Calling Rick Barry, Calling Rick Barry!!!!

[diveonthefloor]

OK....
When does the call go out to the king of underhanded free throw shooting...MASON NEEDS YOU! PLEASE TEACH HIM!

[diveonthefloor]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4eJSjwlD5o

[Wander]

Why? Mason shot 2-5 today - he's improving!

[ricks68]

Calvin Murphy was used for a very long time to help the Houston Cougers, the Houston Rockets, and other individual players around the league---and he shot the standard way. I have been thinking about him for us for quite a while now.

ricks

[OldPhiKap]

Calvin Murphy was used for a very long time to help the Houston Cougers, the Houston Rockets, and other individual players around the league---and he shot the standard way. I have been thinking about him for us for quite a while now.

ricks

Calvin, the pride of Norwalk CT.

[allenmurray]

Is anyone aware of any articles on the physics of free throw shooting? I've always though there must be some mechanical benefit to Barry's style.

[Mike Corey]

Is anyone aware of any articles on the physics of free throw shooting? I've always though there must be some mechanical benefit to Barry's style.

Here you go: An actual study from two physicists at N.C. State.

The purpose of this study was to determine the optimum release conditions for the free throw in men's basketball. The study used hundreds of thousands of three-dimensional simulations of basketball trajectories. Five release variables were studied: release height, release speed, launch angle, side angle, and back spin. The free throw shooter was assumed to shoot at 70% and to release the ball 2.134 m (7 ft) above the ground. We found that the shooter should place up to 3 Hz of back spin on the ball, should aim the ball towards the back of the ring, and should launch the ball at 52° to the horizontal. We also found that it is desirable to release the ball as high above the ground as possible, as long as this does not adversely affect the player's launch consistency.

[Jim3k]

Well...we could stay in-house and call for Blue Devil Chip Engelland. However, he does have a full-time job with the Spurs. Spurs Nation report on Engelland as a FT coach

[ricks68]

Well...we could stay in-house and call for Blue Devil Chip Engelland. However, he does have a full-time job with the Spurs. Spurs Nation report on Engelland as a FT coach

excellent idea!

ricks

[Duke71]

I know it's naive of me to say this, but I do believe that he'll figure out the "free throw thing" before the end of the year.

Have faith....

[OZZIE4DUKE]

I know it's naive of me to say this, but I do believe that he'll figure out the "free throw thing" before the end of the year.

Have faith....

Let's hope so, because Mason is going to have a lot more chances at the line this season!

I believe ... I believe ... I ...

[OldPhiKap]

Let's hope so, because Mason is going to have a lot more chances at the line this season!

I believe ... I believe ... I ...

I am not as optoemistic as Ozzie.

Of course, few are.

But Oz is exactly right (as usual) when he says that Mase will have plenty of opportunities before the end of the year. It is a big liability if we can't have hiim in at the end of a game because he can't hit his FREE throws.

[DisplacedBlueDevil]

Hubert Davis said there were four factors involved in FT shooting during the telecast and that MP2 was missing "confidence" but I disagree...he needs to use his legs more, which will be replace the push in his wrist and shore up his release - IMHO.

[greybeard]

s my man explained it oh so perfectly, "...self-knowledge through awareness is the goal of reeducation. As we become aware of what we are doing in fact, and not what we say or think we are doing, the way to improvement is wide open to us."

Mason needs to practice shooting short little shots, experiment with the effect small changes have on the feel, trajectory, touch of his shot; where doing less, softening will add to effectiveness, etc. He will through this mode come "to know what he is doing ," and be able "to do what he wants"--that is, change from what is currently habitual and therefore imperceptable to him, and chose something better. See the same Dude.

As my man Michael Hebron has said so often about golf, shooting a basketball 'is not a subject to be taught." Grey [I t5old you about Cook] beard

[Indoor66]

Rick Barry - Rick Barry - Rick Barry.

Mason needs to do something different - go to the underhand motion.

[dukelifer]

OK....
When does the call go out to the king of underhanded free throw shooting...MASON NEEDS YOU! PLEASE TEACH HIM!

