DeAndre Jordan is shooting 45.8 percent from the free-throw line this season.
Pretty terrible, right?
Well, it’s also the second-best mark of his career.
With a career charity-stripe clip of 42.2 percent, you have to figure Jordan has tried almost everything to tweak his shot and efficiency. Thus far, that hasn’t included trying to take underhanded free-throws.
And according to Jordan, per TMZ, it never will:
DeAndre Jordan ain’t into grannies … at least when it comes to free throws … ’cause the L.A. Clippers star says he’ll never shoot his free throws granny style … meaning underhanded.
“Never,” Jordan said of shooting granny-style free throws. “No way.”
Okay then.
A lot of players likely share this sentiment. “It looks weird,” they will tell you. Or, “It doesn’t work,” they will say.
This might be true, but if Jordan is really committed to becoming something more than a liability at the free-throw line, and if he hasn’t yet tried this tactic in practice, it’s certainly not a bad idea to give it a go.
After all, Rick Barry, underhanded free-throw-shooter extraordinaire, drilled 89.3 percent of his foul shots over the course of his career—which, for those keeping score at home, is nearly double Jordan’s success rate.