NBA rookie shoots — and makes — his free throws underhand

Whatever works, right?

That’s the philosophy behind Houston Rockets forward Chinanu Onuaku’s free throw shooting technique. That’s why, whenever he has stepped to the line in the past few years, he’s spread his legs, kept the ball near his waist and heaved it underhand towards the basket.

So when the rookie got to the free throw line for the first time in his NBA career Monday night, he didn’t change a thing. He shot the ball underhand twice, making both baskets and earning his team two points in a blowout 131-115 win over the Phoenix Suns.

But in doing so, Onuaku made himself a target of mockery on social media and raised a long dormant question: What is the best way to shoot a free throw?

Shooting underhand, or “granny style” as it is sometimes called, has been widely ridiculed by basketball players for decades now as an “unmanly” way of shooting the ball.

Unsurprisingly, underhand free throws have become virtually extinct on the professional level. Something about the pose is just too much for many players to handle. But surprisingly, the technique has been used by a few of the game’s best players ever.

The most famous proponent of the underhand shot is Rick Barry, a Hall of Fame player who shot 89.3 percent from the free throw line during his career and is one of the top offensive players in history. He was the last player to shoot an underhand free throw in an NBA game before Onuaku, per ESPN.

Another, albeit brief, convert was Hall of Famer Wilt Chamberlain, who utilized the technique for just one season in 1961-1962, per Sports Illustrated. That year, he had his best free throw percentage ever and sank 28 of 32 attempts in the game where he scored an NBA-record 100 points. He apparently stopped because he felt “sissy” shooting that way.

The proponents of the method argue the underhand shot is more effective because it reduces the number of “moving parts” in a player’s shot, limiting the number of opportunities for error. FiveThirtyEight senior writer Oliver Roeder, citing mathematical probabilities, argued that a career 75-percent shooter could boost his success rate to roughly 90 percent by switching to underhand. Physics professor Peter Brancazio argued that shooting underhand was the most efficient technique possible from a scientific perspective.

For Onuaku, the numbers are proof enough that the style works for him. As a freshman at Louisville, he shot 47 percent from the free throw line with the traditional form, then tried underhand and shot up to 59 percent his sophomore season. Before he recently joined the Rockets, Onuaku played 17 games in the NBA’s Developmental League, where he made 69 percent of his free throws.

This story was originally published December 28, 2016 at 1:39 PM with the headline "NBA rookie shoots — and makes — his free throws underhand."