Calling Rick Barry, Calling Rick Barry!!!!

[diveonthefloor]

Problem is that the higher you release the ball, the further from the basket the ball's apex occurs, and the more velocity it has on its downward flight. This makes it much less likely that a ball will strike the rim and still drop. In addition to being an easy muscle memory repetitive motion, the underhanded release allows the apex of flight to be closer to rim level, and provides a softer impact on the rim.
To me, this is a no brainer. Worth a try especially for Mason.

[sagegrouse]

Problem is that the higher you release the ball, the further from the basket the ball's apex occurs, and the more velocity it has on its downward flight. This makes it much less likely that a ball will strike the rim and still drop. In addition to being an easy muscle memory repetitive motion, the underhanded release allows the apex of flight to be closer to rim level, and provides a softer impact on the rim.
To me, this is a no brainer. Worth a try especially for Mason.

I dunno, Diveonthefloor. I remember shooting baskets from the top of a low shed in my neighbor's backyard, and I regularly made shots that I never made from ground level. -- sagegrouse

[BD80]

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

Sounds like Mason needs to take a trip with Shane to Tibet. Ommmmmmmmm.

[BigWayne]

I hope he finds a way out of this mess soon. He started out the season just a hair under the Billy King line and is rapidly gaining separation from it.

[Andy7207]

I think there's too much of a stigma now. Nobody Mason's age saw underhanded free throws in the NBA... it still weirds me out when I see it in "Hoosiers."

I know some people that consider it "unmanly" (direct quote) to do anything besides the stand-and-shoot-overhand. This includes both underhanded shots and doing a small jumpshot instead of standing in place. I hope he tries it though, if only for novelty's sake.

[BD80]

Problem is that the higher you release the ball, the further from the basket the ball's apex occurs, and the more velocity it has on its downward flight. This makes it much less likely that a ball will strike the rim and still drop. In addition to being an easy muscle memory repetitive motion, the underhanded release allows the apex of flight to be closer to rim level, and provides a softer impact on the rim.
To me, this is a no brainer. Worth a try especially for Mason.

But it requires much more energy to propel the ball to its apex when shot underhand, creating a greater likelihood for error, and each hand must generate the same force/spin/trajectory - which can be difficult for those with a strongly dominant hand.

[greybeard]

Sounds like Mason needs to take a trip with Shane to Tibet. Ommmmmmmmm.

Muscle memorary? Muscles got brains? Really? Movements like shooting foul shots are made up of many elemental movements some of which all of us don't perform so well. We put something togther that fits with our assymatries, a trajectory presents that is the easiest to cause our arms to move through, and, if the machine we construct is ill timed, then we make up a release, a different one each time, to get the darn thing to approximate what looks like a shot but really isn't. We'll make a couple then miss wildly in different ways four or five times, then hit a couple, etc.

Improving on outcomes by changing how we do something requires at a minimum that we are aware of how we do them,; which parts of us participate, in what direction, is the participation helping or impeding, are things not moving that should, things moving in opposition to what we are trying to achieve. These things are habbitual. Why, if you were sitting at your desk, and reached across your body with your right hand to grab something, you'd have no idea how you did it. All you would know is that you decided to reach for something to pick it up, and did. What happened in between, the function that you performed, would be a mystery to you. And, if you had to reach in that fashion lots of times a day, or say reach in that way to hit a backhand, and developed a sore shoulder, you and your orthopod would look to your shoulder to find out what the problem was and then to find a way to fix it. Only the problem was in what you do to bring that racket from your right side to your left and to then bring it through the ball. And, neither you nor your doctor would have a clue about that, they would not know how you use yourself to perform that function that is causing the pain and would have no clue about how you would go about doing something that made more sense and wouldn't cause your should to hurt. Helping an individual develop choices beyond what is habbitual is not an easy business. Expert free throw shooters are not experts in doing that. All they can do is tell players to do something different. If such instructions worked, Wilt and Shaq would have shot better, no?

