Andre Drummond at the follow line (file photo)
Andre Drummond at the foul line (file photo)
People like Stan Van Gundy (and his brother Jeff on ABC/ESPN) can yell and scream all they want about the absurdity of the Hack-a-Shaq (or Andre) tactic, but the truth of the matter is that they’re simply excusing an extreme weakness on the part of a few NBA players.
On Wednesday night, the Houston Rockets took the strategy to new heights, opening the second half with an immediate five fouls to enter the penalty, then sending Andre Drummond to the line 12 straight times down the court. And to the surprise of nobody, Drum Squad was a train wreck. For the night, he was 12-of-36, and during that stretch of the third, the Rockets did indeed forge a comeback and narrowed the deficit considerably (though the Pistons would go on to win the game).
Jalen Rose was on ESPN last night talking about this very subject and had a very simple message. “We’re not going to change the game of basketball for four guys that can’t shoot free throws consistently. The bottom line is this -- go to the line and make your free throws. For the guys that don’t, we’ll play the percentages often.”
Former Piston great Chauncey Billups was also in studio and echoed Rose’s sentiments, saying “it’s a tool in the toolbox” that teams rightfully use to get back in games.
It does a disservice to the fundamentals of the game and those that cared enough throughout their basketball lives to perfect them when Van Gundy rants and raves about the hacking of Drummond and how it doesn’t belong in the sport. It devalues other pivot men like former great Yao Ming that brought tremendous value to the center position by being an ace free throw shooter as well as a suitable low-post banger.
Can’t You Just Put in Somebody Else??
And I’m not entirely certain what the thought process is on the part of Van Gundy leaving Drummond in for close to 40 foul shot attempts. If the other team is opting to enact the Hack-A method to such lengths, and your guys is missing at an alarming rate, why not go with the very offensively capable Aaron Baynes in the meantime? It’s not as if the Pistons had nowhere to turn during this whole charade. All they had to do was make a substitution.
When Van Gundy pleads to the commissioner after the game to do something about this godforsaken rule, do you know who he ends up sounding like? Me, as a five-year-old. Because that’s how I would act when me and my older brother would play RBI Baseball on Nintendo.
We had an unwritten rule when we started any game that no matter what, every pitch had to be lobbed right down the middle of the plate. It would make hitting balls out of the park far easier with Kevin Mitchell, George Bell, and the like. If one of us happened to throw a slow one that would go in the dirt, or direct a curve to the outside corner, the other brother would react unfavorably and a healthy brawl would commence.
Were we right to demand such perfect pitching? Of course not. We were taking a sport steeped in rich history and tricking the whole thing up.
At its core, that’s what Van Gundy is doing. He’s asking that the sport undergo a fairly serious change simply because one of his players treats the free throw line like one of those impossible 25-foot-shots that exist only at state fairs and MTV Rock-N-Jock games.
Is the free throw parade boring, slow-paced, and completely unappealing to the masses? Yes, yes, and yes. But as much as professional sports have become entertainment, it is still a competition above all else. The primary goal is to win. Putting on a show is all well and good, but not at the expense of a fair and just outcome.
Never a Problem Before
This was not a strategy widely seen in the NBA’s past because there was a time when a guy entering this league had to be a basketball player, and not just a physical specimen. Nowadays, if you’re close to seven feet with a healthy dose of athleticism, you can spend a few months in college, improve very little in the way of actual hoops skill, and enter the league still that same raw athlete you were as a 17 or 18-year-old.
When do you learn how to shoot a free throw if you haven’t done so by the time you enter the NBA? Maybe never. Ben Wallace played almost 20 years as a pro and he never improved one iota.
This is Drummond’s fourth season in the NBA, and he’s having his worst performance from the free throw line. And nobody is suggesting Drummond wake up tomorrow and knock down 80 percent. Find a way to get to 60 and the hacking stops.
Maybe he doesn’t realize it, but Van Gundy would be doing his big man more of a favor if he came out after last night’s 36-FT circus and said something to the effect of, “Overhand, underhand...he’s got to figure something out. This cannot go on much longer if we want to be a championship-type basketball team and he wants to be a championship-type player.”
But instead, Coach Stan took the easy way out, simply echoing the same tired complaint we’ve been hearing from a few coaches for years now. The solution will never be found in altering the game’s rules to hide these deficiencies.
The fix to Drummond’s problem is a phone call away, and that is to Rick Barry. Get the NBA Hall of Famer and noted free throw savant on a plane to Motown, put him with Andre for the next three months, and you could almost guarantee the big man would be a markedly better charity tosser by opening night of next season.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and after what took place on Wednesday night, a 12-for-36 horror show none of us will soon forget, it’s clear we’ve reached a point of crisis.
Let’s just not beg the league to fix the problem for us. It’s immature, lacking in creativity, and brings back far too many memories of myself as a youngster.
I never quite figured out how to hit that wicked Todd Worrell sidearm delivery. But then again, I never really tried learning in the first place.
