Art of the Foul Shot: Eddie Palubinskas Smart Ball
I’ve talked many times about the Smart Ball and even promoted it on this youtube video. It’s a great product invented by an excellent foul shooter and one who believes foul shooting is a learned trait that can be mastered.
Recently I was reading through Sports Illustrated and came across an article about the importance of foul shooting and how poor foul shooting cost Memphis a title last year. The Tigers missed 4 foul shots in the last minute to open the door for a miracle Kansas win. Memphis shot a horrible 62% from the line and it cost them dearly.
The reason I mention the article is because the story found it’s way to Eddie Palubinskas and described his ascension into foul shooting lore. I watched Eddie coach as a younger boy and had the chance to go to some of his camps as his techniques were being developed. He taught that the only way to be a good foul shooter is to master the technique of shooting by practicing proper habits.
Here is an excerpt of the article from Sports Illustrated:
“In the space of a second Eddie Palubinskas faced a choice: head for the icy river or take his chances with the bridge abutment. Negotiating the bend of a back road in Utah, where he was coaching high school hoops seven years after an All-SEC career at LSU, Palubinskas felt his car spin out on a patch of black ice. He chose the bridge abutment. The crash essentially shattered the right side of his body, leaving his shooting arm with a compound fracture.
Palubinskas had been a superb free throw shooter in college: 87.5% at LSU in the ’70s. But during rehab he became obsessed with closing what he calls “the imperfect gap,” those seven or eight percentage points between his personal best and perfection. First in his hospital bed, then in a wheelchair stationed beneath the basket, and finally back at the line, he fiddled with such variables as the spread of his fingers on the ball, the orientation of the grain and the alignment of his elbow. He decided that the likeliest “culprit” in any missed free throw is lateral movement of joints or muscles that leads to a deviation from a straight line.
Palubinskas essentially rebuilt his mechanics from scratch, and for the quarter century since — whether horsing around in his driveway in Greenwell Springs, La., or playing in his men’s league — he has made 99 of every 100 he takes. “The ball responds to one message, and that’s the physical force given it,” says Palubinskas. “The ball doesn’t care about psychology. Once you master the mechanics, there is no choking. The game is almost 120 years old, and we’re still operating at a level of mediocrity.”
Palubinskas believes that foul shooting would improve if TV commentators pointed out when a player moves the gun barrel at the end of a shot. (”See, Jim, lateral movement of the elbow!”) Instead it has remained stuck around 68% for a half century. “If you make 18 of 18 and lose by one, that’s a legitimate loss, but others are illegitimate,” he says. “They say defense wins games, but how do you defend a free throw? If you lose by two and miss six free throws, that’s the Number 1 statistic you should attack.”
Among squandered NCAA titles, Houston in 1983 (missed nine, lost by two), Syracuse in ‘87 (missed nine, lost by one), Kentucky in ‘97 (missed eight, lost by five) and Kansas in 2003 (missed 18, lost by three) all failed the Eddie P. Test. That 2003 Jayhawks loss was particularly egregious; they trailed Syracuse by 11 at the break and, given multiple chances to catch up, bricked 13 of 17 free throws in the second half.”
I watched Eddie hit foul shot after foul shot after foul shot without hitting rim. He had a solid understanding of the principles involved in making a shot and is a very gifted instructor.
