Shaquille Oneal.....An Epiphany

[.Alex.]

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Also, Phil Jackson has stated that Shaq was the only great player that he ever had who didn't like working hard.

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The same Phil Jackson that bashed Kobe when he wasn't coaching him then backtracked at full speed once he started coaching him again? Yeah, I'd take his word at face value.

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Come on, this is completely different. Of course Phil has to support Kobe if he's coaching him. He had to back off his statements; how the heck could he coach otherwise? On the other hand, what reason could he possibly have to lie about Shaq's work ethic?

[Taraz]

All you guys saying Shaq doesn't practice enough are retarded.

Shaq lived in the same city as I did when I was in high school He got a key to our high school gym and was in there multiple nights a week late at night with a coach shooting only free throws. I know this because I stayed and watched multiple times. Believe it or not he was hitting more than 75% of them for the 30-40 minutes that I was watching.

And about people hating on Shaq for turning down free throw help: Would you accept help from every single person who offered? You don't think he gets offers every week of his life from people who have the "magic cure" for his form? I agree that he should've tried the underhand route, but to say that he didn't care or anything like that is ridicluous.

IMO most of his free throw woes are mental. If you think too much about it physical performance while trying to do it you choke and can't perform. I actually heard of some really cool research on this phenomenon that's going on right now when I was visiting grad schools for psychology.

[Thremp]

Taraz,

Whats damning is you can teach someone off the street to hit 90% in practice and likely 70% in NBA game type situations. What sucks is that his shot still looks like a troglodyte and he is unwilling to improve it.

[teamdonkey]

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Taraz,

Whats damning is you can teach someone off the street to hit 90% in practice and likely 70% in NBA game type situations. What sucks is that his shot still looks like a troglodyte and he is unwilling to improve it.

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no, no, and no.

If it was really so easy for everyone to "learn" free throw shooting, why are there so many players in the NBA below 70%? Do you really think "they're lazy" is more likely than "it's tough for some people"? If Shaq is "unwilling" to improve his free throw shooting, why are there so many stories about him spending tons of time in the beginning and middle of his career trying to do just that?

[Colt McCoy]

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If Shaq is "unwilling" to improve his free throw shooting, why are there so many stories about him spending tons of time in the beginning and middle of his career trying to do just that?

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I haven't heard these stories, but I have heard over and over that he's not willing to try to learn and is completely uncoachable with regard to this. Even Riles has talked about it in interviews, and we all know that Shaq was unwilling to even try to learn to shoot underhanded because he was afraid of how it would hurt his image. It's just pathetic when you're being paid what he is but are unwilling to improve yourself for your teammates chances at a title because you're afraid of looking silly.

It's just plain laziness, just like how he's almost always overweight and takes most of the regular season off. He's the reason the Heat don't have home court right now, although I will grant that after he screwed them he tried pretty hard to get them back in the mix when Wade went down.

[Bulldog]

Here's a better discussion:

If Rick Barry taught Shaq to shoot underhanded FTs and he learned to hit 70% consistently, what would be Shaq's best play?

a) Do it in games, win more, and get mocked by some fans/media/opponents etc?

b) Keep shooting 45% via normal style nad not run the risk of the ridicule?

[Jack of Arcades]

Shaq did change his free throw shooting. Remember his little weird ass two-foot shuffle [censored]? He hit like 60% with those.

[M2d]

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And about people hating on Shaq for turning down free throw help: Would you accept help from every single person who offered? You don't think he gets offers every week of his life from people who have the "magic cure" for his form? I agree that he should've tried the underhand route, but to say that he didn't care or anything like that is ridicluous.

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because that guy Rick Barry is just another guy off the street. he isn't one of the NBA 50 greatest for anything. he's not a career 90% free throw shooter or anything.

oh yeah. he is.

[PokerFink]

I had an epiphany.

There are people that understand the concept that being abnormally tall/large makes it more difficult to do simple, yet coordinated tasks like shoot FTs.

And there are people that don't understand this concept.

[MoreWineII]

I'm coming to the epiphany that Shaq is old and on the down side of up.