Rajon Rondo’s wretched free throw shooting against Phoenix (2-10) set off a firestorm of comments about his poor shooting from 15-feet. He’s a career 61% FT shooter and there’s been no improvement throughout his career.
When we think of bad free throw shooters, we think of Ben Wallace, Shaquille O’Neal, Dwight Howard, Chris Dudley and Wilt Chamberlain. These guys are all in the 50% range. Except Dudley, he was exceptionally bad – 45%.
But note the common thread – they are all giant men. It’s rare to have a guard be such an awful free throw shooter.
This got me thinking about the other guards who were notoriously bad at free throw shooting.
As usual, you can find anything on the Internet. A website called Sportige made a list:
6. George King 64.2%
5. Jack McMahon 63.7%
4. Al Attles 63.2%
3. Dean Meminger 62.7%
2. Rajon Rondo
1. Slick Watts 59.7%
This really got me thinking. Of all the names on this list, Rondo is far and away the best player. I’m pretty confident in saying Rondo is the best worst free throwing shooting guard of all-time.
Danny Ainge addressed Rondo’s free throw shooting this morning during his weekly interview with Toucher and Rich.
Danny Ainge on Rondo’s FT shooting: “It’s more of a psychological thing for Rondo. He makes them regularly in practice.”
— Ben Rohrbach (@brohrbach) November 20, 2014
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This might upset some of you, but I don’t freak out about Rondo’s free throw shooting or his shooting overall. I’d rather focus on his phenomenal passing and rebounding skills. Plus the guy brings a ton of “grit and balls” to the game.
Poor free throw shooting frustrates fans because we think the root of the problem is practice. If he just worked harder, he would improve.
I can’t imagine that’s the case with Rondo.
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