Mason has worked hard on the sky hook- now he needs to try the underhand free throw. He clearly would get a lot of attention if he could perfect that shot. Players must think it looks silly. Well missing 60 percent of your free throws also looks silly. Austin also needs to improve his free throw shooting. He should know that the great wings can all shoot throws. The season often comes down to free throws.

[diveonthefloor]

Rick Barry - Rick Barry - Rick Barry.

Mason needs to do something different - go to the underhand motion.

Agreed. The difference between Mason shooting 30% or 75% from the line this year will translate to the difference between a 2nd round NCAA exit or a Final Four. I really don't think that is too much of an exaggeration.

The Barry technique is simple to learn. He could literally have it mastered in a matter of days. There is only one reason i can think of not to try it: stubbornness.

[greybeard]

Agreed. The difference between Mason shooting 30% or 75% from the line this year will translate to the difference between a 2nd round NCAA exit or a Final Four. I really don't think that is too much of an exaggeration.

The Barry technique is simple to learn. He could literally have it mastered in a matter of days. There is only one reason i can think of not to try it: stubbornness.

Does anyone remember Wilt, who was a much better shooter (fall away jump shot was money) and the worst free throw shooter I can remember. He went to the under hand method and it did not a whit of good. Some things that must be figured out on one's own. Oh, one can have models whose shots work and whose styles catch a guy's eye, but figuring out through one's own body how that player's style works requires careful observation and then literally fooling around with everything one sees and comes up with and then experimenting until the feel, the repeatability, the ease of it all fall into place. Then you won it.

An apt story, all of it true: In high school, I was a pretty good foul shooter--actually very good. My good buddy, the best center on the South Shore of Long Island, not so much--an understatment actually. So, one day as playoff time approached, the coach asks me to work with my buddy, which I do with no meaningful improvement. So, the coach comes over, with a roll of twine, loops one end around my friend's left wrist, the other around the quad of his right leg, such that the twin would become taut about six inches below my friend's habituated release point. Well, the guy almost killed himself. I mean, he'd go to shoot, not let go, and yank his right leg up and back. The moral of the story, you gotta learn it on your own.

Here's the cool part. My man Stein was a stone-cold gambling man--the higher the stakes, the closer and more important the game, the better he liked it and the looser, more effective he became--once lead a 14 point comback in the final four minutes by putting it through his legs on a finish coming from right to left as he began his final two steps to avoid an obvious charge and put in a lefty hook, well, drop it in is more like it--dude could jump. Anyway, here we are, semifinals of South Shore Championship, clock has run out, half our first six (no more than six ever played) had fouled out, and Stein gets fouled. No chance that he makes it, right. Well, Stein walks up to the foul line, holds the ball reall low, arms hanging, ball in two hands, knuckles towards the rim, only a slight softening of the knees and lift in them and the smoothest upward movement of a guy's arms one could imagine this side of Rick Barry. Game.

Now, it might have been Bill Munch, the coach who had hog tied Stein a week or so earlier (the most likely scenario) , or it might have been Barry himself--Barry was playing for the Nets at the time and thought the world of Joe Glass (Larry Brown's agent and surrogate father) whose son sat right next to me on the bench, or it might have been Stein himself in his drivewary. But, damned if that underhand, Rick- Barry shot didn't work. So, might be worth a try, couoldn't hurt.

As far as getting Rick to come down here, however, I'd have my doubts. Larry did go to that other school, Brent got his doctorate there, and so helping a Duke guy out, I wouldn't count on it.

[miramar]

Maybe old school is best.

I've always thought that for anyone who is having major problems with FTs, then the underhand shot is worth a try. Wilt never seemed to concentrate at the line, so it didn't help. But perhaps someone should tell Mason that if he shoots underhand, he too will have sex with 20,000 women (preferably in the off season).

[rasputin]

I'm sure Mason is being drilled about this, but he needs a softer FT shot instead of the line drive he often flings up there. The line drive has to be just about perfect to go in.