Hack-A-Shaq ugly, seldom successful

You are going to determine the outcome.

It’s on your eyes.

On one hand, it’s a difficult side of the argument to join, that which promotes changing the rules of basketball to reward incompetence. DeAndre Jordan makes $10 million annually to play for the Los Angeles Clippers, so you would think all that cash might translate into a guy who isn’t incredibly defective at a specific skill.

One where no one is guarding him.

Where everything is free.

But he is. He shoots free throws how you might imagine Tom Brady throws an inflated raft. Jordan is one of the world’s wealthiest brick masons, making just 39.7 percent of his attempts.

On the other hand, this seems to be slowly killing what is meant to be a beautiful game.

Jordan’s woeful results from the line have brought screams for revision during these NBA playoffs, as some teams have spent large chunks of games lulling the audience to sleep while employing a “Hack-A-Shaq” strategy and intentionally fouling the Clippers’ center.

Dwight Howard of the Rockets has also been a popular target to be hacked this way and that. He earns $22 million a year and shoots 53 percent from the line.

It’s a tactic used by the team fouling to stop the clock and increase its own number of offensive possessions while hopefully limiting the opposition’s points per possession.

It’s also an eyesore to witness, a virtual train wreck of visual torture.

It’s like being sentenced to watching Manny Pacquiao sing for days on end ... when he has a bad case of undisclosed laryngitis.

“If someone can’t shoot free throws, that’s their problem,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich told the San Antonio Express-News recently. “As I’ve said before, if we’re not allowed to do something to take advantage of a team’s weakness, a trade should be made before each game. ‘We won’t foul your guy, but you promise not to block any of our shots.’ Or, ‘We won’t foul your guy, and you allow us to shoot all uncontested shots.’

“So we’d have to make a trade. On an intellectual or principle basis, I think you’re on high ground. Now, visual-wise, it’s awful. It couldn’t be worse. I tend to side on the principle side where it’s basketball, and if we have a guy who can’t shoot and it’s an important part of the game, I should probably get him off the court. We’ll see how it comes out. I’m sure the way it looks will be discussed very seriously by the league.”

The competition committee meets in July in Las Vegas.

This issue will bring much debate.

A popular theory is that we soon will see the last of a game plan that, while made most famous by Shaquille O’Neal when he was overcoming it and winning championships with the Lakers, dates to when defenders chased Wilt Chamberlain around the court as if playing hide-and-seek. Rules were changed back then, allowing the offensive team to shoot free throws and then keep possession after any off-the-ball foul in the last two minutes of a game. Many want those directives extended now.

It’s like anything when you combine professional sports and the possibility of decreased viewership, which directly influences a sponsor’s bottom line. If there is even the slightest financial hint that the consumer has grown tired enough of slow play and prolonged games to turn the channel, Hack-A-Shaq will soon be fit for a coffin.

That’s not something to immediately celebrate. It’s true that some players have throughout history caused the game to be changed for the better. Leroy Edwards and the three-second rule. George Mikan and goaltending. Mikan and the widening of the lane. Chamberlain and the free-throw plane.

But by adopting change due to Hack-A-Shaq, be it giving the fouled team an option of shooting free throws or inbounding the ball with 14 seconds on the shot clock, or treating the foul as a technical and allowing the victim team to choose who shoots the free throws, or any number of the proposed fixes being recommended, the NBA would be in a sense rewarding those who fail miserably at an essential part of the sport.

Popovich is correct about most things basketball, this included. It might be difficult to watch, but that’s on the hunted player to improve his shooting or his coach to adjust.

The most ironic part of the argument is that Hack-A-Shaq rarely works in terms of benefiting those fouling.

Consider: Since the early 1960s, teams that have been on the receiving end of all the hacking have won two-thirds of those specific games. O’Neal answered it by winning rings. It’s just not an effective strategy over the course or a season or playoff series. Jordan attempted 34 free throws (28 in the first half) in Game 4 of his team’s playoff series against Houston, made just 14 and his team won by 33.

So either coaches are going to eventually realize the numbers don’t fall their way and stop employing the strategy or you as the uninterested consumer will force the NBA’s hand in changing it.

I’m just not sure it deserves a coffin.

In a world in which athletes are celebrated and paid handsomely for their prodigious skill, there is something inherently wrong with rewarding incompetence just because it’s not fun to watch.

If that was the acceptable standard, you could cancel half of network television right now.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard on, “Seat and Ed,” on KRLV 1340 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.