(01-14-2023, 11:00 AM)ItsGoTime Wrote: I remember a story last month after one of these horrible FT shooting games that he stayed in the arena and immediately worked on shooting FTs. Up until lately, his FT shooting took a big turn for the better. Coincidence or has he stopped working on them?
I don't think Luka doesn't work on them, I think he knows it's possibly the biggest weakness in his game apart from defense. I think he works on it plenty. I have thought conditioning played a part, as I feel like his lack of conditioning resulting in fatigue during games takes his legs away a bit affecting his free throws. Which then begs the question if it is just conditioning (which maybe not so much since he supposedly came into the season in the best condition of his career), or just mental.
Or should he actually attempt tweaking his actual mechanics rather than just practising more with the same mechanics. If you are putting serious work into free throws in the off season and during the season yet your efficiency is remaining stagnant year after year, then I think you need to take a good look at mechanics. It shouldn't be a huge change to try putting a little bit more arc on his free throws, like one off season to work on that type of change. We know more arc gives players more room for error not just for free throws, but any type of shot. Of course not every player can change their mechanics successfully, but the way Luka can change the arc on his field goal shots at will whenever he wants tells me he's the type that could adapt very well. Of course it requires either himself or a coach identifying this as something to look at and making the decision to commit to this in the off season.
The arc on Dirk's FT is obviously a prime example, though he probably doesn't need to make that drastic of a change. Luka's FT are simply noticeably flatter than his FG shots, while Dirk's was basically the same on all his shots.