Cavs: The Duels – Debating the Hack-A-Shaq Rule

The friendliest version of Hack-A-DeAndre to date.

During the second half of Clippers v. Spurs Game 3 (which ironically featured two major players in the the use of the “Hack-A-Shaq” tactic: DeAndre Jordan and Gregg Popovich), the ESPN sports ticker declared that Adam Silver had come out to say that he expects the league to have “full-throated” conversations about the “Hack-A-Shaq” rule in the off-season.

Here was his exact quote to ESPN.com, minutes before the tipoff of Friday night’s Game 3 in the Dallas Mavericks-Houston Rockets series:

“It’s something that I’m on the fence about. My thought used to be that we should definitely change the rule, and then having sat through several general managers meetings, competition meetings and having heard from some of the game’s very best, the view is the players should hit their free throws. That’s changed my view a little bit.

Having said that, when I watch some of these games on television, frankly, it’s not great entertainment for our fans, and that’s important as well. What I’ve said is we have another general managers meeting coming up in May, we have a competition committee meeting in June, and I’m sure it’s going to be a hot topic of discussion.

Then, we have an owners meeting in July, so I think at all three of those meetings we’re going to be having full-throated conversations about what the right rules should be going forward.”

This led to a spirited email debate between C:tB-ers David Wood and EvilGenius (neither of whom shares the Commissioner’s fence-sitting ways) over the merits and detractions of the use of the tactic in the NBA.

Here are some excerpts:

“Skyler, do you realize how many NBA players we could pay to shoot free throws with all of this?”

DW: The hacking should stay. How many thousands, even millions, are these men paid to shoot a ball. Make a free throw or perish. It’s dumb to change the game because some people are poor at an aspect of it. What if football allowed poor QBs free possession tries with zero pressure, a mulligan of sorts? That would not fly. Free throws are just as integral to basketball as four downs are to football.

EG: Honestly… as a fan, I could give a (expletive) about how much they get paid to shoot a ball. I care about my own enjoyment in watching a game, and there is NOTHING more annoying than the whole hack-a-whoever. It’s just an excuse for not playing solid defense, and a gimmick for coaches to exploit to make themselves look like geniuses. It’s lame and it should be done away with.

DW: I’m so for it. It makes me angry that I’m forced to watch a poor product because some professional athletes don’t learn a part of the game. That part of the game also happens to be about a fifth of scoring every evening.

EG: I don’t follow… If you’re for it, but it pisses you off that you’re slowed by people who don’t learn (or can’t learn) that part of the game… then why would you be in favor of the rule? Yes, players get paid millions to play the game. The reason why they get paid millions is because millions of people pay millions of dollars each year to watch them play. These people generally don’t want to see games slowed to a crawl because of this exploitation of a rule that was perpetrated by Don Nelson after they changed it to stop Wilt Chamberlain from having to play chicken with guys at the end of games.

[Wilt does himself no favors here by standing an extra five feet behind the line… but this is what he was forced to do after the NCAA and NBA banned the dunking of free throws…]

You may not like guys who can’t hit the majority of their free throws, but most fans want (or wanted) to see guys like Chamberlain, Rodman, Shaq, Dwight Howard and, most recently, DeAndre Jordan do what they do best… rebound, block shots, defend and play the game. Nobody (even the defenders of the rule like you) wants to see these guys get fouled away from the ball to slow things down and watch them try to make free throws.

Free throws are the extra points, field goals and kickoffs of the NFL. They are boring. They stop the flow of the game. Sure, they’re a part of the scoring, but there’s more than enough of them within the regular gameplay. Intentionally fouling off the ball is basically just a declaration that you cannot stop the other team without employing this tactic. It’s cheap. It’s annoying. And it should be abolished.

DW: You say, “Free throws are the extra points, field goals and kickoffs of the NFL.” I want to throw out the fact that many times a game comes down to a made extra point, or field goal. They’re important to the game.

I have a right to be angry at the players that don’t know how to shoot free throws. Here’s my next comparison. In college, there is always the one kid in a class who doesn’t understand something. Or, there’s an entire class that doesn’t understand Foucault’s “Panopticon.” When you finally figure out the meaning of Foucault, which in this case is the NBA free throw, you feel exhilaration. Why would you take that aspect of the game from someone? You are robbing them of a chance to succeed. Coincidentally, the free throw holds as much power over guys like DeAndre Jordan as a panopticon does over criminals.

Also, I would argue that fouls like the ones made in transition slow the game more and rob fans of exciting plays just as much as Hack-A-Shaq does. When Matthew Dellavedova fouls on a fast break to stop a superior player, we call it a smart play! Why isn’t it smart to send a guy to the line whose average points per possession when shooting free throws is less than the average points per possession of his team’s offense. If the hacked player could just hit 60% of his free throws the strategy falls apart. The Clippers put up 1.084 points per offensive possession, which is tops in the league to date. Hitting just one of two free throws on a trip to the line is one point per possession, which is good for 24th in the league. Hit 75% (which would be good for 1.50 points per possession/NBA domination level) of your free throws and your offense is blazing if your team is being hacked.

