It was mentioned in another thread that, in basketball, it’s sometimes strategic to deliberately foul another player, with the hopes that they’ll miss the free throw(s) and give your team an opportunity to get the ball on the rebound. Usually this happens in the last minute or two of a game, done by the team that’s behind in hopes of catching up. The other thread was about soccer, though, so it’d be a hijack to discuss it further there.
I was in the pep band at Villanova, so I watched a lot of basketball games. And yes, I saw strategic fouls at the end of a game very often. But it’s a high-risk gamble, because the most likely result is that the other team gets even further ahead. OK, losing by a lot is the same as losing by a little, so I get why teams do it… but does it ever work? I don’t think I’ve ever seen it. There might have been a couple of times where it netted the fouling team a point or two, but I don’t think I ever once saw the trailing team take the lead through strategic fouling.
Well, OK, “does it ever work” is the wrong question. Surely, with all of the games played by all of the teams over all of the years, it’s happened. But how often?
The alternative is to let the other team hold onto the ball and let the clock run out which is a guaranteed loss.
Not a big basketball guy, but I’ve definitely seen it work. I don’t think it’s a complete hail Mary either. If you’re fouling to get the ball back it’s because you’re losing and therefore likely to lose the game in general so I dunno what % of coming back to win the game counts as a success.
Percentage-wise, I have no idea. But as @Snarky_Kong just said, if you let the other team run out the clock, you are guaranteed to lose. And if your team is down by a point, and you foul, even if the opposing team makes both free throws, you have a chance to tie with a 3-pointer.
Committing a foul when trailing in the last 30 seconds when trailing is a smart basketball move. In the last 60 seconds, maybe not, as the opponent will have to put up a shot or risk committing a shot-clock violation.
You’d also have to take into account how good both your team and the other one are at rebounding.
As I acknowledged in the third paragraph of the OP. And of course doing something with a very low chance of success is better than doing something with zero chance of success, unless there’s some penalty that transcends games (a player getting so many fouls that they get suspended, or something, though that’s unlikely to happen with the small fouls typical of this ploy). I’m just curious on how often it works.
They try, but it’s not always possible. The worst FT shooter may never touch the ball. And if he’s fouled without possession of the ball, it’s probably going to be ruled an intentional foul, the penalty of which is free throws plus keeping the ball.
An alum from my high school played exactly one game in the NBA. He is one of three tied for the record of to having as many fouls as career minutes played (purposely fouling Shaq).
You see this kind of thing more often - and I suspect it works more often - in lower levels of basketball, college and high school, where the variance in free throw shooting is higher than the NBA.
Looking at the NBA stats for free-throws in the postseason just completed, individual players rank from 47.4% - 97.5%* So there’s a greater variance than we might expect, and while it’s high risk and low reward, ehh why not try it when you’re desperate.
*That’s an extremely small sample because a) it’s only the post-season and b) I limited the search to players with at least 3 attempts.
The old term was “Hack a Shaq” because of his free throw disability. Shaquille O’Neal finished his 19-year NBA career with a career free throw percentage of 52.7%.
The new guy is Mitchell Robinson who has a career free throw percentage of 50.8%. He was on the Knicks, now a free agent to the Celtics for the next season.
In both cases, the centers were going to make a high percentage of shots at the rim so foul them immediately. They historically make 1 of 2, then you go down and potentially make a three point shot.
Works? Enough for coaches to sub them out of the game except for defensive purposes.
Hack-a-Shaq" is an infamous basketball defensive strategy that involves intentionally and repeatedly fouling a poor free-throw shooter to disrupt the opposing team’s offensive flow and limit their scoring efficiency. While the tactic was originally invented by Dallas Mavericks coach Don Nelson in 1997 to target Dennis Rodman, it earned its permanent name because it was most famously and relentlessly used against dominant center Shaquille O’Neal
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