Don't forget NBA players are geniuses.
What does Anthony Davis think about when he shoots his free throws?
Welcome back to the party. It’s BASKETBALLWEATHER. ☀️
Something I’ve been wanting to write about for a while is this thing Anthony Davis does when he gets to the free throw line. I wouldn’t blame you if you never paid attention. Especially during the regular season, free throws are boring, a good time to go grab some Jalapeno Kettle chips or light a candle.
But watching Anthony Davis get to the line is something that I’ve become increasingly fascinated by.
He does this little — zen-breath maneuver — where it looks like he closes his eyes, like he’s zoning out everything around him — the crowd, the other players, the pressure of making the basket: Connecting to some kind of higher power, by concentrating all of his attention into this tiny little fraction of time that exists before he needs to let the ball go.
The free throw is a fascinating aspect of the game because it’s the one time where the action slows down — downright stops, grinding to a halt in the middle of — what is — otherwise a really explosive & fast game.
It’s takes every player out of rhythm, so in order to be good at it, you have to be more than just a proficient shooter, you have to be mentally strong — your focus has to be bullet tight.
You have to be able to block out the noise, and deal with the pressure of All Eyez on You, a pause built into the middle of the game on an excruciatingly consistent basis, interrupting your rhythm when you least expect it.
Some players have built their entire careers around getting to the line, ala James Harden or Joel Embiid. Others like Shaq or Dwight Howard have been famously horrible at it, putting their teams into danger because of how shitty they are at it.
Anthony Davis isn’t a bad free throw shooter. This year he’s at 80%. His lowest season average was 71.3%, that was a few years ago. His highest was at almost 85% his first year as a Laker.
He’s not hitting over 90% of his attempts like Steph or Klay, but he makes them at a steady and dependable clip.
If AD is on the line at the end of a big playoff game, I feel reasonably confident that he is going to deliver.
Remember, every free throw is essentially equivalent to the psychological rhythm of an interrogation.
Most players enter the NBA at a very young age. I couldn’t find the exact data but I wouldn’t be surprised if its 20-21 years old on average. These are the MOST talented basketball humans from across the world, who have been the best player on every basketball team they have ever been on by a mile.
And yet as good as many of them are, they still have a long way to go before they can be successful in the NBA.
Why?
Way back when when I played basketball in high school, occasionally we would come up against a player who was on a track to be that good. In 7th grade I played against Mike Dunleavy Jr., who went to this school just up the street from my high school.
Let’s just say that I did not get much playing time in that game.
Mike Dunleavy Jr. was selected 3rd in the NBA draft and had an impressive NBA career, playing for 15 seasons. But in the vocabulary of most NBA fans, he “sucked.”
No one knows who Mike Dunleavy Jr. is outside of your hardcore NBA fans, and fans of the Golden State Warriors since he just replaced Bob Myers as their GM.
Of course, sucking at basketball for Mike Dunleavy Jr. is not the same as sucking at basketball for Allen Landver. But yeah, for an NBA player, he wasn’t much to get excited about…
In my opinion, he was a fucking genius too.
I don’t care who you are, Mike Dunleavy Jr. or Lebron James — if you’re in the NBA you’re automatically one of the smartest human beings on the planet. In Mike Dunleavy Jr.’s case, he may have not had the talent to be anything more than a bench player in the league, but he still had one heck of a brain, fifteen years when it was all said and done.
The truth is many basketball players don’t ever get the opportunity to try out for an NBA team like Dunleavy Jr., and the few who do might never make it to a game because they’re not emotionally mature enough to play high IQ basketball. James Wiseman, a recent top draft pick, can attest to that.
Then there’s someone like Austin Reaves on the Lakers.
That dude is a genius as well. You don’t go undrafted and then end up becoming the third best player on a Lakers team with Lebron James and Anthony Davis within three years by not having the mental fortitude of a super freak. You don’t succeed playing next to LEBRON JAMES, when so many others have failed, if you’re not mentally strong to a degree that is extraordinary.
NBA players are still human. (See my post on Ricky Rubio.) But being an NBA player means you have a mental toughness that most of us can only dream about, especially when we’re 21 years old.
Where were you when you were 21?
Now check out this video of Anthony Davis. See the way he grabs a little breath / says a prayer to himself before he shoots the ball?
See how he found his center in a split second before the shot went up? That’s the mental strength and brilliance necessary to survive that I’m talking about.
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