The Hyper-Macho NBA Needs Mitch Robinson to go Full Granny

The hyper-macho National Basketball Association needs to finally surrender to the Granny shot.

The guy to do it is Mitchell Robinson.  The team is the Boston Celtics.  

The Celts are in deep disarray after the shocking departure of super-star Jaylen Brown.  Coming from the Knicks, seven-footer Mitch Robinson is being paid millions to serve as a Boston’s stabilizing Force.

But he also comes like Wilt Chamberlain and Shaquille O’Neal as a truly miserable free throw shooter.  His absurdly lame 40.8% average is among the very worst in NBA history.  

In his ten-year career, Shaq shot an embarrassing 52.7%.  He blew about 5300 freebies.  Sinking half of those misses would’ve raised his ppg from 23.7% to 25.9%

Wilt blew about 5,800 free throws.  Converting half those misses would’ve raised his ppg from 30.1 to 32.8.

Hitting the league average of 75% could’ve won Shaq’s and Wilt’s teams many more games.  

Plus being such losers at the line let opponents hammer them with impunity, disrupting the offensive flow.  The “Hack-a-Shaq” was an infamous game killer.    

This year, Mitchell Robinson will dress in green to help on both ends of the floor.  But during his championship 2025-6 season with the Knicks, Robinson missed a ridiculous 61 free throws out of 103 tries.  The Celts can’t handle a replay.

Instead, it needs to love “the Granny,”  which has been proven...and then rejected…for “manly” reasons Boston can’t afford.  

Throughout his career, Chamberlain tried endless angles.  He even hired a psychologist to help him relax at the line.  But in 1962 he did the unthinkable.... he finally gave in, and shot his free throws underhand.  

Wilt was 7’1” tall and weighed 275 pounds.  He was as great an all-around athlete as has ever played any professional sport, claiming (without proof) to have slept with literally thousands of women, his masculinity was never in doubt.

But for just one year, he adopted the underhand “Granny” free throw.  His percentage jumped over a career-best sixty.  On March 2, 1962---in the legendary game where he scored 100 points---he sank 87.5% of his foul shots, making 28 of 32, a single game record that stood for years.

But then he stopped!  He whined that shooting the Granny made him feel like “a sissy.”

So...OF COURSE!... his foul shooting dropped back to around 50%….and stayed down.   He never again averaged anywhere close to 60%.

Rick Barry was the only Hall of Famer to embrace the Granny full time.  In Malcolm Gladwell’s legendary “The Big Man Can’t Shoot,” Barry blasts the macho mindset that would drive any world-class athlete to shun a shot otherwise guaranteed to raise his ppg and win games …for years!!!.

(Just to be clear...overhand foul shooting also dominates the WNBA).

Now comes Mitchell Robinson to a Boston team stretched to the gills.  Those 60 missed free throws cost New York critical games the Celtics cannot afford to lose.

Robinson does bring a powerful big man’s defensive muscle and rebounding capability to a team in desperate need.

So let the Knicks and Sixers, Lakers and OKC jeer from the bench.  Let the fans in Philly and LA laugh it up.  

But Mitchell Robinson needs the Granny.  So does Boston.  So does the game of basketball!

To put him at ease, let the whole team do her proud.    

The Celtics are legend for their critical teamwork.  Shooting foul shots underhand is a statistical no-brainer.  Watching a millionaire jock miss six of ten free throws can be embarrassing and infuriating.

If he goes underhand and it works, it should take about a nano-second for the rest of the league to shed its macho face.

To embrace this long-overdue liberation, Boston’s leprechauns need to finally deal with the NBA’s inner Granny.

Mitchell Robinson...please!!!...are you ready to bravely go where Wilt and Shaq would not? 
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Boston native Harvey Wasserman wrote SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH, introduced by RFK, Jr., and HARVEY WASSERMAN’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, introduced by Howard Zinn.