You ask any ball player whether he thinks in words when he day dreams about shooting a three and I bet not a one, not a single one, will tell you that he is daydreaming words. If I had ten people lying on the floor, and I gave a simple instruction, "raise your right hand over your head," how many different variations do you think I would find. I could correct all those who did something other than what I intended, let's say, arm straight up towards the wall behind you, and how many would still not do what I am asking. And, once everybody got it "right," if they came back the next day, I had them lie on their backs, do a bunch of other things, and then said, "raise your right hand over your head," we'd still get quite a few who would not be pointing a straightened right arm to the wall behind them.

Now, you multiply that 15 fold and see how well a player learns to shoot differently. And, even assuming that the player grasps all these words and paints a reasonable approximation of a picture and feel for what the coach has in mind, suppose how he habbitually moves his right arm up and forward does not permit him to do it smoothly and in rhythm on the trajectory that the coach wants. He just can't do it. Could the coach discover why and tell him what to do, and, if he could, would that help the guy do what the coach is asking. We are getting to the absurd, right.

And, by the way, why don't all of you advocates of the underhand shot, try it? Hang your arms down, and see if they hang the same length, if both elbows, forarms, and hands face in the same direction. Check out these and other postural assymetries, just standing there relaxed. Try looking at your shoulders, how your head tilts, whether one side of the chest is rotated towards the rear and the other the pectorial muscles are pushed forward. Now, with the assymetry you find, what's the chance, that if you take a slight knee bend and straighten, both sides straighten at the same pace, and the arms will lift with equillibrium, rhthym, arc, backspin, direction and distance to produce a decent shot, much less on a repeatable basis? TRY IT!

And, Om is so cute, but Moshe Feldenkrais was a mechanical engineer, a PHD physicist, an eighth degree black belt in judo, was fluent in five languages, and a didactic learner who taught himself physiology, neuro and brain science, anatomy, the way infants through toddlers learned, and his work was grounded on all these sciences and his theories about brain plasticisty, which allowed him to do miraculous things for people with cp, ms, strokes, scoliosis, one eye (Moshe Dyan), functional cripples (Ben Guerion whom he had standing on his head at the age of 80), and many, many world class musicians, athletes, dancers, actors and other performers who wanted to improve their crafts or deal with physical problems for which others had no answers. Most all the video of him working or speaking is controlled by the Feldenkrais Institute, which only makes them available to certified practitioners.

There is one video of him working on a member of an audience of physicists whom he had been invited to address and then was introduced in silly terms like the one you used. Well, after boring them to tears with a lecture about neurology and globes of the brain, which areas controlled what, he got around to working on one of their number who three weeks early had been in a car accident and was in significant pain and could not move her neck. Check it out. It lasts maybe 30 minutes--seard "Moshe Feldenkrais video to find it). YouTube has a follow up lecture he gave to the same group. Listen, you will see as the group of physicists did that the man was not talking voodoo.

As for Hebron, the first 20 years of his teaching career he was a regular presenter at PGA teaching professional conventions, could dissect every nuance of a golf swing better than just about anyone (PGA teaching professional of the year; buy his dvd Golf Mind, Golf Body, Golf Swing, I think you'll be more than satisfied with his credentials as an expert on the game in every minute detail), and is one of 25 Master PGA teaching professionals in the world. When I used to seek him out, he was rated 15 in the world by Golf Digest, and most of the gizzmos that he used to present stuff at PGA shows--two flash lights connected to a stick pointing in either direction--got co-opted by well know giants into $100 training tools sold in infomercials by the other 14. Hebron played basketball for UNC Charlotte, his kid brother was the assistant to Cremins at GT, and the man knows more about sports than anyone whom I've ever met. He also has devoted the last 20 years of his life studying on his own how people learn, and then trying to change the paradigm for how golf instruction is presented (instead of how-to instructions, he favors creating what he calls "learning environments" with minimal basic non negotiable elements being presented and demonstrated and then leaving learners to explore those elements by taking small shots and having the instructor around to answer questions and provide a safety net when a learner goes far off course. Hebron, by the way, charges something like $200 for a day long clinic. It's worth the trip out to Smithtown Long Island, just to schmooze with the guy. Believe me, Om would not be in his vocabulary.

Underhand shot. That's rich.

