This Week's Show
Coach Art Rondeau joins the show to talk free throw shooting.
Hosts
- Special Guest Art Rondeau (@artrondeau)
- Andres Alvarez (@nerdnumbers)
- Produced by Brian Foster (@boxscorebrian)
Sources
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Video Show
Show Notes
Coach Art Rondeau has been working on free throw mechanics since he was 17. He's worked with high schoolers, Division I schools, and NBA players (including Chris Dudley and Alan Houston.) His blog https://artrondeau.wordpress.com/ has some fantastic insight into his knowledge, and of course, he does give coaching to help quickly improve free throw shooting.
I met Art at the Sloan Analytics conference and is an example of what Sloan is perfect for, as opposed to some of the other issues I've discussed.
We discuss the importance of balance in free throws, which is a cheap excuse for me to get in a plug for the off-balance game winner by Bronson Koenig to advance the Badgers to the Sweet Sixteen.
We discuss DeAndre Jordan's incredible 22 missed free-throw game. Art thinks he could help DeAndre get into the 70s for shooting!
We discuss the fact that the NBA leaders in offense, the Warriors, are bad at shooting free throws. It gets worse when you remember that they have Steph Curry!
If you are a fan of the Marcus Camby's Knicks (right before Dolan came in) Art has a ton of great stories he shares about Chris Dudley, Alan Houston, and Marcus Camby. Tune in!
An example of Chris Dudley's hand-eye coordination was a time he threw a ball at Shaq right after he was posterized.
I'm not telling you I can read the book better than you can read the book. I'm telling you the answer's not in that book.-Art Rondeau on interactions with coaches.
Art discusses how the Knicks used the illegal defense rule to win one game the Spurs in the NBA Finals.
We discuss some current NBA players and their free throw woes. Tune in to hear what Art says about Andre Iguodala, Dwight Howard, and Rajon Rondo.
Also, I think Art gets a boo for this tweet.
Dwight's problem is that he's been spraying his hands with Miss-Em...😳😳😳 https://t.co/o4fPbXGmoc
— Coach Art Rondeau (@ArtRondeau) March 21, 2016
Art notes that Chris Webber seems to have funny advice on how players need to make free throws given that he started his career shooting them so poorly.
We discuss the psychological aspect of coaching. Treating athletes as humans and not robots is necessary. I bring up the book Soccernomics that discusses helping foreign players adjust to new environments is huge for performance. Also, Dan Ariely has a great TED talk on how important motivation is for productivity. Art has a bunch of great examples he discusses in regards to basketball too.
Two articles we wanted to talk from Art that we didn't get to were: