Report: Not enough support for ending Hack-A-Shaq at GM meetings
Amidst all the complaining over the optics of Hack-A-Shaq and speculation the NBA would more severely punish intentional fouling going forward, it turns out the league's general managers aren't yet sold on the idea.
According to CBS Sports' Ken Berger, there was no overwhelming consensus about changing the rules surrounding intentional fouls at the annual GMs' meeting Wednesday.
"There is not enough support to change it," one executive told Berger. "It's one of those perception is bigger than reality issues."
The group of executives were also presented with evidence by league officials that showed 76 percent of intentional fouls this season were committed against a group of only five players: DeAndre Jordan, Dwight Howard, Andre Drummond, Josh Smith, and Joey Dorsey.
"It's part of the game," an executive in the meeting told Berger. "You need to make your free throws."
Under the current rules, nothing discourages teams from intentionally fouling poor free-throw shooters in the game's first 46 minutes, although teams who commit off-ball fouls in the game's final two minutes are penalized with one free throw and possession for the opposing team.
The NBA's D-League sees that punishment carried out throughout the game.
The debate over whether the strategy should be discouraged by more severe consequences has raged on through the first four weeks of the postseason, as games are slowed considerably when one player is consistently sent to the line.
Jordan, especially, has found himself in the eye of the storm, as the career 41.7 percent free-throw shooter has been hacked early and often by the San Antonio Spurs and Houston Rockets. The Los Angeles Clippers center attempted an NBA playoff record 28 first-half free throws (34 total) in Sunday's Game 4 win over the Rockets.
The strategy was famously dubbed 'Hack-A-Shaq' due to its use against Shaquille O'Neal in the 1990s and 2000s, as Shaq was a nearly unstoppable interior force at his peak, but never shot better than 62 percent from the stripe in a single season.