Did you see the article on How to Shoot a Free Throw by a couple of engineers that tried to discover which factors would make you a great free throw shooter?

——–Nothing But Net: The Physics of Free-Throw Shooting——–

They kind of picked on Shaq and Ben Wallace, which would be funny if it was not so true. Big men normally have problems shooting a free throw due mostly to their much larger size. They have problems with both the trajectory to the basket and with gripping the ball. If you want to feel like Shaq at the line, then take a child’s rubber basketball and aim at a basket that is about 8 foot off the ground. You will find the trajectory a major issue, but even more troubling is that your hands will grip too much of the ball making it much harder to get proper spin and accuracy.

So what did the engineers say anyway?

First, the engineers say that shooters should launch the shot with about three hertz of back spin. That translates to the ball making three complete backspinning revolutions before reaching the hoop. Back spin deadens the ball when it bounces off the rim or backboard, the engineers assert, giving the ball a better chance of settling through the net.

Where to aim? Tran and Silverberg say you should aim for the back of the rim, leaving close to 5 centimeters – about 2 inches – between the ball and the back of the rim. According to the simulations, aiming for the center of the basket decreases the probabilities of a successful shot by almost 3 percent.

The engineers say that the ball should be launched at 52 degrees to the horizontal. If you don’t have a protractor in your jersey, that means that the shot should, at the highest point in its arc to the basket, be less than 2 inches below the top of the backboard.
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So easier said than done, right? Years ago at Gus Macker 3 on 3 basketball tournaments there was this guy that claimed to be a free throw coach and would stand at the free throw line and bury shot after shot while he gave a talk about correct free throw shooting. It was an amazing site to see. His basic idea was to get your fundamentals down and then practice your brains out. Make sure you make 10 in a row before leaving practice, then maybe the next time bump it up to 15 and so on. He felt if you grooved your form and there were no basic flaws in it, then your free throw shooting would excel!

Somebody tell Shaq.

Years ago there were a couple of unique free throw shooters in Rick Barry (one of the best) and Jamaal Wilkes (an average free throw shooter, but a clutch baseline jump shooter). You have to watch this YouTube. Rick shoots underhanded and was also a great jump shooter. Jamal shoots from behind his head and also shot that way with his normal shot. Check it out.

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Maybe if you have been following the events surrounding Allen Iverson for the past few years then his impending retirement would not leave you stunned, just the same, it does. And why should the retirement of Allen Iverson leave you stunned? Because Allen will be back. Mark my words, Allen Iverson will play in the NBA again this year.

Iverson was in his 11th season with the Sixers when they traded him to the Denver Nuggets in December 2006. Denver dealt him to the Detroit Pistons last November.

He averaged 27.0 points per game in his career.
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Stephen A. Smith broke the story Wednesday on his web site. You can watch the interview of Smith on the following YouTube.

As for my thoughts about Allen Iverson being back, turns out in the video, that Stephen A. Smith came to the same conclusion.

Can you imagine the Cleveland Cavaliers dialing up Allen in time for the playoffs? You are talking Shaq, LeBron, and AI. That would be one of the top 3 little guys to play the game, one of the top 5 big guys to play the game, and a player that may end up being one of the top 3 players of all time! You can debate those levels, but cannot debate the fact that it would be a very interesting team.

What if Orlando signed him? Could you have both Vince Carter and Allen Iverson on the same floor on the same team at the same time? Would Dwight Howard ever see the ball?

Allen Iverson has a fan

Maybe the biggest supporter of Allen Iverson is his old coach George Karl.

“I think he still has something left to give some team out there. If that’s his decision, he’ll go down in history, I think, as the greatest little guard ever to play the game of basketball,” Karl said.

“I was happy to have him for a couple years and hopefully our paths will cross. But I have a sneaky feeling that somewhere along the way an injury or a circumstance with a team will open that window back up.”

