How to Make Andre Drummond the Most Dominant Big Man in the NBA (AKA Fixing Hack-A-Shaq)

Raj Mehta-USA TODAY Sports

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Intentionally fouling poor free throw shooters, otherwise known as “Hack-A-Shaq”, has become an increasingly popular strategy among NBA teams. This strategy started out as a way to try to overcome a deficit in the last few minutes of games. It is now grown to the point where teams will execute a hack-a-Shaq at any point in the game. This strategy works because, when a player shoots less than 50% from the free throw line, the expected points per possession becomes less than 1 when they shoot two free throws. This is a poor rate for a professional basketball team. The league average points per possession in the 2015-2016 season was 1.03. So, if a team fouls Andre Drummond, who shot 35.5% from the free throw line this year, the expected points per possession would be .71 points. This is why the strategy works. However, it also takes the excitement out of a basketball game. No one wants to watch Andre Drummond take 36 free throws and miss 23 of them like he did against the Rockets in January. This amount of free throws slows the games down incredibly and it is awfully boring to watch. The rules need to be changed to ensure that the NBA is putting its most entertaining product on the floor that it can.

My proposal for the rule change is simple. When an off-ball foul occurs, like most of the fouls that are committed when using the hack-a-Shaq strategy, the team that got fouled gets to choose if they want to shoot free throws or if they’d like to just in-bound the ball. This removes the incentive for the defending team to foul someone when they haven’t even ran across half court yet (or before they’ve even stepped in bounds like what we saw Danny Green do to Clint Capela). No team will intentionally foul off ball when all that will occur afterwards is an inbounds play. It also does not reward players for being bad free throw shooters. If a player gets fouled while they have the ball and that team is in the bonus, they will still have to shoot free throws. This should cease almost all intentional fouling just to cause a poor free throw shooter to shoot foul shots.

Offenses won’t just be strictly benefiting however. If a defense wants to intentionally foul, they can. They would just have to wait until the player they want to foul has the ball. So offenses would have to adapt and either avoid giving the ball to certain players, or only giving them the ball when they can immediately shoot it, such as an alley-oop or on a cut through the paint. I think this is a good balance between defenses having to stop a strategy that can benefit them while also not rewarding poor free throw shooters too heavily.

A faster paced game with less free throw shooting will alleviate many of the complaints that fans have. Not many people like to watch a free throw shooting competition, and the NBA knows this. There was a report last week that the league would be looking to change their rules regarding intentionally fouling. These changes can only be for the better as they will provide a more exciting and entertaining sports product that more people will enjoy watching and being a part of.