You Tube Gold: The Science And Art Of The Free Throw

Too late for Shaq, but pretty interesting stuff here for anyone aspiring player.

Free throw shooting is one of the most intriguing aspects of basketball. Some people - Duke’s JJ Redick for one, Georgia Tech great Mark Price for another - just killed it at the line.

Most people average around 70 percent though and some really, really struggle with free throws.

This Wired video gets into the physics and mindset of the shot. The narrator spends time with NBA great Steve Nash, NC State professor Larry Silverberg NC State dynamist, former Barnard College president Sian Beilock and Bob Fisher World, who holds a lot of free throw records, although not as a player. These are Guinness book records.

Nash gets into it from a player’s point of view, and also plugs a software he’s contributed to to help refine your technique.

Silverberg talks about the science of the free throw while Beilock focuses on the psychology. Fisher...you don't want to dismiss him as just a guy but he’s not a professional in anything except he’s just mastered free throws. And although he’s not doing it under pressure, he really has. His mechanics must be superb.

And yes, they get into the Rick Barry school of granny free throws. Nash concedes that underhanded free throws may eliminate some variables. Essentially, using two hands reduces the odds that you drift left or right, leaving you to focus on the arc.

To us, free throws are not that complicated. You start by standing near the basket and shooting until you can drop the ball over the rim without touching it, over and over again. Then step back a few feet and repeat. Keep doing that until you’re at the line.

Obviously mechanics are critical but assuming you have good form and fundamentals, it’s just repetition, which breeds confidence.

As Nash says, you have to put in the work.