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So will Allen be back or are teams afraid of the baggage he brings with him? You think about it and let me know!

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The Phoenix Suns came to play this year, led by MVP candidate Steve Nash and coached by Terry Porter.

NBAObsessed has written about Steve and the Suns before.

This one came out yesterday:

Steve Nash and the Red Hot Suns

And this one came out a week ago:

Steve Nash is raising Arizona

Now the Phoenix Suns are leading the Power Rankings from NBA.com edging out the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers. Here is what John Shuman had to say about Phoenix.

Pace: 100.6 (2), Off: 109.1 (5), Def: 103.8 (15)
Most impressive about the Suns’ start is that five of their seven games have been on the road. In handing the Celtics their first loss on Friday, they made Boston look like a bad defensive team. Then the Suns got defensive themselves in Washington.
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Surprising Atlanta is positioned at number 6 by sacrificing defense for offense led by Jamal Crawford the former New York Knick.

Even more surprising is Portland at number 9 using a 3 guard lineup featuring Andre Miller the former 76er.

LeBron is stuck at 11

Woeful, at least woeful for Cleveland, the Cavaliers are placed at number 11. NBAObsessed warned that adding Shaq may plug up the middle and slow down the team. There are no doubts that Shaq can still play high caliber ball for a game or two, but for a season? Remains to be seen. Hopefully Shaq proves NBAObsessed wrong on this one, because how can you not root for the Shaq?

Mike Brown admits that he’s still experimenting with his lineups, looking for the right combinations. The Shaq/Ilgauskas twin-towers frontcourt is even (+0) in 33 minutes of floor time, but Shaq and LeBron are a -11 in 122 minutes together. They need time.

As a side note my Detroit Pistons are lagging back at number 18, three spots up from last week, but have lost Hamilton and Prince to injuries and are depending on an aging Ben Wallace.

Chris Paul and the Hornets are stuck at 25. What has happened to them?

Last and least are the Knicks and Nets. New York is certainly hurting for good basketball right now.

Photo source Newscom

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This is it for all the marbles, the opener for Boston and Cleveland and a matchup that may well decide the Eastern Conference Championship. Not that this particular game will settle anything except, the losing team will not go undefeated. Still the NBA, in its usual sharp marketing way, decided to match the two super powers up right away.

Many NBA fans do not even pay attention until the NFL has reached playoff time in January making it difficult if not impossible to pull in a full contingent of fans this soon in the season, let alone to get those same fans to even care to any degree.

LeBron is on a roll with 4 minutes to go he already has 31 points. Shaq is checking in with 10 points and 7 boards, but it is not enough as the 3 amigos are all in double figures for scoring and Boston leads 83 – 79.

The key for Boston this year may well be the play of rabbit fast Rajon Rondo and how well he can direct the team and still provide scoring when any of the big 3 has an off night.

Rajon Rondo is one of the Celtic keys

The key to Cleveland winning may well be how well Shaq meshes into the offensive schemes of Cleveland and whether he can draw double teams to take any pressure off of LeBron.

Two minutes left Boston 87 – 82.

The game is being played in Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, although lately they have not been making a lot of loans.

Final 95 – 89

LeBron 38 points 8 assists 4 rebounds. Shaq 10 and 10. Pierce 23 and 11. Rondo 16 points.
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Hey, how about LeBron James and Braylon Edwards? LeBron claims that Braylon hit a friend of his that weighed about 130 pounds.

Edwards punched entertainment promoter Edward Givens about 2:30 a.m. outside the View Ultralounge & Nightclub on Prospect Avenue, witnesses said.

James learned about the incident at 7 a.m. and later criticized Edwards’ actions. The Cavs superstar called Givens his friend and said it is unfortunate the incident occurred.

