Wilt Chamberlain and his offensive skillset are legendary – but his free throw shooting was atrocious.
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Stories of Wilt Chamberlain dunking from the free-throw line and covering the whole court in 3 dribbles may be true – but one thing for sure is that free throws were his Achilles heel. Wilt had a career average of 51.1 FT%, which is bad even by olden standards. Imagine Stilt’s 100 point performance, but he shot free throws like Dirk Nowitzki – his record would not be touched even in a video game.
Many people have theorized as to why he was that poor – theories ranged from he didn’t feel like it to he didn’t train at all. He would have been much higher on the scoring charts were it not his ability – daresay inability to shoot FTs held him back.
For a man who could skyhook shots from the 3 point range with no effort at all, something happened when he went to the line. It was not only him, other big men have suffered too. Shaquille O’Neal is a prime example of a modern big man not being able to make unencumbered shots.
Wilt Chamberlain may have been a victim of his strength – his superhuman ability is what held him back from becoming a better free-throw shooter
HOF coach and player Tom Heinsohn has a theory of why this is the case for people of that size. He states that people who possess herculean levels of strength are unable to adjust their levels – they do not know how much force to give to different areas of the court. He states that this can be proven by Wilt’s ability to knock down 20-25 baskets from the half-court line, but struggle from 10 feet.
Wilt’s effort was not lacking – he did try to rectify his drawback and even tried the Rick Barry style of motion – that didn’t help either. The early rules of basketball allowed players to move freely within the circle – He took full advantage and dunked the ball from behind the line. He was so athletic that he could dunk a ball without having a long run-up, from the FT line.
Wilt also had many mechanics coaches to try and improve his form – but none of it mattered. the fact of the matter is, no one thought adjusting the strength. Basketball is a sport where size is a huge advantage – but certain facets of the game still require daintiness.
All said and done – Wilt putting up Wilt numbers despite being held back so much is crazy. The fact that he got hacked all the time just to reduce his chance of getting points, but still averaged 30 a game shows how dominant he was. There will not be another player like Wilt Chamberlain ever – so enigmatic, yet so brazen.
