{"id":42182,"date":"2016-02-15T21:30:29","date_gmt":"2016-02-16T01:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=42182"},"modified":"2020-07-18T21:30:40","modified_gmt":"2020-07-19T01:30:40","slug":"rewarding-bad-behavior-nba-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=42182","title":{"rendered":"Rewarding bad behavior, NBA style"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VN8GVYhsXC8?controls=0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.si.com\/nba\/2016\/02\/09\/lakers-kobe-bryant-hack-shaq-rules\">TL;DR<\/a> \u2013 NBA commissioner, Adam Silver, wishes to explore the idea of creating rules to discourage the use of the strategy known as \u201cHack-A-Shaq.\u201d Kobe Bryant disagrees, stating that it would set a bad example for the NBA and aspiring basketball players.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">I\u2019m with Kobe on this one. In short, Hack-A-Shaq is a basketball strategy in which teams deliberately foul the worst free throw shooter(s) on the opposing team, repeatedly, to send them to the free throw line where they ostensibly will miss both or make just one out of two free throws resulting in 0 or 1 points on the possession, instead of 2, 3 or 4. It was named after Shaquille O\u2019Neal, a notoriously poor free throw shooter, who endured countless intentional fouls, to send him to the line, to hinder his team\u2019s offensive output. And the strategy has only grown and continued since the reveal of the name and tactic, as free throw shooting has continued to devolve into a dying art, and percentages are plummeting throughout the entire league.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Sometimes, it\u2019s used when a team is ahead, and they want to preserve their lead, so they deliberately start Hacking-a-Shaq so that the opponents\u2019 ability to chip away at the lead is suppressed, and they are unable to build any substantial momentum. More often, it\u2019s used when a team is behind, and they use Hack-a-Shaq to stop the clock, minimize the opponent\u2019s ability to stretch the lead, and to try and maximize the number of possessions they can get.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">It punishes teams employing weak free throw shooters, and makes them make line up decisions, and\/or burn precious timeouts late in games to have to make repeated adjustments to pull the weak shooters so they can\u2019t be exploited, and put them back in when they\u2019re on defense.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Hack-A-Shaq has received a lot of criticism throughout the years, because it most certainly succeeds, at slowing down games to a crawl, as with each foul, the clock is stopped, and the tedious act of shooting free throws, making player substitutions and television timeouts come into effect. It\u2019s perceived as a cheap tactic that sucks the fun out of a game, which is not necessarily an incorrect assessment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">The thing is, Hack-A-Shaq is a thing, because it is not an illegal tactic, and strategically, it is the right thing to do sometimes. And as NBA players gradually become worse and worse at shooting free throws, it\u2019s only going to grow with each passing season where another Shaq-like player is revealed and exposed as being a poor free throw shooter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">However, the NBA, citing that it\u2019s still in the business of entertainment, has declared that they will explore some rule changes for the future, that would discourage the use of Hack-A-Shaq, citing that the tactic is sucking the fun out of games, slowing down the pace of games, and just ruining the NBA in general. They\u2019re not wrong with the claims they\u2019re making, but the fact of the matter is that by altering the game to discourage the use of Hack-A-Shaq is basically the equivalent of rewarding bad behavior.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Want to counter Hack-A-Shaq? Get better free throw shooters. I agree with Kobe Bryant that getting rid of the Hack-A-Shaq is absolutely setting a bad example for basketball. Removing Hack-A-Shaq is basically saying it\u2019s okay for current players, and the players of tomorrow, to neglect one of the most fundamental and invaluable skills of the sport.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Earlier this season, there were games where two guys shot <a href=\"http:\/\/stats.nba.com\/game\/#!\/0021500261\/\">34<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/stats.nba.com\/game\/#!\/0021500635\/\">36<\/a> free throws in respective games. They made 12 and 13 respectively. Do the math, and that\u2019s 35% and 36% of their free throws. They both won these particular games, but do you think the fans were thrilled to see two dopes trotting up to the free throw line all night long, and dragging these blowouts out longer than they needed to be? Probably not.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Clearly, the logical thing to do is to condone poor free throw shooting, and change the rules around them, so that they can\u2019t be exploited like this. Clearly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Want to know why there was never Hack-A-Dream, or Hack-An-Admiral? Because both <a href=\"http:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/o\/olajuha01.html\">Hakeem Olajuwon<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/r\/robinda01.html\">David Robinson<\/a> were 70%+ free throw shooters. Intentionally sending them to the charity stripe would all but guarantee one point, and more often than not, result in two. And at that point, it\u2019s strategically a better idea to let the play occur in the paint, and hope for a defensive stop.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">I\u2019d love to see like a Moneyball-like revolution in the NBA, where a team constructs a roster built on the ability to draw fouls and has a lineup full of average\/above-average free throw shooters. Their games wouldn\u2019t be pretty, and they would be somewhat of slogs, as they draw fouls and go to the line, but they sink free throw after free throw, and ultimately end up blowing out their opponents on a regular basis.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">But that\u2019ll never happen, because circus shots and highlight dunks are all that the NBA fanbase generally cares about.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">You\u2019re getting paid a lot of money to make a damn free throw, dude. I think it sets a bad precedent. I wouldn\u2019t change it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">You\u2019re god damn right, Kobe. Unfortunately, the NBA is greedy and cares more about money and entertainment than the general integrity of the sport, so that being said, Hack-A-Shaq might actually soon become a thing of the past. Unfortunately.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TL;DR \u2013 NBA commissioner, Adam Silver, wishes to explore the idea of creating rules to discourage the use of the strategy known as \u201cHack-A-Shaq.\u201d Kobe Bryant disagrees, stating that it would set a bad example for the NBA and aspiring basketball players. I\u2019m with Kobe on this one. In short, Hack-A-Shaq is a basketball strategy &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=42182\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Rewarding bad behavior, NBA style<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[59,45,15,49],"class_list":["post-42182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-basketball","tag-fail","tag-og","tag-wtf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42182"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42183,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42182\/revisions\/42183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}