“I’ve never crossed paths with Braylon before but it seems like there is a little jealously going on with Braylon and me and my friends,” James said. “I have no idea why. I’ve never said anything to Braylon at all. For him to do that I think is very childish. My friend is 130 pounds. Seriously, it is like hitting one of my kids or something like that. It doesn’t make sense, but the right people will take care of it.”
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LeBron and Shaq

Will they become one of the all time sports duos? Shaq, unfortunately, is getting up in years, so he won’t present the vintage Shaq of the Shaq and Kobe days.

Part of me wants to dismiss the whole Shaq with LeBron leads to a NBA title thing, because Shaq is old or Shaq will plug the middle or Shaq will this or that, but the other part of me has to wonder about how close Shaq has come to winning it all without any players around him at all.

The Celtics have a super team this year and will be hard to get past, unless Kevin Garnett gets hurt again. The Lakers or Spurs will be waiting in the finals and both teams have the size to compete with Shaq, especially and old Shaq.

Check out this video of Shaq and LeBron clowning around.

Have you heard about the corn maze with a LeBron dunking carved out of the field?

The farming powers that be in Milford Center, Ohio, at the LIttle Darby Creek farm in the middle of the state, about 30 minutes from Columbus, have outdone themselves with their depiction of James dunking a basketball. It’s all in the cutting edges of a cornfield on a family’s 125-acre farm.
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Where is my corn maze carving?

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The center position in basketball just ain’t what it used to be. It used to be you started with a center and then you found a point guard to lead the way. You had to have that big guy in the middle or you were toast. That was then and this is now. Now a day, there are some up tempo teams that would rather not play a true center. They would rather have a fast mobile power forward. Phoenix with Amare Stoudemire comes to mind.

Still for your intrepid author it is great to see the big guys play whether it is the Shaq, Ewing, Wilt, Russell, Kareem, or even big bad Dwight Superman Howard. They just bring a different element to the game.

The Ball Don’t Lie has his version of the top 10 centers of the last decade, so let us take a look.

10. Alonzo Mourning – Alonzo once beat my Pistons all by himself. He was just so much bigger and stronger than anyone on the court or in the stands that he could not be stopped and prevented anybody from entering the lane.

9. David Robinson – The Admiral came to Michigan State University when he played for Navy in college. You could see then that he was just too tall and too smooth to be stopped.

8. Yao Ming – the man that reminds us there are tall Chinese people in the world may soon exit from the basketball stage if his ankles and feet don’t hold up. When he is healthy there are few better than him in today’s game.

7. Amare Stoudemire – there is that power forward again. Amare just oozes with talent and you wonder what would happen if he played next to a dominant center.

6. Zydrunas Ilgauskas – Not really an Ilgauskas fan myself, but when he is in the game it is always a tough matchup.

5. Jermaine O’Neal – Another one of those power forward types playing center. My lasting memory of Jermaine is the fact that Rasheed Wallace played with him in Portland before he went to Indiana. Jermaine was just a kid back then. When Indiana played against the Pistons in the playoffs, Rasheed was able to shut Jermaine down game after game. For that matter why isn’t Rasheed Wallace on this list? Geez, “The ball don’t lie” was one of his favorite sayings. You can argue he was a power forward, but he played center after Ben left all the time.

LeBron wonders why Rasheed Wallace is not on the list?

4. Ben Wallace – The other Wallace combined with Rasheed to shut down every player on the planet and get a NBA title for the Pistons. How did Ben do it? He was only 6′ 8″ tall, but when he went up for a board with all those muscles and the wild Fro, it just looked like he was 7 foot tall. Fear the Fro!

3. Dwight Howard – Truly Superman, Dwight Howard just grows better as a player each year. He was scoring in his first two season without really even having any moves!

2. Shaquille O’Neal – Shaq is truly bigger than life whether he is rapping, acting, or playing center. Shazam! Shaq has won titles in L.A. with Kobe and in Miami with Wade. He is often doing more talking than playing, but for years the NBA rules allowed Shaq to use his rather large rear end to back into the paint and jam the ball down. Unstoppable!

