I love basketball. It’s a game of athleticism and grace, pure joy and total frustration. Most basketball skills are tough to master – especially with someone guarding you, blocking your path. There is one skill, however, that should be easier to pick up . . . a free throw. A free throw is an uncontested shot taken after a foul; each free throw is worth one point. You get to stand, unmolested, fifteen feet from the hoop and try to make it. Oh, and you have ten seconds to calm down, focus, and prepare. The shot is literally “free” from interference from your opponent. This all means that serious basketball players should consistently make their free throws.
But good players still miss the shot . . . all the time. Notice that I said free throws are easier, not easy. It’s still difficult to shoot a ball into a hoop that is fifteen feet away where you only have an eight-inch margin of error between the size of the ball and the diameter of the rim. There are often opposing fans in the stands trying to distract you. They scream obscenities and wave their hands. So, the art of shooting free throws does not come naturally to anyone. You actually have to practice free throws to be good at them.
The problem is that people don’t want to practice free throws. It’s boring. Who wants to stand there and mindlessly shoot hundreds of unguarded shots? There’s no drama in that. It’s so much more fun to drive to the rim, try to slam dunk the ball, or shoot endless three pointers. Go to your local recreation center gym and observe for yourself. Perhaps one out of every twenty people will practice their free throws.
This goes for the pros as well. To a budding basketball star, practicing a free throw is akin to doing math homework. So, it becomes the last thing on the “need-to-practice” list. And it shows. My wife and I had season tickets to the Denver Nuggets for three years. We sat close to the court and arrived early to watch the warm-ups. I loved the ebb and flow of each game. The city of Denver supports its sports teams like few other places. So, the Pepsi Center was always loud, win or lose. The Nuggets were good those years, but they weren’t great. They still needed to execute the fundamentals to win consistently. And, they didn’t execute when it mattered the most. Here’s a quick version of the story.
The Denver Nuggets & The NBA Playoffs
The Nuggets made the playoffs each of the three years we had tickets. Yay! However, they got booted from the playoffs each of those years in the first round. Boo! These were close, hard-fought games, but victory was always within their grasp. One year stands out more than the others. In 2011, the Nuggets played the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round of the playoffs and lost the best-of-seven series, four to one.
Four of the five games played were very close. The difference was the inability of the Nuggets to make their free throws. Here are some sad statistics from seven years ago (thank you Google & Basketball-Reference.com). The Nuggets lost the first game, a nail-biter, by four points. But, they missed twelve free throws! Recall that a free throw is worth one point (and it’s a shot that pros, who focus only on basketball, should make). This means that the Nuggets could have won Game One by eight points. That could have been a series-defining win on their opponent’s home court and momentum going into Game Two.
It gets worse. The Nuggets got blown out in the second game but only lost the third game by three points. This time they missed fifteen – I repeat fifteen! – free throws. This, of course, means that they could have won game three by twelve points! Twelve points is a huge margin of victory in professional basketball. The good guys won Game Four but lost Game Five by three points. In this final game, they missed four free throws. Though their free throw percentage was much better than the other games, they could have won that game by one point if they made these basic shots.
Put more simply, the Denver Nuggets could have drastically increased their odds of winning that playoff series merely by making their free throws. It wasn’t like their key players were injured or the referees made bad calls. The Thunder were the fourth seed in the tournament and the Nuggets were the fifth. The Nuggets were certainly not in over their heads. They just didn’t execute the easy stuff when it mattered.
Throughout that season, the Nuggets made just over 1,800 free throws. But, they shot over 2,400 free throws. That’s over 600 points the team left on the court over the course of the year. How many games might an extra 600 points have won? Could it have led to home-court advantage in the playoffs? That would have mattered. It surely would have led teams to foul the Nuggets’ players less and that would have meant more easy baskets. The positives of made free throws are numerous.
Which brings me to the key point of this story. A more pressing problem occurred when the Nuggets needed a tough three-pointer to win a game. They missed those shots most of the time. They lost a ton of close games where a clutch three-pointer could would have led to victory. In hindsight, the reason is obvious. The Nuggets couldn’t make the easy shots. Therefore, there was little chance that they would consistently make the much tougher, pressure-packed shots with another professional basketball player guarding them closely. And so I conclude that these missed free throws help cost the Nuggets a chance at a championship.
