With a basketball season of around 35 games and roughly five or less of those games are decided by free throws. Coaches do not spend nearly enough time practicing free throws in scheduled practices. Simulating pressure situations or shooting when you’re exhausted is extremely key to improving your free throws in a game like situations.
Why are Free-Throws So Hard To Make? The free-throw shot is not an easy shot but a very difficult shot to make during a game, the player is exhausted from the previous play before making his way to the free-throw line. The player is at the line, ready to shoot the ball while having to battle his own mental thoughts before the shot. In pressure situations when you need to make a free throw this becomes much more difficult. Experience and practice is crucial in making free throws when it matters most.
Not all players who practice the free-throw shot will be good a good free-throw shooter, think of the center position. This position has the worse free throw shooters on average and they get to the line consistently because of their position. It is apparent to any player at this position that they need to work on their free-throws.
The Mental Side of the Free throw Shot
I believe that shooting a free-throw after having basic shooting fundamentals down is more mental than it is physical. Even further the more tired you are before shooting these shots, the more difficult it becomes. You are challenging your body and mind to control breathing and body functions in a desperate state in which it needs oxygen. When the body lacks oxygen it is much more difficult to perform the necessary function needed in this case a free throw.
Most often than not you have to put your hands on your knees to keep yourself standing up, this is the state I’m talking about. Coaches need to emphasize more free throws in practice after doing drills. This is the best time to shoot free-throws after they are tired with their hands on their knees.
This is the practice that players need, They understand they their body is tired, they will realize that they need to relax and calm their body and try to control their breathing so that they hae a better opportunity to make the shot. With practice, they can revert to what they have done over and over in practice and hopefully use the techniques they used and learned when shooting in the same exhausted mindstate.
Some coaches complain that there isn’t enough time in practice to shoot free-throws. We as coaches and even players have all seen it if we would have only hit 2 more free-throws it would have been a different outcome in the game. So find the time.
I’m a huge advocate in visualization and mental preparation that I believe the key to making more free-throws is to believe that you will make the shot and seeing yourself making the free throws in your mind before taking the shot.
What does that look like at the line?
The referee hands me the ball.
I line up at the line staring at the basket believing I will make the shot.
I have the ball in hand visualizing myself making the basket in my head.
I then proceeded to actually shoot the ball the same way I thought about it going in.
If you don’t have a free throw routine I am willing to bet you not a very good free-throw shooter. Get yourself a simple yet effective routine you can refer to every time you shoot the ball at the line. This will help with focus concentration and rhythm.
My routine is the same as above but when I receive the ball I dribble twice spin the ball in my hands and shoot the ball.
Shooting Mechanics when it comes to Free-throws
With a lack of shooting mechanics, improving your free throws will be extremely difficult. I’m willing to bet that if a player improves their form alone they will improve their free throw percentages once they are comfortable with their new mechanic. They will likely see improvements in shooting from the field and the line.
The free-throw line is a great way to set up and take your time enforcing new shot mechanics. You will improve while you concentrate on every shot you take, noticing what it feels like to make a shot and what your form feels like so you can do it over and over again to improve.
Coaching your team to making more Free Throws
As a coach there few ways to incorporate free-throws in practice but let’s back up and move to the offseason if possible. You as the coach can give players who are trying to improve a free throw shooting program so they can use it in the offseason.
The program can include 20 to 100 free throws a day. The idea is to get them use to shooting free-throws daily no matter how little or how much they decide to shoot. You can make a free-throw program for the team making 10000 free throws for the offseason and for the players to record their results and send it to you.
Week to week and month to month they can see their progress by comparing each previous date. It is as simple as shooting a hundred free throws a day recording how many you make and miss on a piece of paper.
In-Season Free Throw Practice
During the season it can be difficult to work on simple fundamentals as free throws, as there is so much to go over with a team during practice. A good practice and routine are to have players after drills shooting free throws when the players are tired. After a drill tell the players to get a partner and one ball between the pair and shoot3 sets of 2 free throws before getting water. You can do this after every drill in practice.
Another option is at the end of practice players don’t want to run anymore. You line up all the players on the baseline and have each player one at a time shoot a free throw. Make they don’t run, miss they run. Simple and it applies a lot of pressure as players do not want to run after they are almost done practice and they don’t want to let down their teammates.
You could also use fun games such as bump or 21, the idea is to put pressure on the shooter. Remember if it’s too easy it doesn’t simulate game situations.
Being able to shoot well from the line is going to help you shoot well in general, a good free-throw shooter generally shoots well from the field. So it would be obvious that shooting free throws would also help with your field goal shots and vice versa.
Missing A single Free Throw At the Line
What should you do when you miss your first of two free throws? You need to reset. That means turning around, walk to the three-point line and come back to reset feet and focus. The referee hands you the ball now shot. The reset is great after a missed shot because you will be probably still thinking about the miss standing there. When you reset you are focus on setting up again and making the next basket.
Doing this will help forget the missed shot for a moment and concentrate on the next shot by setting up your feet refocusing and forget about what it felt like to miss.
Set a goal and beat your record
An excellent way to increase free throw percentage is simply beating your own record. First, let’s set the goal of making a hundred free throws in a row. Now let’s play beat your own record. The idea to make as many free throws in a row and keep track. Write down your record. Let’s say 25, now beat that record. The end goal is 100 makes in a row. I think it would be safe to say that if you made 100 makes in a row you would be pretty good at the line.
Weird Free Throw Routines
A free-throw routine is something a player does before they are about to shoot the basketball. It is something that they have practiced over and over again to simplify the free throw shot. It puts you in a zone that you can tap into every time to make the shot with high accuracy. Don’t underestimate a good free-throw routine.
Jeff Hornacek
Jeff Hornacek of the Utah Jazz had a free throw routine that started as a way to say hi to his children when he was playing on TV. One of his kids asked him to wave to them when he was on the charity strike. Obviously, he couldn’t just wave to his kids, so Jeff used his hand to wipe the size of his face down before shooting, that was his way to say hi to his kids and it became his routine.
Karl Malone
When Karl Malone went to the free-throw line two things happened. Malone while shooting the free-throw he would mutter to himself and no one knew what he was saying as his lips were moving. Secondly, he didn’t always do this but during the playoffs against the Chicago Bulls, Malone would take almost 10 seconds to shoot a free throw that the coaches wanted to referees to count. The opposing fans would actually count as he was shooting.
Jason Kidd
Jason Kidd’s free-throw routine was unique in itself while shooting the free-throw he would blow a kiss to the rim before shooting. Why? Maybe he just loved basketball soo much.
Rick Barry
Rick Barry was one of the few players to use the granny shot and do it successfully posting a 90% shooting percentage for his career in 14 seasons. Makes you wonder why no one adopted this shot, maybe players were afraid they would lose clout.
Don Nelson
Don Nelson was probably the only player in the NBA to jump when he shot free throws, the way he jumped made him look extremely awkward. He shot 76% from the line for his career.
Chuck Hayes
Chuck Hayes by far had one of the worst and ugliest free throw routines basketball had ever seen. It was terrible it was as if he was scared to shoot the basketball at the very last moment he was about to release the shot.
Wilt Chamberlain
Wilt Chamberlain was a poor free-throw shooter that he would run and jump from the free throw line and lay it into the basket for the pint. He would lead the league in free throws made and attempts for 9 years in a row. When the NBA changed the rule because of Wilt he became the worse free-throw shooter in the league the following season shooting less than 50% from the line.