Loading...
In 1966, Rick Barry entered the NBA and did something no serious player would consider — he shot free throws underhand, the 'granny shot.' Teammates laughed. Opponents mocked him. Fans snickered every time he stepped to the line, cradling the ball low with both hands and lofting it in a soft arc. But Rick Barry made 90% of his free throws across a 14-year career, one of the highest marks in league history. The NBA average hovered around 75%. The physics actually favor the underhand technique. The ball follows a higher, softer arc with more backspin, producing a larger effective target at the rim. A 2017 study from North Carolina State confirmed it: underhand shooting reduces the variables that cause misses. So who adopted Barry's method? Almost nobody. Wilt Chamberlain — the worst free ...
Popular framing: Players miss free throws because they don't practice enough or aren't skilled.
Structural analysis: A demonstrably superior technique remained extinct because adopting it sends a costly social signal ('sissy', 'desperate') that outweighs the expected-points gain. Status-quo bias plus loss aversion on identity made the better local optimum unreachable for everyone but the few willing to pay the ridicule cost — the constraint binding the equilibrium was reputational, not physical.
Framing this as an individual rationality failure misplaces the intervention target. No amount of evidence or encouragement to individual players will shift the equilibrium — what would shift it is a change in the signaling system itself (e.g., a respected coach mandating it for a team, a rule change creating new incentives, or a generation of youth players trained without the stigma). Understanding it structurally reveals why the Barry case has repeated for 60 years without resolution.
