Let's Talk About The "Hack-a-Shaq" Strategy

[wwharton]

Re: Let's Talk About The "Hack-a-Shaq" Strategy

Hack'a is a short term gamble wich can pay off once in a while but overall it seems like it's not worth it. As a coach you shoudn't sub one of your best player ever because the other team is hacking him. Even if he's a below 60% free throw shooter he'd need to be in some kind of slump to make it an effective strategy considering you also prevent your team from getting fastbreak opportunities, taking your players/crowd out of the game etc.

D'Antoni as a Lakers coach never pulled Howard when he was getting hacked, he even laughed about it like : Yeah it's good, it gives our old guys some rest. He was right about that.

This is exactly why the NBA shouldn't forcefully do anything about it. If it were effective, coaches would just sub the player out. As it is, it's not effective enough for them to feel a need to. And we just had a game where we saw what it looks like when they go overboard with it and the hacking team got blown out. This will fix itself.

[Vni]

Re: Let's Talk About The "Hack-a-Shaq" Strategy

This is exactly why the NBA shouldn't forcefully do anything about it. If it were effective, coaches would just sub the player out. As it is, it's not effective enough for them to feel a need to. And we just had a game where we saw what it looks like when they go overboard with it and the hacking team got blown out. This will fix itself.

Definately agree but I can also see how it doesn't really matter what they do with it since it isn't effective.

[ProfessaPackMan]

Let's Talk About The "Hack-a-Shaq" Strategy

From ProBasketballTalk

Adam Silver has said he’s on the fence about whether or not the league should look to change the rules surrounding intentional fouls away from the ball — also known as the Hack-a-Shaq strategy — that sends dismal free throw shooters to the line on purpose.

From a strategy standpoint, it can seem to make sense.

From an aesthetic standpoint, it’s brutal to watch.

The NBA is an entertainment product above all else, so removing the least entertaining portion of the game would seem to be in the league’s best interest. But while an earlier report placed the odds of the league making such a change at 85 percent, the latest version seems to indicate that team executives aren’t wholeheartedly convinced.

From Ken Berger of CBSSports.com:

At the annual meeting of NBA general managers Wednesday in Chicago, there was no overwhelming consensus to change the rules to discourage teams from intentionally fouling poor free-throw shooters, league sources told CBSSports.com.

“There is not enough support to change it,” one executive in the meeting said. “It’s one of those perception is bigger than reality issues.”

League officials presented data on intentional fouling that strongly suggested the problem is an isolated one, despite all the attention it has gotten during the postseason. According to the data shared with GMs at the meeting, 76 percent of the intentional fouls this season — regular season and playoffs — have been committed against five players: DeAndre Jordan, Dwight Howard, Josh Smith, Joey Dorsey and Andre Drummond.

Jordan, the Clippers’ center who has been hacked into the next century through the first two rounds of the playoffs, has accounted for about half of all intentional fouls this season, according to the league data.

The statistics presented are what likely killed the desire to make a change more than anything else.

If such a small percentage of players are the ones victimized by the strategy the vast majority of the time, then it would seem to be a smaller problem than most have made it out to be. But because two of those players are currently facing each other in a high-profile seven-game series in the second round of the playoffs, it can make for some extremely ugly basketball, nationally-televised all by itself for the NBA-watching world to see.

It’s worth noting that this will still be discussed by the competition committee during its July meeting in Las Vegas, and it may still be recommended that the rules need to be changed. But it’s far from a consensus at this point, at least in the early stages of discussion.

That 2nd to last paragraph hit the nail on the head.

[ehh]

Re: Let's Talk About The "Hack-a-Shaq" Strategy

I still think players need to simply make their FT or sit down but if you want to make a change for entertainment purposes then just put in a new foul type similar to clear path fouls where if an offensive player who is not involved in any type of basketball action (shooting, dribbling, setting a screen, boxing out/fighting for a board) is fouled then it's two shots and the ball.

So those plays where DeAndre Jordan inbounds the ball, takes two steps onto the court and is playfully patted on the torso by Prigioni for a foul - those will be two shots and the ball. Or fouling a guy who's just standing in the weakside corner doing nothing, anything along those lines. I mean, it is an intentional foul after all and intentional fouls have always been different from common fouls in the NBA. Just extend that philosophy a bit further.

Or tell guys to make their FT.

