after practice to improve leading to that awful result.

 

[FartMan69]

There's a 0% chance anyone can practice foul shooting everyday and still shoot 35%. And enough of the yips nonsense. This is professional basketball.

Do yourself a favor and Google Nick Anderson.

 

[Gurleyman]

Drummond can't shoot from 15 feet in game action, either. The shot is about eight feet outside of his range. The fact that he is a professional basketball player has little correlation since the things that make him a pro are the stuff he does around the rim, not his ability to shoot. It's almost like what he is doing when he goes to the foul line is stepping away from his skillset and trying to throw two darts at a dartboard (when he stinks at darts).

 

[tentoes4rings]

Stan Van Gundy threw Andre under the bus in the post game press conference. He seemed understandably very frustrated with Andre's foul shooting but also with his defense and rebounding. After Andre missed some early foul shots his body language was really poor and he did not understandably seem comfortable at the line.

The bottomline is the Pistons can't play their franchise player at crunch time in a playoff game. Not a good situation. Andre needs to do something different on his foul shooting this summer - be it underhanded or work with a shooting coach nonstop. Sometimes he has some narrow misses then he loses confidence and you can see his mechanics fall apart before your eyes. He has to have the same routine despite if he made or missed his last shot.

Why don't you work with him the next time you two meet for lunch?

 

[huskyharry]

As I posted before in another thread: the slow and deliberate method, while good for most shooters, is a poor choice for Andre. When he thinks about it too much, his anxiety increases and this leads to the air balls and free throws two feet to the right. He should quickly get his feet set properly at the line (lead foot about six inches ahead, feet just less than shoulder width apart, take one dribble and shoot with proper ball and hand position and follow through directly at the midpoint of the rim). At present, his stance is way too wide and he inconsistently uses leg strength to affect the shot. With his strength, no need to use legs in the shot, so knees should be just slightly bent for stable balance. No extra time for over thinking. A coach should carefully watch him for the first 1000 shots to insure that his fingertip to ball placement is correct and that his follow-through is directly in-line with no movement of the elbow in or out of verticality. After these motions are routine, then extra arc should be incorporated into the shot. There is no reason that he should not be shooting 60%. Coach SVG humiliating him in the press is not helping...Andre has always been a bit of a sensitive kid.

 

[fatlucy]

He has the resources and the support to make it happen. Just has to put the time in.

 

[Gringo]

Quite frankly, makes me recall a Larry Bird story - a guy who was a poor foul shooter and never stayed after practice to improve his foul shot - missed critical foul shots in Larry's HS State Semi or Finals game - I forget. At any rate, Larry never talked to the guy again. Not because he missed but because he did not stay after practice to improve leading to that awful result.

Do you recall the story or did you forget the story?

 

[Inyatkin]

Do yourself a favor and Google Nick Anderson.

Then look up Mackey Sasser. A catcher who couldn't reliably throw the ball back to the pitcher

 

[Dogdeacon]

He is the worst free throw shooter in the HISTORY of the NBA. Needs to be fixed simple as that. I think underhand is the most obvious solution and I don't understand how pride deters from trying underhand when its a hell of a lot worse to be the worst free throw shooter ever. We've talked about it here before, but there are guys like Chris Weber and Blake Griffin that started off their careers as horrible free throw shooters and then quite obviously put in the work to correct this over the summer.

 

[Dogbreath2U]

A not so extreme approach (compared to the underhanded shot) was implemented with Josh Boone. I think it was during his Sophomore year. Remember how he extended his arm out with the ball in the palm of his right hand, followed by turning the ball over and making a 90 degree angle at his elbow, then would shoot from there. This seemed to restrict the extra movements that he would usually bring into play, such as bringing the ball way too far back over his head IIRC. He shot significantly better that year, then ditched it over the summer and his shooting went downhill again. I wonder if it would have made a difference in his NBA longevity if he had kept that routine.

I recall Wilt Chamberlain going to underhanded free throws and improving his percent by doing so. I hope that Andre will try a new approach as well.