No one is going ‘granny’ in the NBA

SAN DIEGO — Professional team sports have long had a studious side. In the 1960s, Baltimore Orioles Manager Earl Weaver pioneered the tool of tracking how individual batters fared against individual pitchers to inform his lineup and pinch-hitting decisions. That same decade, the Dallas Cowboys revolutionized the scouting of college players with the use of a computer database, a practice initially mocked by legendary Green Bay Packers Coach Vince Lombardi but later adopted by all NFL teams.

As chronicled more than a decade ago by Michael Lewis in “Moneyball” and “The Blind Side,” executives in baseball and football have steadily accepted that statistical analysis — not hunches and pet theories — should drive key decisions.

The NBA has had a somewhat different experience. Yes, as with baseball, the game has been radically changed — arguably for the worse — by data analytics. Most teams’ offenses are built around getting open three-point shots. Virtually every team seeks to stockpile “Three and D” wing players who can both shoot and defend against three-pointers.

But because a single basketball player has so much more effect on game outcomes than those in baseball and football, basketball analytics sometimes fall short. In 2017, America’s No. 1 statistics guru, Nate Silver of 538.com, admitted that his computer models simply couldn’t comprehend how valuable LeBron James was to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the playoffs.

But no sport has such obvious low-hanging analytics fruit as basketball. The evidence is vast that free-throw accuracy would improve for many players if they adopted a method of shooting that physics shows maximizes the chances of making a 15-foot uncontested shot from the foul line. Physics professors have documented that the “granny shot” — shooting underhanded with legs spread and both hands cupping the ball — makes it more likely a free throw will have a higher arc than a conventional shot and naturally creates extra backspin that lessens the impact when the ball hits the rim. Both aspects of the underhand shot make it more accurate. The same goes for the fact that an underhand free throw is simpler and easier to replicate over and over than a conventional shot.

Yet even though evidence for the superiority of the “granny shot” has been plain for decades, no current NBA player uses it. When Rick Barry retired from the NBA in 1980, he was the league’s all-time leader in freethrow percentage at 90.0%, shooting underhanded. He’s now been passed by Stephen Curry, universally acknowledged as the greatest shooter in history — but not by much, with Curry at 90.7%. Barry has long expressed amazement that players who are bad at free throws don’t want to risk ridicule by doing something perceived as lacking in machismo.

Case in point: “I told Rick Barry I’d rather shoot 0% than shoot underhand,” 52.7% career free-throw shooter Shaquille O’Neal said in 2017. “I’m too cool for that.”

But O’Neal should have heeded the powerful evidence — and the experience of another brawny 7-foot Hall of Famer with a history of ineptitude at the foul line. On March 2, 1962, when Wilt Chamberlain set the single-game NBA record with 100 points, the career 51.1% free-throw shooter made 28 of 32 foul shots — an 87.5% clip. How? You guessed it — Chamberlain was in a brief period of his career when he overcame any concerns about the perceptions of others and shot his free throws underhanded.

So who would benefit now by shooting free throws underhand? The most obvious example is Andre Drummond, the new Lakers center, an awful career 46.6% foul shooter. The most interesting example, though, is his teammate, LeBron James, the all-time great who is shooting a mediocre 68.4% on free throws since coming to Los Angeles in 2018. Far from hurting his image, James’ decision to try to improve an area of weakness in his 18th season would only burnish his reputation as someone devoted above all else to winning.

But this is a professional sport with millions of dollars on the line. At some point, the decision should not be left up to players. NBA teams need to provide contract incentives based on how much a player’s freethrow percentage increases — or to compel weak free-throw shooters to go “granny.”

This is not rocket science. If there is a simple way to make a player better, then use it.