00008 · The Granny Shot
When Rick Barry retired in 1980, he was the best free throw shooter in the game. Since then, he’s slipped to the fourth greatest in NBA history. What was his secret weapon to make a remarkable 9 out of 10 free throws? The underhand free throw: the granny shot.
Wilt Chamberlain, one of NBA’s all-around greatest, has a slew of records, including 100 points in one game. But he was a notoriously crappy free thrower. Rick Barry taught the underhand free throw to Wilt, improving his free throws by ten percentage points. But Wilt abandoned the superior method, simply because it looked stupid.
And to this day, it is rare to see anyone using the underhand free throw. Scoring more points is simply not worth enduring the ridicule. Granny shots are seen as weak, girly, awkward, and amateur.
We humans, as social animals, spend our entire lives avoiding social humiliation. We have powerful incentives to conform to norms, and we shame anyone who tries to break them. Many taboos exist for appropriate reasons of safety and morality. But some, like the granny shot, seem silly.
For example, statistically, you should go for it on the fourth down in football. You increase your possession time and decrease your opponent’s time with the ball. You will have more scoring opportunities. But a coach will also have to fail on their fourth-down attempts fairly often, and endure withering criticism as he or she bucks the norms of traditional play calling. And we all somehow agree that it’s better to avoid short term humiliation than the long term success of the team.
I think of the granny shot when I think of all the ways we live just because that’s what’s expected. A successful life is owning the car and the house and having the nuclear family and making sure said car and house and family is presenting in this year’s fashionable colors. What’s the weird granny shot way of living?
For a span of my twenties, I didn’t own a car and lived in a condemned old house with a bunch of my artist friends. My entire rent and utilities bill was $60 a month. It was basically primitive camping in urban Phoenix. It was a curious way to live, and squatting at that house drew the same curious reactions as squatting for a granny shot.
Yet I never experienced any disdain or horrible reactions, and if anyone truly didn’t like how we lived, well, we just never saw them again. It’s amazing how folks will accept whatever strange granny shot you are throwing in your life, if you do it unapologetically and it’s apparent why it works for you. “Oh, that’s Rick Barry, check out his granny shot, he’s actually one of the best.”
It’s the switch that’s the hardest. When you’re Wilt Chamberlain and you step to the free throw line that first time to lob the ball underhanded. Wilt the Stilt is bent over like a question mark and doing a granny shot?
Maybe the answer is to be known as the person who is always changing it up. Let your people love you as the person who’s vulnerably trying something different. And be the safe person they can try new things with. Granny shots—just for fun—in the park when no one is around.
