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I have a crazy idea just 2 weeks prior to the start of the season, let’s talk about free throw form. I have a new approach to shooting free throws that I think would be beneficial for Hashan French. It is a simple approach, but I have never seen it described or used.

I would suggest that a player should set their feet in a normal shooting stance, and potentially have one foot slightly forward for balance. Preferably, the foot on the same side as the shooting arm should be slightly forward. The player should stand with legs and upper body completely straight and fixed. The shooting arm should be extended directly upward and completely straight. The player then leans the upper body backwards, or simply flexes backwards. This flex could simply be a bowing of the entire body backwards, or a pivot substantially at the waist level. The player should stretch or reach backwards enough to generate power to send the ball to the basket. The player should then release this energy, allowing the shooting arm to proceed forward. The player should then, keeping the shooting arm straight, aim the ball in a form similar to a typical basketball shot, by curling the wrist and, partially the fingers, into the basket (from their perspective) creating spin on the ball (ie. standard follow through). The arm may need some physical power to obtain the speed and power to complete the shot, but this should not be the entirety of the shot. In short, this involves standing rigid with the arm straight above, then a stretch back and release, with follow through.

 

I think this description should cover it. This would allow a shot with less body motion, while still relying on the benefits of the raised basketball shot, including the form with a raised wrist (ie. follow through), as compared to a granny shot. This reduces the inconsistency caused by the upward and forward motion of the arm in a standard shot, as the arm requires more overall motion to generate an accurate shot, compared to the described method. For example, there is less risk than the pivoting around the knees, hips, shoulder, elbow, etc from a normal shot.

This method leads to a flatter shot. It also sends the ball to the basket softer on a more consistent basis, allowing the ball to roll around the rim, leading to a fairly high likelihood the ball will go in when the shot is slightly offline. Which, with French, would probably be an upgrade.

In general, I think this shooting approach makes more sense overall than the typical free throw shot, at least from a mechanical perspective. It is also fairly easy to get the ball to the basket, almost anyone can shoot with this approach physically.

As a final note, I think this approach would particularly help Hashn French, though that should be obvious by now. He appears to have a good follow through. I would assume his shot problems come from his arms. If I were to guess, I would say that he is probably so strong that he struggles with the fine motor adjustments needed by the arms when in free motion. The ball seems to be off on distance short and long. It even seems off left to right. He may have trouble keeping his elbow in a fixed plane to the basket as well as, you know, normal power. The method described above would take his arm muscles out of the equation. He would be able to focus on finding the right amount of stretching backward. This likely would be an easier objective.

I am done. I hope you enjoyed this description. I entreat all of you to try this at your personal hoops and upload some pics.

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Shoot a FT with the same motion as a jumper without jumping. Has’s problem in games is he tries to steer the ball in by pushing the ball. In warmups he just stands at the line flexes his arms and uses his wrists. In the game he pushes the ball as he tries to steer it into the basket. Mental. 

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53 minutes ago, slu72 said:

Shoot a FT with the same motion as a jumper without jumping. Has’s problem in games is he tries to steer the ball in by pushing the ball. In warmups he just stands at the line flexes his arms and uses his wrists. In the game he pushes the ball as he tries to steer it into the basket. Mental. 

Totally agree @slu72. It’s all in his head. He gets to the line in the game and he thinks about all the articles and tweets that have been written about his free throw shooting, the team’s free throw shooting, and he starts thinking about everything that could possibly go wrong before he shoots, and any mechanical adjustments he’s made in practice go right out the window. And with every free throw he misses, he puts more pressure on himself the next time he gets to the line and the problem just gets worse. I am, and never was, anywhere near the athlete or basketball player Has is, but 1 thing I was pretty good at was I was pretty good shooter. I had a similar issue at the line in high school (though not as dramatic).  I know everybody has their routine, 3 dribbles, deep breath, spin the ball, whatever. 1 adjustment I made to get over the mental issue is I shortened the “routine”. I got the ball, 1 dribble, and shot. That way, I didn’t have time to think about all the different moving parts of my free throw shooting and I could just shoot my shot. I have no idea if that would help Has, but it helped me a lot. 

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  • 1 month later...

Bumping my own thread. After watching French shoot the other night, I felt like making some new suggestions.  Now, these are serious, but not serious Suggestions for the next options French could take for free throws, that would at least be fun to watch:

1. He could line up some practice form. Have a Teammate hold the ball right next to him. Go through 2 or 3 practice shots, and then have the player deposit the ball into the ready position. Then start his shot. It would be like practice puts on the golf course with caddy support.

2. He could literally create a free throw dance. He could conga line from the 3 point line to the FT line, really get into the dance form, and then chuck it. Other dances welcome.

3. He could do his patented jump hooK fade-away. Face away from the basket and simply let it roll.

4. He could try to build up speed and jump towards the basket as hard as possible to shorten the distance of the FT (is this legal, and if so, why not do this?). All of his shots are basically moving anyway.

 

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31 minutes ago, White Pelican said:

I think they should just decline the penalty. He's worse now than ever. It's a lost cause.

This.

I think at this point we just need to realize they aren’t going in.

The only “fix” is to sub Linssen or not letting French touch the ball when the other team is fouling.

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The big problem is when we start A-10 play opposing coaches will start fouling him more. Any time we were in the bonus I would send someone in to hack him if he touched the ball . Fortunately with Linssen we are better off but you give up a lot of defense. 

