Tim Duncan's Free Throw Shooting Nightmares
By Dennis Hans | June 23, 2005
Of all the erratic free throw (FT) shooters who have ever played, Tim Duncan is the most confounding. He has a simple, low-maintenance delivery that would appear to be slump-proof; nevertheless, Duncan tends to lose it at the line when we least expect it. It might commence on a pressure-free attempt in the first quarter of a meaningless regular season game, or at the tail end of the hottest streak of his career. He'll come up way short on one attempt, and all of a sudden he can't get the ball to the rim.
The latest outbreak happened in Game 5 of the NBA Finals Sunday night, where he came up short on six consecutive fourth quarter attempts before finally swishing one to tie the game, which his San Antonio Spurs won in overtime. He went 4 for 11 in that game, and followed that up with 5 for 10 - including three more way-short misses - in a nip-and-tuck Game 6 loss.
Duncan's career FT average of .692 is decent for a big man, but the roller-coaster ride that has produced that mark boggles the mind. Beginning with his rookie campaign of 1997-98, Duncan has shot .662, .690, .761, .618, .799, .710, .589 and.670.
Steady progress his first three seasons leads to a career-low in his fourth, followed by a career-high (.799) in his fifth, followed by a significant drop-off in his sixth campaign, then hitting rock bottom (.589) in his seventh, followed by a tentative step this past season in the direction of his career average.
When Duncan rebounded from his first career low of .618 in 2000-01 to shoot .799 in 2001-02, it marked one of the greatest "self-help" success stories in NBA history.
Throughout his college and early pro career, Duncan had been a "tinkerer" at the stripe - open to suggestions and eager to fine-tune his technique. He was the type who always had one or more key thoughts in his head as he executed his FT routine. Just as too many chefs can spoil the soup, too many thoughts can wreck the routine. That, at least, is what Duncan thought, so after his .618 crash he opted for a KISS (Keep it simple, stupid) approach: a no-frills delivery that had worked for him in practice, but which he had yet to try under game conditions.
Duncan's simplified technique took his legs out of the equation. From his address position (upright, pigeon-toed stance with legs slightly flexed) he would give the ball a few hard bounces, then hold it waist high for several seconds as he focused on his target. To keep from freezing up, he rotated the ball in his fingers before establishing his shooting grip. From there, he lifted his arms and fired. The crisp, accelerating motion virtually eliminated any possibility of "guiding" or "steering" the ball, or "pulling the string," which means stopping the follow through at the half-way mark, as if you didn't really want to let the ball go.
In 2001-02, Duncan's KISS delivery worked splendidly from tipoff to final horn. His .799 was well above the league average of .752. For an encore, he shot .822 in the playoffs.
In 2002-03, using that same simplified form, Duncan tumbled to .710. In the playoffs he fell to .677, shooting well in some games and missing badly in others. As would become his trademark, he was often wildly erratic within the same game. He bottomed out in 2003-04, shooting .589, before rebounding to a mediocre .670 in 2004-05.
This postseason Duncan is shooting a respectable .725, which has included flashes of brilliance that spelled the difference between victory and defeat in critical games: 13 for 14 in an overtime win over Denver that gave the Spurs a commanding 3-1 edge; 14 for 17 in the nail-biting clincher over Seattle, which prevented a seventh game; and a 25-in-a-row streak in the middle of the Suns series.
However, the wheels have come off twice. He followed a 15 for 15 in a Game 3 win over Phoenix with a 3 for 12 in a tight Game 4 loss. He shook that off, and in the Finals he was 22 for 27 before his 4-for-11 Game 5 nightmare.
My hypothesis is Duncan suffers from "unintended changeup syndrome," or UCS. Something causes him to shoot a changeup when he's trying to shoot his standard FT fastball. The result is a way-short miss. He tries to rectify this by bearing down on his next attempt, reminding himself to get the ball all the way to the basket. But the very act of mentally bearing down adds to the tension in his fingers and arms, which dramatically increases the likelihood he'll fire another unintended changeup that goes 13 or 14 feet. UCS will plague him the remainder of the game as the self-imposed tension mounts, but it won't necessarily carry over to the next game. He'll have a day or two off - enough time to rediscover that he can indeed get the ball all the way to the basket when shooting from the foul line.
Many baseball pitchers throw an "intended changeup." Pedro Martinez and other masters of the art don't take 10 or 15 miles off their fastball by putting more arc on their pitch. Nor do they slow down their arm motion - a no-no that would alert the batter that an offspeed pitch was on the way and give him time to adjust. What the pitchers do is consciously alter their grip on the ball. They might put it back into the palm of their hand or increase the pressure with which they grip the ball with their fingers, and that reduces the velocity. Either method allows them to maintain the deception of a speedy arm motion that's identical to their fastball motion, which leads the fooled batter to swing before the ball reaches the plate.
Duncan's stroke LOOKS the same on his way-short misses as on his swishes, but he does something imperceptible to the naked eye that produces the changeup effect. Perhaps he subconsciously increases his grip pressure or the tension in his arms. Maybe he rushes his stroke, thereby beginning the forward arm motion before he has completed the upswing. Maybe it's something else. Regardless of the cause of the initial way-short miss, Duncan's "remedy" exacerbates the problem. A minor physical glitch that is best forgotten is transformed into a physical-mental problem. The more he focuses, the more he bears down, the longer he rotates the ball in his hands before getting a grip and pulling the trigger, the more likely he is to duplicate the arm tension, grip pressure, rushed motion or whatever that leads to a 13-foot shot from a 15-foot line.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste, but Duncan would be wise to give his a rest following his initial way-short miss. After all, chances at championships are also terrible things to waste.
