Almost lost amidst Dwayne Wade‘s heroics during the final six minutes of Miami’s nailbiting win over Dallas in the third game of the NBA Finals the other night was Miami center Shaquille O’Neal‘s making two free throws down the stretch to help his team’s comeback. For the free-throw challenged O’Neal, those free throws were nothing short of remarkable — to that point in the series, he had made only four of 20 free throws.
Of course, poor free-throw shooting is nothing new for O’Neal. Although he is one of five best centers ever to play professional basketball (Russell, Chamberlain, Abdul-Jabbar, and Olajuwon are the other four), O’Neal would inarguably be the best of the bunch if he could shoot free throws close to as well as Abdul-Jabbar and Olajuwon did. Only Chamberlain among the greatest centers has a worse free throw shooting percentage than Shaq, and O’Neal (52.8%) may even go below Chamberlain’s desultory 51.1% career free-throw shooting percentage before his career is over.
The art of free-throw shooting has always interested me, and I could probably go out and hit six or seven out of ten free throws today even though I have not shot one in several years. So, when I came across this latest article about the Miami coaching staff’s attempts to help O’Neal with his free-throw shooting, it reminded me of a conversation that I had years ago about free-throw shooting early one morning on the driving range of Sweetwater Country Club in Sugar Land. The only other person on the range that morning happened to be a very good free-throw shooter, former Houston Rockets guard, Mike Newlin (87% career percentage).
Newlin had a solid 11-year NBA career, mostly with the Rockets and then with the Nets and Knicks for his last three seasons. He had impeccable fundamentals as a basketball player, and his free throw shooting style was close to perfect. At the time we found ourselves on the same driving range, I had never met Newlin, but I felt a connection to him because we had both come to Houston in 1972, my late father and I had watched him play many games in the early years of the Rockets in Houston and we had a number of mutual friends in the business community. So, before leaving the range to find my golfing partners and head for the first tee, I approached Newlin and introduced myself. He was extremely cordial and we spent several minutes chatting about our mutual friends and the early years of the Rockets in Houston.
During our chat, I observed to Newlin that he exhibited the best fundamentals in shooting free throws of any player that I had ever seen. Newlin, who is quite bright, had obviously had similar thoughts, but did not agree with me:
“Nope. I had the second-best fundamentals,” he replied.
“Who had the best?” I inquired.
“Rick Barry.”