Could Drummond take free throws underhanded? 'Everything is on the table'

The Detroit Pistons and Andre Drummond came to an agreement last fall. The All-Star center would put off signing a contract extension until this summer in order to create some cap space for the team.

So as the Pistons get ready to lock up their franchise player long-term, only one issue sticks out with Drummond's game: his atrocious foul shooting. The big man shot 35.5 percent from the charity stripe this season, a career low. To put it in perspective, that's well below other maligned free-throw shooters like DeAndre Jordan and Dwight Howard. Even Shaquille O'Neal never shot under 40 percent from the line.

Many dominant bigs have had issues with foul shooting, and there have always been a multitude of suggestions on how to improve it. One of them that pops up every few years is the idea of shooting free throws underhanded, and Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy isn't ruling it out.

"As far as shooting underhand or anything else, it’s fair to say my discussion with Andre yesterday and the discussions (general manager) Jeff (Bower) and I have had and staff, everything is on the table," Van Gundy told reporters Thursday.

“We all know it's an important thing - Andre more than any of us - he's pretty open to anything. There's a lot of ways to attack this problem and we'll all have a hand in it."

The last high-profile player to shoot free throws underhanded was Rick Barry in the 1970s. As peculiar as it looked, the Hall of Famer had a near-90 percent conversion rate in his career. "I control the flight of the ball with two hands, not one," he later said. "The technique itself is a soft shot, and it's feel, so much feel, and control."

Veteran NBA shooting coach Dave Hopla was unable to improve Drummond's mechanics this season, and the center spent key moments of playoff games on the bench in order to avoid any Cleveland Cavaliers hacking strategy.