LeBron sees no problem with hack-a-player strategy
NBA commissioner Adam Silver has conceded that it's time to look at ending the practice of teams intentionally hacking poor free-throw shooters.
The face of the NBA for the past decade disagrees.
"I don't really see a problem with it," LeBron James said Friday, according to Cleveland.com's Chris Haynes. "At the end of the day, it's a strategy of the game and whatever it takes to win. If that's a part of the game, and you have a guy that is a bad free-throw shooter and you put him on the line, that's a part of strategy."
"That's no different from a guy that can't shoot well from the outside and you try to make him shoot bad from outside, or if a guy is turnover-prone and you put pressure on him," James said. "It's all part of strategy. It's no different."
Yet, as the steward of a multi-billion-dollar league with fans that don't find excitement in DeAndre Jordan missing 22 free throws in a game, Silver may have little choice in the matter.
"At some point, the fans might get to the point and say, 'We're not going to pay to watch this. We're going to flip the channels'," Detroit Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy said last month. "They haven't yet. That's what Adam (Silver) keeps saying. When they do, then the league will have to make an adjustment."
Silver appears to be coming around.
"Even for those who had not wanted to make the change, we're being forced to that position just based on these sophisticated coaches understandably using every tactic available to them," he told USA Today's Jeff Zillgitt. "It’s just not the way we want to see the game played."
Colloquially called "Hack-a-Shaq" after the strategy became popular against Shaquille O'Neal in the '90s, intentionally fouling poor free-throw shooters also has the distinction of usually not working. Teams hacking away from the ball have won only 17 percent of the time when trailing this season, according to the NBA.
James is still in favor of the status quo, even when it's used on his Cleveland Cavaliers.
"We had teams do it to us versus Tristan (Thompson, a 61-percent foul shooter)," James said. "We go to Tristan to tell him to go up there and make a couple. Go make 'em. If not, I think our coaching staff has done a great job of putting someone in that he believes can make it."