1. Tim Duncan – Mr. Fundamental.

Duncan won’t blow you away. Shaq seems scarier, and the “power forward” designation might throw you, but don’t get shook.

Tim guards the low post (guards everything, really), and works from the low post while his “center” teammate (David Robinson, Nazr Mohammad, Fabricio Oberto(notes), Matt Bonner(notes)) works anywhere from the high post (D-Rob, Nazr), the baseline (Fab), or the 3-point line (Red Rocket).

In the meantime, Duncan has destroyed teams defensively, drawn trillions of double teams, scored efficiently and generally acted as what we’d hoped Bill Walton would have turned into.

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That is why San Antonio is in the thick of things every year.

Now here is my question. Where is Kevin Garnett?
Photo source Newscom

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Ok, we need to set the stage for my surprise. No, it is not a surprise from me to you; it is where your intrepid author gets surprised by who is picked to be the top rebounder of the last 10 years.

The list is based on rebounding rate, which takes into account the number of available rebounds while the player is on the court. Dennis Rodman would be the all time leader at .23 rebounds. In other words he pulled down 23 out of every 100 rebounds available while he was on the court.

It kind of went like this:
Uhh, number 10 is Zach Randolph. Huh? Well, yeah, guess that does make sense. Zach was a bench player at Michigan State University that was drafted after his freshman year. Pretty incredible.

Number 9 Eric Dampier, Number 8 Shaq, well of course, the big fella would make the list, Number 7 Kevin Garnett, Number 6 … Wait a minute Kevin Garnett? Don’t really think of him that way. He is such a big time scorer.

Number 6 Marcus Camby always an underrated player.
Number 5 Tim Duncan, hard to be that tall and not get a lot of boards and Mr. Fundamental would always get good position.

Hmm, Number 4 Jeff Foster. What? Is this because his man always left him to help out on someone else? Jeff Foster?

Number 3 Reggie Evans a pure rebounding machine. Can’t do much else, but man can he board.

Number 2 Superman Dwight Howard. This guy is for real and is simply stronger than you. A definite glass cleaner.

And Number 1 is … Ben Wallace! Ok, your author is a lifetime Piston fan living in Michigan and should have known this, but after having Dennis Rodman around it seemed normal to have Ben Wallace leading the league in rebounding.

Ben Wallace rules the boards

Ben was incredible and when he was on top of his game it was a treat to see him soar in the air and rip down a board.

Ben’s at 10.3 rebounds per game on his career, despite averaging just under 31 minutes per game, while looking to strike up some of the Piston-powered magic again in Detroit for 2009-10. It was the site of his finest turn, when he pulled in over 23 percent of available rebounds in 2003, while averaging 15.4 rebounds per game.
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Image: Zuma Press

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In our earlier post the discussion was about who would win the West and it was the obvious choice, the Lakers and Kobe Bryant. Now it is time to speak about the East.

So, who did ESPN vote to win the East?

In a surprise vote, but maybe not a huge surprise, the ESPN voters went with Cleveland. They felt the Shaqland LeBrons would win the East, because they looked so good last year and then they added Shaq. It will not be that easy. There are already a lot of ingredients to mix into this soup.

Looming over it all will be the question LeBron James won’t answer: What will he do when he can become a free agent in 2010? His freedom to walk next year has raised the stakes in Cleveland to a level seldom seen in the NBA, and could contribute to tensions along the way unless LeBron, Shaq and the Cavs can successfully merge their games and their goals: LeBron’s first title, Shaq’s fifth (putting him ahead of Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan) and Cleveland’s hope of pleasing and keeping LeBron. And with the Cavs having added three rotation players to a 66-win team and probably demoting stalwart Zydrunas Ilgauskas in favor of The Big Disruption, it’s not clear how chemically balanced they will be.

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How they could pass on the Boston Celtics is a true mystery. The Celtics bring back a healthy Kevin Garnett and added Rasheed Wallace and Marquis Daniels to the fold. They are dripping with talent.

