One of the highlights of NBA Summer League play has to be Chinanu Onuaku eschewing all pretense and taking (and making) a “granny shot” from the free throw line. It’s something ESPN analyst Jeff Van Gundy has been a big proponent of for years now, in no small part to help mitigate the grueling “Hack-a-Shaq” routine that opposing coaches so often deploy now against historically poor free-throw shooters.
And there wasn’t anyone worse at free-throw shooting last season than Andre Drummond, who shot an abysmal 35.5 percent from the charity stripe. But his coach, Stan Van Gundy (aka the brother of underhanded free-throw-shot-enthusiast JVG), suddenly seems encouraged about the Pistons’ big man’s ability to improve significantly in that department next season.
#Pistons SVG on Drummond: "I'm really optimistic he's going to come back and shoot free throws a lot better."
— Rod Beard (@detnewsRodBeard) July 15, 2016
#Pistons Drummond on FT: "I just try different tactics … we've found something that works and we'll stick with it — you'll find out."
— Rod Beard (@detnewsRodBeard) July 15, 2016
That sure sounds like a coy hint that Drummond could embrace the old-school method moving forward. That is, of course, unless he tries something totally drastic, like shooting with the opposite hand, which wouldn’t be unheard of. The Cavs’ Tristan Thompson did precisely that early on in his NBA career in an effort to bring up his percentage. The league recently made a minor change to intentional foul rule that has brought this issue to the forefront, but kudos to Drummond for working to eliminate one of his few remaining weaknesses as a player.