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30 minutes ago, dlarry said:

I think at this point we just need to realize they aren’t going in.

This is pretty much it. Best thing to hope for is a return to 30% and that the shots he's fouled on all go in so at least we get two points.

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35 minutes ago, willie said:

The big problem is when we start A-10 play opposing coaches will start fouling him more. Any time we were in the bonus I would send someone in to hack him if he touched the ball . Fortunately with Linssen we are better off but you give up a lot of defense. 

This is the problem with saying we have to have our offense flow through him as is often pointed out - more touches is the goal.  The more touches he gets the more likely he will be fouled especially when he is double teamed which the A-10 usually does.  Why wouldn't you foul him - it almost ensures you will be better off.  I agree it isn't going to get any better at this point - it is what it is.  The best we can hope for is that we get consistent outside scoring and they can't double team French which will decrease his chances of getting fouled.

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On 11/13/2020 at 8:44 PM, slu72 said:

Shoot a FT with the same motion as a jumper without jumping. Has’s problem in games is he tries to steer the ball in by pushing the ball. In warmups he just stands at the line flexes his arms and uses his wrists. In the game he pushes the ball as he tries to steer it into the basket. Mental. 

Very mental IMO...kind of like anyone even Pros having trouble on the greens in golf.

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5 minutes ago, SLU_Nick said:

He should have learned underhand in the off season. 

Honestly, I think he could learn any form with about 500 throws. He could get there in a few days with dedicated practice. A week at most. I do think he would benefit from changing form, even literally copying Goodwin’s form changes exactly. It would force him to get out of his own head a bit. That is also why I think a dance might be a good idea (check that, I just think it was be fun to watch).

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While HF's free-throws haven't gotten any better, there are some things that Ford can do to make them less of an issue:

- Expect that Hassan won't be in the game in the final 5 minutes of either half once 1-1 starts. Plan playing time accordingly.

- That means you run the offense through him early in each half but not in the later part of halves where a floor foul leads to free throws. If the other teams foul a lot then so be it as it will get their bigs in foul trouble and get us closer to 1-1 and double bonus earlier each half.

- If HF gets in foul trouble, you can keep him in there and not worry about it. It allows him to be a little more aggressive on defense than maybe he would have been with 2 or more fouls.

- And there's always the offense/defense proposition. If he's stuck in the game late, don't run it through him on offense. The refs shouldn't allow a true hack a French defense so the only way it would be allowed is if he has the ball. Don't pass him the ball on offense unless its for a dunk.

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whoever is teaching french to shoot free throws should be relieved of that duty.   i agree it looks worse than ever.   and i am with skip, no way he shoots 80% in practice.  

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6 minutes ago, BilliesBy40 said:

It’s an interesting thought/question. His right-handed baby hook looks much more natural.

Why not try the opposite hand? It couldn’t get worse. The other approach would be throwing it up there with enough force to ensure a long rebound to give us a better chance to get the rebound.

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16 hours ago, SLU_Nick said:

He should have learned underhand in the off season. 

We have had talked about this but people insist that players today won't do it because it doesn't look cool - seems like a dumb excuse to me because throwing bricks up all the time can't look cool either.

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I’m now convinced it’s never getting better unless he sees a sports shrink. I swear I watched his warmup FTs last year at Davidson and he hit most of them. Game starts and it goes right in the toilet. That’s a mental issue not form or preshot routine. I like the idea of keeping him out of the offensive flow at the end of games. If he gets the ball, you know what’s coming, hack attack. Hell, the defense might shove or push him intentionally just to send him to the line to get the ball back.

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On 12/25/2020 at 7:27 AM, cheeseman said:

We have had talked about this but people insist that players today won't do it because it doesn't look cool - seems like a dumb excuse to me because throwing bricks up all the time can't look cool either.

Agreed hitting only the backboard or airballing it is to me much more embarrassing than shooting it granny style, especially since you can make the shot granny style.  Teams and fans may heckle for shooting like that but that is a badge of honor being the enemy of every one.  Imagine the media coverage if French started shooting like that and made them?  He'd be a star and it would make him a few more bucks after college.

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Hasahn is so tight and methodical when he shoots. Way too much motion for as strong as he is.  The great FT shooters have a smooth, simple, easy delivery.

I remember Chris Heinrich had a deep knee bend.  Too many degrees of motion means more chances for something to be off kilter.

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You can see the differences in approaches with both Goodwin and French.  Goodwin takes the ball, lines it up, puts one foot on the line, moves the other up then takes the shot.  What did Highmark call it ... stepping into the shot.  French on the other hand accept the ball from the ref like it is a pass and just goes up for the shot.  Just as if it came from a teammate.  I think the thought there is to eliminate the thought process and let talent take over.  It takes the thinking out of thre equation but that hasn't seemed to work either.  So we have the French we always knew we had.  I'd go offense for defense late in games ..... unfortunately, the guy is a liability at the free throw line and you can't have that late in games.

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22 hours ago, slu72 said:

I’m now convinced it’s never getting better unless he sees a sports shrink. I swear I watched his warmup FTs last year at Davidson and he hit most of them. Game starts and it goes right in the toilet. That’s a mental issue not form or preshot routine.

As just a MBM, this is the only scenario I can think of that makes any sense. Otherwise I feel like thru the years we would have seen him trying all sorts of different things at the free throw line to try to find something that works, like Yadi at the plate when he was a youngster.

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