Markelle Fultz isn’t the only NBA player who had to retool their game due to injury over the offseason. LeBron James just happens to have found a lot more success with a new shot that Fultz has had so far.
While the first overall pick for the Philadelphia 76ers is heading to the bench to let his shoulder heal, the first pick in the 2003 NBA Draft has actually improved his shot early this season.
James told ESPN reporter Dave McMenamin he injured his elbow during the offseason, but rather that stop training he just started shooting a different way.
“I don’t know where it came from,” James said on Tuesday. “I was working out in L.A. in late June and my wife was like, ‘What’s wrong with your elbow?’ I’m like, ‘What?’ … The weirdest s—.”
LeBron said it’s not the elbow injury that bothered him during the 2010 postseason and it didn’t impact him during the regular season, but it did make him alter his mechanics a bit. The injury was painful enough that James said he had to wear a compression sleeve on his elbow even when he wasn’t playing. The result was a new shot that had a higher release point, mostly because that’s what hurt the least. While James worked through his injury, it eventually began to feel better without any need for surgery.
“It just went away,” he said. “It just went away on its own. I never drained it. I talked about it, but no, never drained it.”
And he never reverted back to his old shooting form from prior to the elbow injury.
“I shoot it higher,” James said. “When the swelling went down I just continued to do the same motion, the same motion. My free throws, my 3s, my pullups, all that.”
The results, according to James, have been good enough for him to set a “final” goal for his career. He said he wants to shoot 80 percent or better from the free throw line.
“I want to shoot 80 (percent) from the free throw line, man,” James told ESPN. “That’s my only goal. That’s my last goal of my NBA career. That’s my last one. I’ve done everything else.”
James is a career 74 percent free throw shooter, but with a new mechanic to his game there’s no telling how his shot will fare this season.