[Reilly]

... Moshe Feldenkrais was a mechanical engineer, a PHD physicist, an eighth degree black belt in judo, was fluent in five languages, and a didactic learner who taught himself physiology, neuro and brain science, anatomy ...

Somewhat impressive, but he was no Patrick Davidson ....

[greybeard]

Somewhat impressive, but he was no Patrick Davidson ....

He was a soccer player though. Had hurt his knee rather badly in his younger days, it started to seriously interfer with his ability to get around when he got older (ask K how those ankle injuries can wind up effecting your hips and back), the docs told him that surgery might work or leave his leg completely useless, which lead him to investigate how he might learn to use himself differently so that the injury to his knee would be less impactful on his ability to walk.

He had no 35 inch vertical, but as an original member of the Haganah as a teenager helping to build what was to become Tel Aviv. He decided to stand and fight when attacked by guys with ceremonial knives and swords, but didn't want them chopping him and his boys up--the British disarmed everybody but one does need one's ceremonial stuff now doesn't one, so he developed developed a system of hand to hand combat, most particularly how to disarm and then disable someone who just happened to attack you with one of those knives and swords, even wrote a training manuel. When he was working with Julliot Currie on nuclear fussion experiments, Professor Keno (who also didn't have a 35' vertical) visited Paris and was having some of his boyz put on an exhibition of his newly developed system of hand to hand combat known as Judo. Feldenkrais wanted into the exhibition, got his training pamphlet to Keno who asked Dr. Feldenkrais to come and see him, then to put on a private exhibition of his stuff, and then asked him how he'd like to be trained by two of Keno's best to learn Keno's method. The result, the black belts, the founding of the Judo Academies in France and England (he loved France but decided to try to weather up North when Paris suddenly got too hot for folks like him.)

By the way, I have it on good authority that one of Moshe's students, a former ball player, brought a certain doctor to him to see if Moshe might not be able to help him with his, er, jump shot. Moshe looked the doctor over quite carefully, moved him around a bit in a way that the doctor could hardly feel, and said that he could understand why the doctor, who by the way did have a 35 inch vertical and more, had difficulty shooting. Moshe didn't spend much time in the States at the time, and was too busy working with people with serious infirmity and teaching Awareness Through Movement lessons to groups of 250 people who werre interested in his work to take the good Doctor on. Rome was not built in a day, nor is overcoming habitual patterns and developing choice in how one shoots. So, the good Doctor was left to wow the world with his ability to fly and finish in miraculous ways but with just a so-so jump shot. Amazing how those shooting coaches just couldn't teach him to shoot a little better. Must have been the huge hands, huh?

There are 210 bones in the body and only so many ways to impart force through them. Being a mechanical engineer didn't hurt in Moshe's development of his system. There are about 5000 practitioners of the method world wide. It is a major part of the wellness system in Austrailia, where peer review studies are establishing the efficacy of ATMs to help people in various ways, for example, improving significantly the balance of the elderly. Those alopathic physicians are such sticklers about those peer review studies, you know. Ain't it surprising how these cancer and pyschotropic drugs that pass such tests with flying colors turn out to be canards that don't actually seem to help anybody. Well, no system is perfect, now is it. You want to find out something about how widespread and impactful the Method is around the world, do some Youtubing--here are a few names, Anat Baniel, Ruthy Alon, and Larry Goldfarb. By the way, more and more phsyicians are referring their patients to Feldenkrais practitioners for help. Must be quacks. Later.

[wilko]

I stand by my earlier training suggestion for free-throw % improvements.

If he can just WANT to make FT's more than he is afraid of missing them... then I think this issue is in the rear-view mirror.

[BD80]

I stand by my earlier training suggestion for free-throw % improvements.

If he can just WANT to make FT's more than he is afraid of missing them... then I think this issue is in the rear-view mirror.

He should just think of his secretary!

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/yt-Nzb...ernor_1974_hd/

(at the 1:30 mark)

[greybeard]

I stand by my earlier training suggestion for free-throw % improvements.

If he can just WANT to make FT's more than he is afraid of missing them... then I think this issue is in the rear-view mirror.

