
How science is rewriting basketball wisdom  - jamesbritt
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48270436/ns/technology_and_science-science/
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JoelSutherland
This is not new. In gym class 20 years ago the teacher put in an old "how to
shoot with Rick Barry" VHS. Proper shooting included a moderate number of
revolutions and focus on the back iron.

Every basketball camp in the country explains how the bank shot rules
described work.

Also knowing appropriate arc, rotations and place to aim are not bottlenecks
on free throw shooting percentages. The issue is consistency which is bound by
mental factors and shooting form.

~~~
philwelch
I was just about to mention Rick Barry. He's outspoken for his insistence that
his signature underhand free throw technique is more accurate. It very well
may be, but NBA players are too macho to try a "granny shot", so no one has
really tried it.

~~~
intellegacy
I don't believe that's necessarily the case. Free-throw shooting is a chance
to develop your shot rhythm because the mechanics and form are similar to your
shot during the game. There's a benefit to shooting free throws the same way
you shoot jumpers. If you use the underhand technique you relinquish that
advantage. not to mention you must learn a new way of shooting entirely.

~~~
philwelch
Except:

1\. It's already different because you can't jump with a free throw.

2\. A lot of players seem to have no trouble handling both an ordinary jump
shot and also a hook shot.

3\. Even players who never take normal jump shots and have atrocious free
throw ability never switch to the underhand style.

~~~
randall
FWIW, you actually can jump for a free throw but it's sort of tradition that
people don't.

The people who suck at freethrows normally have comically large hands which
makes shooting from any sort of distance difficult. (Shaq, Dwight Howard, et.
al.)

~~~
alanfang
Not jumping for free throws isn't just a tradition. Jump shots sacrifice
accuracy to make it more difficult for defensive players to block your shot.
There's no risk of your shot being blocked for a free throw so players don't
jump.

~~~
philwelch
If there's no risk of your shot being blocked for a free throw there's no
reason to shoot overhand, either.

~~~
eropple
It's an easier motion for most people who've become accustomed to shooting
that way, though.

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flexie
Many team sports could benefit from a scientific approach to management
(Moneyball style).

But I think the real game changer at the individual, technical skills level is
systematic video tutorials. Up until a few years ago kids could only learn
tricks from other kids on the block or in the local club. Nowadays, there are
free apps with detailed video tutorials on receiving the ball, moves, fakes,
dribbles, shots, passes, tricks etc. Kids can watch the videos real time and
in slow motion or with the different steps broken down and explained.

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lawrence
I'm not sure the author is a basketball player:

"Aiming for the center of the basket increases the chance of hitting the front
of the rim and having the shot drop straight down."

Has anyone ever seen a free throw drop straight down after hitting the front
rim? Seems like the only way to make that happen would be to throw the
basketball baseball style on a line, and nail the bottom of the front rim.
Even Shaq had better mechanics than that.

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cglee
Are there no basketball players here? I was always taught to aim for the back
of the rim and to make sure my arc reached the top of the backboard and to
have backspin, and a million other tips (set your feet, square your shoulders,
90 degree elbow bend, stick out your ass, bend your knees, etc) that's far
more useful than this article.

~~~
ebiester
The traditional wisdom was 45 degrees, not 54 degrees, and even lower arcs are
quite common. Also, the V is a slight departure from common wisdom. In
basketball camp, I was also taught 1.5 rotations rather than 3. It's an
optimization of previous information, not a revolution.

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RockofStrength
The only new tip I received from the article (I'd pretty much heard the rest
before) is to make the peak of your free throw's arc parallel to the top of
the backboard.

What I'm really interested in is learning how to dunk...all I need is about 4
more inches to do it comfortably.

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wilfra
Basketball is not engineering. Style counts for a lot, including the size of
contracts and endorsement deals. Convincing players to purposely shoot ugly
free throws that will bounce around a lot, but go in slightly more often, is
going to be very difficult.

~~~
nessus42
Wasn't there an article posted here about this very same issue with penalty
kicks in soccer? Well, I'm not sure that I read it here, but I did read it
somewhere: Someone did a mathematical analysis and determined that goalies
should stand in the center a lot more often than they do when defending
against a penalty kick. The issue is that they have to make their decision
which way they are going to move before they have enough information on which
way is the right way. If they wait until they actually have enough information
for the decision, then it is already too late.

Their choices are to jump to the left, jump to the right, or stay put. Unless
soccer penalty kickers are biased about which choice they make in kicking,
you'd expect that the goalies would jump to the left 1/3 of the time, jump to
the right 1/3 of the time, and stay put 1/3 of the time. Jumping to the left
and to the right were significantly over-represented in the actual data.

The conclusion was that for a goalie's reputation, it is much better to jump
to one side or the other and look like he's trying, even if he fails, than to
stand in the middle and look like he's being lazy. For an important game, if
he does that, and the kicker makes the point, and his team loses, it can mean
the end of the goalie's career, just based on people's perception.

Or at least that's what the article claimed.

 _Edit_ : Ah, it was on the Freakonomics podcast. The episode in question is
here:

[http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/06/10/freakonomics-radio-
wo...](http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/06/10/freakonomics-radio-world-cup-
edition/?ref=soccer)

I had some of the details not quite right above, but the idea is the same. The
strategy being putatively underemployed is the kicker kicking it straight down
the middle.

~~~
philwelch
If you watched the recent European Championships, the technique of shooting
down the middle--the so-called "Paneka" penalty--seems to be making a
resurgence. The problem is that if you overdo it, the goalkeeper will
compensate, and a Paneka is a lot easier to save than a well-driven shot to
the corner. You might notice that fairly often, even if the goalkeeper chooses
the right way to dive, he sometimes doesn't make the save.

