Melo, Kevin Durant, and Boogie Cousins clown DeAndre Jordan for airballing a free throw vs China pic.twitter.com/LIcFnUF74l
— gifdsports (@gifdsports) July 25, 2016
DeAndre Jordan’s struggles at the free throw line are well documented. They’re so prevalent they were even partially responsible for a change to the NBA’s intentional-fouling rules, and haven’t quite dissipated in preparation for the Rio Olympics.
With less than a minute to go in Team USA’s blowout exhibition win over China on Sunday night, Jordan air balled a free throw, and his teammates on the bench found it absolutely hilarious.
Jimmy Butler even had some advice for him postgame.
Of course, in NBA competition, shooting free throws as badly as Jordan does is no laughing matter. But Team USA was up by 51 points on China during this particular instance, and that’s likely going to be the norm during next month’s Rio games due to the talent disparity between the Americans and their competition. Teams can employ the Hack-a-DeAndre strategy and it won’t matter because the U.S. can just play DeMarcus Cousins instead, or go small and play Draymond Green at center. Taking him out of the game isn’t as effective as it is when you have the Clippers’ lack of depth.
What it means is that Team USA is virtually unbeatable in international play, and that it’s totally fine if his teammates find his free-throw shooting funny. Just don’t expect the Clippers to be laughing like this after a similarly errant try come 2016-17.
