Kareem Abdul-Jabbar indirectly blames the advent of Stephen Curry for why NBA centers and big men don’t shoot skyhooks anymore.
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It goes without saying that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a giant in perhaps the fastest-growing sport on the planet. The Captain has been phenomenal at also furthering the sport’s popularity by actively popularizing it on different platforms.
His 20-year career aside, Kareem is best known for introducing the world to one of his patented hook shots. Releasing it often at a height of over 9 feet, he’d befuddle every center who ever came up against him.
However, the skyhook is now an exceedingly rare shot in the modern NBA, despite Kareem’s success with it.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar says that Stephen Curry is the reason why kids don’t shoot skyhooks today
The Captain was a guest on Conversations with Tyler about 5 years ago. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was most renowned for popularizing the shot called the skyhook.
However, the skyhook has become nearly extinct in the modern NBA as coaches and players seek to maximize their jump-shooting ability. This is the problem of core fundamentals, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar addressed it:
“The reason that the young kids today haven’t learned to shoot the skyhook is that they’re so enamored by the 3-point shot. So the kids, they don’t want 2 points. They don’t want to work with their back to the basket. That’s not cool.”
“They wanna go out there in the stratosphere and shoot 3-pointers. I didn’t think that that worked. For the longest time, that did not work as solid basketball strategy.”
“But now, when you have a time – when you have people like Stephen Curry who can shoot the ball – I’ve never seen anybody shoot like that. I’ll give you an explanation.”
“They showed Stephen Curry shooting 100 3-point shots during practice. He made 92 out of 100 from the 3-point arc – including 77 in a row. That’s just practicing.”