<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Warriors try to get a line on free throws Janny Hu, Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, October 12, 2006 Warriors assistant coach Hal Wissel gives some free-throw... Talk, talk, talk. As far as Jason Richardson is concerned, that's all the solutions to his free-throw problems were until assistant coach Hal Wissel arrived this preseason. Sure, Richardson was among the team's worst offenders at the foul line last year. Of course he wanted to get better. He once shot 500 free throws in an empty Arena after missing a pair that cost the Warriors a win last season. But Golden State's leading scorer still needed help. While various coaches would point out his faulty mechanics, it wasn't until Wissel broke it down for him recently that Richardson truly understood. He was extending his legs before his shot even began. He would turn his right hand after the ball was released and force his shots left. "Just little stuff," Richardson explained. "You could shoot 100 free throws and miss all of them, but if you correct the little things, you could make all of them." The Warriors' first chance to make them all -- or at least a respectable percentage -- comes with tonight's preseason opener against Turkish team Efes Pilsen at the Arena in Oakland. Golden State shot a miserable 71.8 percent from the free-throw line last year, ranking them 26th in the NBA. Not only were their top two players, Richardson and Baron Davis, effectively the worst foul-shooting guards in the league, but they also seemed to get worse when crunch time arrived. That led to talk about wanting to get better, about needing to get better. This year, the Warriors are talking about being better. About Mike Dunleavy hitting 100 straight free throws after practice. About notorious airballer Andris Biedrins hitting 89 out of 100. Such is the power of Wissel. His three-step shooting program was developed over 16 years as a basketball coach. First you correct the form. Then you build confidence. Then you drill over and over. Wissel says the idea is to get each player to understand what they're doing wrong and have them coach themselves. Davis, like Richardson, uses too much arm and not enough leg. Troy Murphy has a hitch, or slight pause, in his stroke. Adonal Foyle lacks a proper follow-through. Andris Biedrins ... well, where to begin? The third-year center shot a team-worst 31 percent from the foul line last season with a few airballs tossed in for good measure. By the end of the year, every trip to the line was an adventure and Biedrins admittedly was fearful of getting fouled. But after just a few weeks of working with Wissel, Biedrins says his stroke is much improved and he is actually having fun at the stripe. The problem isn't so much with his shooting hand, but his off-hand, Biedrins said. It would get in the way of his release and push the ball in unwanted directions. Biedrins, a left-hander, now positions his right hand lower and is working on adding more arc to his shot. Apparently, it's working. In what has become a daily routine, Nelson calls out players to attempt free throws at the end of practice and makes the team run when they miss. Biedrins was singled out twice last week and sank both -- albeit in line-drive fashion. Wissel estimates it takes 20,000 correct repetitions before a shot becomes automatic, essentially turning the improvement process into a race against time. Though he has drills wherein 1,000 correct repetitions can be made in about an hour, practice constraints render that impossible. So the Warriors shoot 100 free throws after every practice session with Big Brother watching. A record is kept of the number of free throws every player makes and the results are posted on a locker room board. If such public scrutiny isn't motivation to improve, then finances are. Each free throw is worth $5, and how much a player gets to pocket or has to pony up at the end of camp is based on his daily progress. "You have to pay the difference," Biedrins said. "So if I missed five more than yesterday, I have to pay them 25 bucks." Is he up or down? "I'm up," Biedrins said, "because the first day they said everybody will get $50 for making a higher percentage than they did last year. "So as long I made 40, I'm good," he added with a laugh. Such is the power of Wissel. </div> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...PGFOLKHOH10.DTL