DJ, what are your thoughts on Foucault’s panopticon?

EG: …except that your Foucault comparison deals solely with a cognitive understanding of theory and information, rather than the physical aptitude required to become a skilled free throw shooter. Most of the poor free throw shooters in question (the hackees if you will) are not just bad at shooting free throws… they are bad at shooting period. They are predominantly back to-the-basket ​big men who don’t have the mechanics to shoot or score the ball outside of the paint (some not outside of dunking range).

I would argue that if you particularly want to stop them from scoring, then just foul them when they have the ball or are about to shoot it. Intentionally fouling them away from the basket isn’t designed to stop them… it’s designed to disrupt the rhythm of a team’s offense, or prevent their better shooters from scoring the ball. By employing the tactic, you’re essentially waving the white flag, saying your defense isn’t good enough on its own merits to stop the other team’s offense. And fouls in transition only slow the game down when the refs feel the need to check them on the monitor for “clear path” which is an entirely different rule that should be looked at again. The United States is the only country in which this problem exists. FIBA simply doesn’t allow intentional fouling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqSxWPkblR4

[Waving the white flag on defense? Or just the other team’s head on a stick?]

DW: Free throws are more mental than anything. It’s about understanding how to focus on just the mechanics of them. How many stories have we heard about these bad free throw shooters sinking them in practice? A free throw is much different than a regular shot for most players, unless the player takes a set shot. I disagree about saying that the team can’t stop the other team using their defensive merits. They are stopping them by hacking. The score board supports that statement. Fouling in transition also slows a team’s rhythm. That’s the entire point of it. It is the same as fouling a crappy free shooter. Same purpose. It reduces points. I’m not familiar with the FIBA rules on off-ball fouling. Although, I notice when I watch FIBA games that Euro bigs shot the ball much better than American bigs.

Are free throws physical or mental? Here’s what Dwight Howard shot in practice when he was on the Lakers.

EG: While I agree that there is a mental component to free throw shooting, they are not more mental than anything. They have just as much to do with things like mechanics, trajectory, hand size and motion. The only stories I’ve heard about a bad free throw shooter doing better in practice is Shaq (and I don’t subscribe to hearsay regarding stories about Shaq), and now the above Lakers’ grease board evidence (although, what’s to say D12 didn’t sneak in there with a sharpie to add a “1” in front of the 252, and turn the “3” into an “8” for the percentage).

“Don’t tell anyone you saw me with this…”

Hacking is not a defense. It takes skill to defend another teams’ best players. Anyone can just go out and hack a guy. In fact, when coaches employ this tactic, they usually populate their lineup on the floor with bench players and scrubs who are only there for hacking purposes. I feel it’s just as lazy a defensive strategy as you feel missing free throws is lazy. And the scoreboard actually doesn’t bear out, since the clock is stopped regardless. In fact, according to FiveThirtyEight Sports, (even though the sample size they utilize is fairly small) the hack-a-whoever defense is actually pretty futile in affecting the final score of a game.

The NFL allows teams to accept or decline penalties… maybe the NBA should do the same. Teams could just decline the foul (it would still count against team fouls) and take the ball out from the side.

DW: Still, the hack-a-whoever defense does something. Even if it’s a very small difference maker on the score board, the disruption and mental damage it does to a team is immeasurable.

If they let teams just take the ball from the side, what is stopping a team that’s up from fouling off the ball the last two minutes or even eight minutes of the game to prevent a comeback? A bench is 12 guys. Usually eight play. That’s 24 free fouls right there. That’s almost three minutes of action stoppage.

EG: The last two minutes rule established during the Hack-A-Wilt days would still be in effect where the team would get to accept the foul, choose who gets to shoot the free throws and get the ball back. The side out is just one solution. It could simply just be a technical foul (which could be shot by player of team’s choosing) in addition to the two shots by the hackee. Or, what if instead teams were limited to one off-the-ball hack and the second is a tech (like illegal defense calls)?

DW: The technical foul part would stop the hacking. What if you shot under fifty percent at the charity stripe, you have to try an unorthodox shooting style for free throws? League mandate.

[Ironically, these examples include both Wilt and future hack-a-tormentor Don Nelson.]

EG: I would have no problem with that, provided the free throws were the result of fouls within the flow of the game and not intentional fouls.

Commentariat, which side of the issue do you fall on? Or do you prefer a spot on the fence with Adam Silver? Chances are… he’s not all that stoked about figuring it all out…

“What a gothic waste of time…”