[dsallupinyaarea]

Re: Let's Talk About The "Hack-a-Shaq" Strategy

I still think players need to simply make their FT or sit down but if you want to make a change for entertainment purposes then just put in a new foul type similar to clear path fouls where if an offensive player who is not involved in any type of basketball action (shooting, dribbling, setting a screen, boxing out/fighting for a board) is fouled then it's two shots and the ball.

So those plays where DeAndre Jordan inbounds the ball, takes two steps onto the court and is playfully patted on the torso by Prigioni for a foul - those will be two shots and the ball. Or fouling a guy who's just standing in the weakside corner doing nothing, anything along those lines. I mean, it is an intentional foul after all and intentional fouls have always been different from common fouls in the NBA. Just extend that philosophy a bit further.

Or tell guys to make their FT.

This is really all I ask for. Would be perfect.

[ProfessaPackMan]

Re: Let's Talk About The "Hack-a-Shaq" Strategy

Still kind of a damn shame that out of 450 players in the NBA, a rule needs to be tweaked for 5 specific players(according to the statistics compiled in that report).

I mean regardless of what side you're on, that's still a bit ridiculous.

[23]

Re: Let's Talk About The "Hack-a-Shaq" Strategy

NBA has been tweaking the rules to make it easier on players for years now

[ehh]

Re: Let's Talk About The "Hack-a-Shaq" Strategy

Hell they were constantly changing rules for one guy (Wilt) back in the day.

[jeebs9]

Re: Let's Talk About The "Hack-a-Shaq" Strategy

Still kind of a damn shame that out of 450 players in the NBA, a rule needs to be tweaked for 5 specific players(according to the statistics compiled in that report).

I mean regardless of what side you're on, that's still a bit ridiculous.

Have you guys seen the videos of Wilt running around the court playing peek-a-boo? It's hilarious..... But sad at the same time.

[ProfessaPackMan]

Re: Let's Talk About The "Hack-a-Shaq" Strategy

At last check, Adam Silver was on the fence about Hack-a-Shaq.
He was also gathering more information on the strategy.
Where does he stand now?
Silver on the Rich Eisen Show:

Given that I’m torn on it, I think where I come out is, let’s look at one more season of data.

NBA general managers reportedly don’t favor changing the rules now, either.
This isn’t the be-all, end-all. The competition committee will still have its say.
But it just doesn’t seem anyone in the NBA is passionate enough about changing the rules to make it actually happen.

http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/06/04/adam-silver-wants-another-year-of-hack-a-shaq-data-before-changing-rules/

[cima]

Re: Let's Talk About The "Hack-a-Shaq" Strategy

He was on the Rich Eisman show and basically said he didn't want to change it just because of 2 players (Jordan and Howard) but as a fan he gets that it's annoying.

He also stated how it's inconsistent because they outlaw in the last 2 minutes. So for the sake of consistency, I say outlaw it all together (or allow it all together, though I'd rather see it go away).

[cam21224]

Re: Let's Talk About The "Hack-a-Shaq" Strategy

He also stated how it's inconsistent because they outlaw in the last 2 minutes. So for the sake of consistency, I say outlaw it all together (or allow it all together though I'd rather see it go away).

Bingo, although I'm in the make your damn free throw camp either allow it all game or get rid of it.

[23]

Re: Let's Talk About The "Hack-a-Shaq" Strategy

On another note

NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Thursday that there is little likelihood the league will move to reform some of the widely discussed issues such as intentional fouling and conference imbalance that have materialized this postseason.

There have been several incidents during the playoffs of the practice popularly known as Hack-a-Shaq, whereby a team deliberately sends an opponent's poor foul shooter to the free throw line. Calls to ban that tactic in the interest of game flow have grown increasingly louder in recent weeks, but Silver said executives at the league's general managers meeting May 13 voiced opposition to modifying the rule.

"The data shows that we're largely talking about two teams, throughout the playoffs," Silver said. "In fact, 90 percent of the occurrences of Hack-a-Shaq involve the Rockets and the Clippers, and for the most part it's two players. Seventy-five percent involve two players, DeAndre Jordan and Dwight Howard. So then the question becomes, should we be making that rule change largely for two teams and two players?"

[ProfessaPackMan]

Re: Let's Talk About The "Hack-a-Shaq" Strategy

Guess we should be expecting some low ratings for when those two teams play next year and going forward then.

[King_B_Mack]

Re: Let's Talk About The "Hack-a-Shaq" Strategy

Guess we should be expecting some low ratings for when those two teams play next year and going forward then.

Ehh, they're just going to lie to us about the ratings anyway, so it doesn't matter. We'll never know amirite?