I accept that Rondo will never be a good free throw shooter

[greenpride32]

  From basketball reference, of the 732 players with at least 100 career games before 1980, exactly *16* of them had a career ft% of 85% or higher. Maybe you could rebut this with some videos of seals balancing the ball on their noses and then making free throws.

Rondo sucks at free throws and it will hurt us in close/critical game situations.  Why can't you just get off his jock and let it go?

He ranked 373rd in the league last year in FT%.  So compared to his peers (and not grandmothers or seals) he is still horrible.

[vinnie]

Rondo 1-7 free throw shooting the last two games. Down to 56 percent

[PosImpos]

Rondo 1-7 free throw shooting the last two games. Down to 56 percent

I can't help but wonder if it's a confidence thing.  Rondo often will start out well with free throws, but once he starts missing them, it seems to spiral out of control until he falls back to 55%. 

Maybe that's just regressing to the mean . . . or maybe Rondo has convinced himself that he's a bad free throw shooter and as soon as he struggles from the line he doubts himself and loses his resolve.

[Eja117]

Rondo 1-7 free throw shooting the last two games. Down to 56 percent

And that's why I think he's not practicing his free throws enough

[Eja117]

Rondo 1-7 free throw shooting the last two games. Down to 56 percent

I can't help but wonder if it's a confidence thing.  Rondo often will start out well with free throws, but once he starts missing them, it seems to spiral out of control until he falls back to 55%. 

Maybe that's just regressing to the mean . . . or maybe Rondo has convinced himself that he's a bad free throw shooter and as soon as he struggles from the line he doubts himself and loses his resolve.

I can't rule out the power of negative thinking. The brain is powerful that way. Equally as powerful as positive thinking

[bfrombleacher]

Rondo 1-7 free throw shooting the last two games. Down to 56 percent

I can't help but wonder if it's a confidence thing.  Rondo often will start out well with free throws, but once he starts missing them, it seems to spiral out of control until he falls back to 55%. 

Maybe that's just regressing to the mean . . . or maybe Rondo has convinced himself that he's a bad free throw shooter and as soon as he struggles from the line he doubts himself and loses his resolve.

I can't rule out the power of negative thinking. The brain is powerful that way. Equally as powerful as positive thinking

TP to both you's. That's exactly what I think.

[Eja117]

Could just be me and my fantasy team but I think shooting in the league is horrid this year. The Pacers just came to Boston and came away with a win after shooting .395.    I have this feeling like maybe the players haven't been practicing their shooting. Just a guess

[Redz]

Rondo 1-7 free throw shooting the last two games. Down to 56 percent

And that's why I think he's not practicing his free throws enough

His shooting, in general, has fallen off since the first few games.

[PosImpos]

Rondo 1-7 free throw shooting the last two games. Down to 56 percent

And that's why I think he's not practicing his free throws enough

His shooting, in general, has fallen off since the first few games.

yeah.  the first few games he seemed really determined to prove he can be the guy, he seemed to have all the confidence in the world.  he's kind of come down from there.  again, i know that perhaps you could just say that Rondo started out hot and now his numbers are just returning to his career averages, but we've all seen how inconsistent Rondo can be.  i think it would be foolish to discount the influence that his ego and his confidence must have on his game.

[LooseCannon]

Some people seem to think that Rondo being a poor free-throw shooter is a sign that he must not be working hard enough at it.  It is wrong to think that some people must be lazy and it is all their fault as a result of some character flaw if they appear to be underachieving or fail to accomplish things that you have done.

[clover]

  There's about 300M people in the country, and you're proving your point with youtube videos of a few people at a time?

  This might take a while...

Perhaps at this point instead of me trying to prove that anyone from toddlers, to blindfolded people, to people in wheelchairs, to 60 year olds hitting 209 free throws in a row, to animals can hit free throws with proper practice, maybe now you should try to prove that no matter how much he practices Rondo can't improve his free throw shooting and that I should just accept that.

Practice is one thing, performing at the line in real competitive games and sell out crowds is another.

There is definitely a combination of natural talent and practice upon that talent.

But he's a pro athlete that has done it in pro games over a thousand times and I don't even know how many times in college let alone high school, etc

So you honestly dont think Rondo practices enough? That is why he cant hit free throws?

Seriously if the solution was that simple it would have been done.

No one can convince me that he is just lazy.

His free throw percentage hasn't just not gotten better. It's gotten noticeably worse. So yes. He's probably not working on it

It's the weakest part of the game of a very good athlete who has obviously honed his skills in lots of areas and you're right, it has got weaker over time. 

To me that doesn't suggest lack of practice at all, it suggests that a portion, and perhaps the growing part of, his weakness is that it has got into his head.

[BballTim]

46 year old - 1400+ free throws in an hour.  Do you think Rondo is practicing as much as this guy or maybe not? Do you think all the thousands of NBA players practiced as much as this guy? What do you think would happen if they did? By the way...he only hit 85%.  So maybe raising it to 90% is unlikely. But I'd settle for 85%

  Do you really think posting these videos somehow bolsters your claim? First of all, none of them do anything to prove your claim that *everyone* can get to 85% or so with their ft shooting if they practice enough. You can't show that everyone can shoot at that rate with practice, so you can't show that Rondo can get to that level with practice, just like you can't show that the 95% or so of the players in the nba could get to that level if they practiced more.

  I don't even see any real point in your finding a 46 year old who (in your opinion) practices shooting free throws more than most nba players. It's probably the only basketball skill he practices significantly. This will probably come as a surprise to you but there are other aspects to playing in the nba than just free throw shooting that require practice as well. So, does Rondo (and other players) practice shooting free throws more than every single person on the planet? No, probably not. Does that mean they don't practice at all, they're lazy or they don't care? Of course not.

[Eja117]

46 year old - 1400+ free throws in an hour.  Do you think Rondo is practicing as much as this guy or maybe not? Do you think all the thousands of NBA players practiced as much as this guy? What do you think would happen if they did? By the way...he only hit 85%.  So maybe raising it to 90% is unlikely. But I'd settle for 85%

  Do you really think posting these videos somehow bolsters your claim?

Yeah

[Celtics4ever]

I too think it is a skill.   But it is a skill that one has to develop early in their career.  Muscle memory is a weird thing and it is hard to change it once you have a developed shot.

On every level below this his athletic ability was enough to make him do very well.   Here at the NBA almost everybody has either a lot of talent or mad skills.

[BballTim]

46 year old - 1400+ free throws in an hour.  Do you think Rondo is practicing as much as this guy or maybe not? Do you think all the thousands of NBA players practiced as much as this guy? What do you think would happen if they did? By the way...he only hit 85%.  So maybe raising it to 90% is unlikely. But I'd settle for 85%

  Do you really think posting these videos somehow bolsters your claim?

Yeah

  Wow. You're really not big on the whole "just because some people can do it, that doesn't mean everyone can" concept, are you?