Shaquille O’Neal is among the greatest scorers in NBA history, but he could’ve been that much better had he become better than a 53 percent career free throw shooter. A popular solution for Shaq’s free throw shooting woes was Rick Barry’s famous “granny style” underhand technique, which saw Barry finish as the fourth-best free throw shooter in NBA history.
However, the Hall-of-Fame big man revealed to Emmanuel Ocbazghi, Noah Friedman, and Graham Flanagan of Business Insider why he didn’t ever adopt that style in his career and what he told Rick Barry about shooting underhand.
Shaquille O’Neal: Because it’s boring.
Business Insider: But it’s been proven to be somewhat effective.
O’Neal: No, it’s not. It’s not proven. Just ’cause a couple guys did it doesn’t mean anybody can do it. I told Rick Barry I’d rather shoot 0% than shoot underhand. I’m too cool for that.
Shaquille O'Neal's argument is somewhat logically sound. Just because Barry and a few other players found the underhand style to work for them, it didn’t necessarily mean it would’ve worked for everyone.
On the other hand, though, the fact that Shaq never really tried such a technique in a game setting to see if it would work for him, not to mention the fact that he was willing to miss every single time as opposed to shooting underhand, showed that he wasn’t interested in the results as opposed to the aesthetics.
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