Rondo's FT shooting back to "normal"

After starting the season going 4 for 16 on FT's, Rondo has hit 42 of his last 67 for a 62.7% clip. Which is right on his career average of 62.5%. Hopefully he won't always be a low 60% kind of FT shooter but it's starting to look that way. He's already into his fourth pro season after two college years shooting them at 57.7%. That's a lot of years of bad FT shooting. Most of his misses hit the front rim. You'd think being around Ray Allen for over two years (I'm sure Ray has offered suggestions) would have resulted in more improvement. Would be great to see him just settle in at 70%. I could live with that.

Steve,

You make an excellent observation that most of Rondo's misses from the line are front rim. I still have yet to watch last night's recording but a friend who saw the game tells me Donny Marshall was discussing exactly that point, and that it's among the lesser problems to fix.

Fact is that probably only means he's not getting his legs into it. Missing left or right is an indicator of flaws in aligning your shot and tougher to fix. I suspect it leaves hope that you might see him at least get closer to your wish of 70%.

I doubt after this much time we'll see him get to a much better percentage than that. Then again, Rondo offers this team so much with other parts of his game the flaw may be forgivable. Conceivably he might cost us a close game here and there if he's put at the stripe. I would bet, however, that he's going to win far more for us with significant contributions elsewhere.

I did notice that after Rondo's first miss at the end of the Clippers game, both Allens appeared to say something to him. Hopefully just encouragement since that's got to be the worst time to offer much else. From what I've read both KG and Ray offered up post game advice to just forget it, and that they had fallen short on several similar occasions themselves. That might be the best thing a teammate can do.

Regards

Rondo has worked with Ray this off season and has been told to repeat, repeat, repeat to the tee his pre-shot routine and his shot. Eventually he'll start hitting. I kind of like the way he looks at the line so I think time will improve his percentages. Cannot blame LA loss on Rondo. the team played flat.

112288

I think that Rondo is still getting used to the new method of foul shooting. The thing that I noticed is that just before he shoots it, he brings his elbow in, as in...

Dribble, dribble, bring the ball up to position, bring the elbow in and let it fly. Perhaps there hasn't been enough reps to make it automatic and it gives him a very brief time to think about it during the pause between bringing in the elbow and the let it fly part. In the middle of the game, no worries, but with the game on the line, that brief time to think got in the way.

He was missing badly, to the left or to the right, earlier in the season. The new routine seems to have corrected that flaw, and it seems that now he is getting the proper back spin on the ball.

All the practice over the summer didn't result with his wing being brought into alignment. He seemed to be frustrated with the result early on in the season. I believe it was after further consultation with Ray that his wing came into alignment. (He could have asked us, we could have told him to get his elbow lined up - LOL)

That is all speculation on my part, but I have hopes that if he continues down this track, he will bring the percent made up to a acceptable level.

gyso