Free Throws & Your Life
Application time! Like the Nuggets, it behooves you to make your free throws. Off the court, there are plenty of easy tasks that confront us daily. We either meet our goal, make a half-hearted attempt, or brush it off. Like many areas in life, however, free throws are a zero-sum game – we either make the shot and get our one point, or we miss and get nothing. And, like the Nuggets, too many clankers can cost us dearly
Missed free throws leave us tired, frustrated, and on the losing end of many battles we should have won. Think of a blown job interview because we were too tired or a rough cold brought on when we neglect exercise for a time. On the other hand, mastering the easy stuff that confronts us daily creates a sense of satisfaction and relief. It recharges our batteries and frees us from physical and mental pain. In a life that is all too tough and unfair at times, we need all the points we can get.
With this in mind, here are ten critical free throws we must make every day:
- Get at least six to seven hours of uninterrupted sleep (+1)
- Eat a healthy breakfast around breakfast time (+1)
- Look someone in the eye and hold conversations without making it awkward, running out of things to say, or looking at your phone (+1)
- Hug the people you love, say you’re sorry & own your mistakes (+1)
- Empty your email inbox (+1)
- Be prepared & on time to stuff (+1)
- Anticipate the consequences of your decisions & avoid excuses (+1)
- Drive everywhere more patiently (+1)
- Be honest, compassionate, and courageous (+1)
- Clean-up & organize importatnt stuff (think apartment, house, car, wallet, purse) (+1)
These are the easy tasks that successful people mindlessly accomplish daily without much thought. These are the things that really matter to our happiness and health but that we can’t brag about on social media. Imagine this Instagram post: “Here’s a picture of me remembering to eat breakfast for a change. Look at these delicious hard-boiled eggs” Or, “Here I am in an old t-shirt cleaning out my car. Look at this filth under the seat. Oh, there’s my credit card.” These posts are surefire way to lose followers.
Yes, these tasks lack flavor. Vaccuming my car is boring. And, yes, we get no credit for a job well done. No one says, “nice job getting those seven consecutive hours of sleep, Corey.” But, these are the crucial free throws we face. They aren’t going away. No one stands in our way of accomplishing them. And, because they so commonly arise, we might as well make them habits.
To start, you should print out seven copies of this list and check off how many free throws you make (accomplish) for one week. Think of having ten potential points on the table each day. Then, make a resolution to consistently shoot 90% or better each day before you hit the sack. Check your progress after a week and then print seven more checklists. Soon, each will become a habit and you won’t even need a reference guide.
Which leads me to the final thing we need to discuss. You act and feel better when you make your free throws, for sure. But, there is a much more important purpose behind the activity – you need to make a certain percentage of life’s harder shots to thrive. That’s impossible if you can’t even do the little stuff correctly.
Life’s Three-Pointers
Life is tough and almost always unpredictable. Life will place many unforeseen obstacles in your path. You want to excel in the hard things to really differentiate yourself from the pack and avoid the stress of an overwhelming life. Let me give you some examples:
- How will you find & keep important relationships if you never own your mistakes?
- How will you speak truth to power if you can’t even remember to eat breakfast?
- How will you quit a job you hate when you struggle to get ready for bed?
- How will you excel at work when your commute ruins your day?
- How will you decrease stress when you keep losing your keys or running late?
And on and on it goes. In the end, you must be able to make life’s free throws blindfolded in order to confidently approach life’s three-pointers. Mastering the easy stuff will provide more confidence (from honing your social skills, relationships, and character), strength (from sleeping enough and eating a healthy diet), and bandwidth (from seeking patience, being prepared, and getting to stuff on time) to take on life’s more difficult obstacles. You won’t have to cross your fingers and hope for the best anymore.
As long as I’m still around, there will be many more basketball posts in the future. In the meantime, boring or not, practice your free throws. Your future self will thank you.
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