Hack-A-Shaq: Why Was Shaquille O'Neal Awful At Free Throws?

If you were an NBA fan in the 1990s and early 2000s, you're probably very familiar with the phrase "Hack-a-Shaq." For those who didn't follow the NBA in that stretch, that was the accepted strategy of opposing teams refusing to let center Shaquille O'Neal beat them in the paint and instead making him shoot from 15 feet away to get his points.

Based on the numbers, the strategy made perfect sense. For his career, Shaq missed 5,317 free throws and made just 4,385, a percentage of 45.2 percent from the line. Only once, in 2002-03, did Shaq even hit 60 percent of his attempts from the line. Only three other players — Wilt Chamberlain, Chris Dudley and Ben Wallace — finished with a worse percentage from the charity stripe than Shaq.

So why was he so bad at the line? Here are a few possible theories.

He Never Needed the Skill

Shaq might have needed some touch at the line in today's NBA, but in his era, a dominant big man who could own the paint was worth his weight in gold. Shaq never needed to develop a mid-range game because he was simply more powerful than anyone else in the NBA and could power his way to dunks, layups, and short shots.

In college, versatile big men like Christian Laettner took advantage of his limitations, but in the pros, a lack of zone defense meant O'Neal could dominate.

He Had Huge Hands

It's a lot harder to toss a ball in the basket from 15 feet away than it is from five feet away when your hands are gigantic. That's why the best free throw shooters are usually guards: they have smaller hands, can get a good grip on the ball and have a similar range of motion to their normal shot.

Shaq didn't have that. He was almost level with the rim and couldn't grip the ball well for the type of arcing shot needed for foul shots. His body simply wasn't designed to shoot from distance.

It Kept Him Humble

This theory comes from the big man himself, as Shaq has theorized that he needed to have some kind of weakness in his game to keep him from being arrogant throughout his career. Given that he led the league in field goal percentage 10 times during his career and averaged a double-double for his career, O'Neal had every right to brag about his skill — and that's before you throw in his four NBA titles.

It's an interesting theory, but it's far more likely that it had more to do with the makeup of his body and his specialization of what he did well. For his era, Shaq's power game was a perfect fit that never required success from the line.