Will Rasheed Wallace help Boston overtake LeBron James and the Cav's?

Lagging in third place is the Conference Champion Orland Magic. Some think they overachieved last year and worry that the chemistry will be different without Hedo Turkoglu. Others think the offensive talents of Vince Carter will make Dwight Howard even more valuable.
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And the winner is…
But first a word from our sponsor…You! Hey, you, click on some of those ads off to the side and keep this blog a rolling. Rolling, Rolling, Rolling.
Now back to Billie Crystal as he announces the best player pickup in the off season…
Drum roll ta ta ta ta tata.
Richard Jefferson by the San Antonio Spurs.
Come on up Richard.

Congratulations and guess why you were number 1?

Jefferson (14 votes)
The first big move of the offseason will prove to be the best move, more than one-quarter of our voters said. RJ is the piece that will get the Spurs back into the West’s elite. Jefferson’s shooting numbers were down last season with the Bucks, but he shot 40 percent from beyond the arc and still knows how to score. Playing in a winning atmosphere certainly will help matters, too.

Most important, perhaps, is that RJ has been healthy for the past two years — something the Spurs’ big three has not been — and he’s still on the right side of 30. If he proves to be the perfect fit, the Spurs could push the Lakers for the Western Conference crown.

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Duncan will have Richard Jefferson to help him to the NBA Title

Squibster take: This one stood out for me, because Richard Jefferson has been a quality player on a couple of confused teams. Now he won’t have to be the team leader. The Spurs have plenty of those guys. He can do what he does best and slash to the basket. Spurs may be once again looking at NBA title contention.

O’Neal to the Cav’s – does Shaq have enough left in the tank?
Artest to the Lakers – can Phil Jackson handle this guy? If he does then Phil goes to the Hall of Fame without retiring.
Carter to Orlando – Plenty of O, but will he deliver the D?
Marion, Miller, Turkoglu, and Wallace round out the field with Rasheed to the Celtics maybe paying the biggest dividends.

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If you have seen the movie Ice Age and the sequels Ice Age II and III, then you know there is a squirrel in the movie that really has nothing to do with the movie, but is obsessed with a giant acorn. Each movie shows clip after clip of the squirrel named Scrat chasing after this giant acorn.

Dwight Howard feels he is Scrat and the NBA Title is his giant acorn and he is obsessed with getting the acorn.

Another not so gentle giant named Shrek or would that be Shaq, has recently moved to Cleveland in search of another NBA Title for himself and a good friend named LeBron.

Will Shaq slow down Dwight Howard?

Now all the talk is on what will happen when the two giants face off against each other. Shaq has prepped the way with some not so kind words degrading Dwight Howard and his offensive moves.

“I haven’t spoken with him,” Howard said. “I’ve seen a lot of the comments that he has said on TV and read a lot of the comments that he’s made. I would say it hurt my feelings, a little bit, just to hear him say some of the things he said.”

Looking back on last season’s Eastern Conference finals, it’s easy to understand why Cleveland wanted O’Neal so badly to counter Howard. The Cavs had no defensive answer for the Magic’s All-Star center, so they took a gamble that O’Neal is still enough of a force at age 37 to stand up to him.

“Everybody has said, ‘Cleveland got Shaq for you. Cleveland got Shaq to win a championship,’ ” Howard said.

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Everyone seems to think it is a foregone conclusion that Shaq can handle Dwight Howard enough for LeBron James to deliver Cleveland to the finals, but your intrepid author has watched age sneak up on Shaq and he may find the fast improving Superman is a lot more than he bargained for.

The bigger worry might be how the Magic maintain their team chemistry without Hedo Turkoglu and with the addition of Vince Carter. Those team changes will more likely determine the fate of the Magic.

And if the Magic don’t make it, you can always go watch Ice Age III. It was a great movie!

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