During a post game interview, Michigan's field goal kicker was asked what he was thinking about before the goal winning kicks. "Brunettes," he responded, "Brunettes." The reporter, seemingly dumbfounded, replied, 'How did you come to think about brunnetes?" The kid replied that the kicking coach told him to think about brunettes or lots of beautiful babes. The kid obviously has a thing for brown haired babes, beautiful or not. So, perhaps your suggestion is worth a try--the kid, no great track record as a kicker, did split the uprights.

[diveonthefloor]

Once again, after watching the Uva game, I keep being reminded of the metaphor....Mason's foul shooting has become a national security risk, just like 15trillion in Chinese debt.

[Verga3]

Practice/change it...higher, softer arc. Will get more in and certainly more rolls. Must do this or NBA will not be a viable long-term option.

[DesertDevil]

Years ago I was a HS assistant coach & we had a kid with the same issues Mason has. 1) the ball is resting in the palm of the hand & 2) he is so mentally tight, he has less than a 50% chance of success.

I took the kid we had after practice & has him shoot with his eyes closed focusing solely on his ball placement & mechanics. We shot only 40-50 shots after practice like this for 2 weeks. He ended up shooting 68% or so (as I remember) the rest of the year.

As odd as it sounds, Mason needs to stop worrying about results. It's about focusing on the process & trusting the process. It's very similar to becoming a better putter on the golf course.

[Bluedevil114]

Many think that Mason Plumlee will forgoe his senior year to enter the NBA draft but at 42% FT and it will be less after the UVA game he will have to come back to Duke. His game is not as refined on the offensive side as it needs to be. He is not consistent enough in the post to be ready for the NBA. He will be back. Which means Duke will be in a scholarship crunch for next year.

[Steven43]

Practice/change it...higher, softer arc. Will get more in and certainly more rolls. Must do this or NBA will not be a viable long-term option.

Very true. You simply can't have a player in the lineup during crunch time who is this big of a liability from the stripe. Even in college it hurts his team dramatically. If Mason had shot 60% tonight, which certainly isn't great, we win by 7. At the end of games on offense it's almost as if we're playing 4 against 5. We are so wary of having Mason touch the ball that the opponent can cheat off of him and disrupt our offense, causing turnovers, bad shots, etc. In fact, we are going to struggle on the road against every single ACC team and at home against the better-than-average teams. And the task of beating UNC becomes virtually impossible if he doesn't improve, even at Cameron.

[weezie]

Well, FWIW, on the after game radio show, Capel was asked directly if anyone on the coaching staff was considering teaching Mason the Barry method and he laughed but emphatically said no. Capel also said Mason is constantly practicing his free throws, constantly in the gym, always listening to his coaches.
He's trying. I was impressed at how he kept his head up after the misses and still played well. Gotta be difficult to work through this in front of all of us.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

Well, FWIW, on the after game radio show, Capel was asked directly if anyone on the coaching staff was considering teaching Mason the Barry method and he laughed but emphatically said no. Capel also said Mason is constantly practicing his free throws, constantly in the gym, always listening to his coaches.
He's trying. I was impressed at how he kept his head up after the misses and still played well. Gotta be difficult to work through this in front of all of us.

Capel went on further and completely dismissed the idea, saying "we don't do anything underhanded." Or maybe it was WON'T do. He went on that there's only been one man/player to shoot FT's underhanded, and granted he did it very well, but there's a reason why no one else does it. I think he's forgetting about Bill Russell, but he couldn't do that either.

Thanks to the DBR reader who obviously tweeted in the question! Please stand up and identify yourself.

[-bdbd]

But, BOY, is it painful to watch.

I really believe that it is mostly psychological at this point. As others have said, just find that consistent motion and stay with it consistently. It'll come. Dick Vitale, you could sense, was feeling for the kid - pointed out that almost all were going long. And, I would argue, the form/rotation wasn't consistent.

He'll never be great at FT's, but if he could just get to 60% or so, that'd be huge. It certainly is inviting VERY aggressive defense to be played against him. After all, what does a defender have to lose? (other than his 5 fouls - not an issue if the team has post depth)

Poor guy.