My parents had me later in life. My dad would be almost 102 if he were still alive. He was a big time basketball player back in his day (late 1930s, early 1940s). He won all kinds of medals and trophies. I remember seeing them tucked away in his den closet when I was a kid. He played at a time when you needed a dominant center to win - and he was a dominant center. Back then you had a jump ball at center court after every made field goal. If you had a dominant center, it was pretty much like playing make-it-take-it. Huge advantage to the team with the best big man.
He shot his free throws underhanded. Everybody did back then. I've always been a good FT shooter (never below 80%, often pushing 90%), but when I was in high school and my dad was in his 60s, he could still beat me in a FT shooting contest with his underhanded, granny style. He had such a gentle touch and he was so relaxed at the line. He would just gently loft it up at the basket with a ton of backspin. He swished quite a few, but the ones that didn't go straight through would just seem to sit on the rim before falling through.
He was also a big Wilt Chamberlain fan back in the 60s when he introduced me to basketball as a kid. I was only 7 at the time, but I remember the season Wilt led the league in assists. My dad said Wilt was tired of being seen as a selfish scorer and a poor teammate. So, he said, I'll prove the doubters wrong and lead the league in assists. And, he did.
His biggest beef with Wilt was his FT shooting. Wilt tried other things to improve his FT shooting ( pull up jump shots from the FT line, shooting from 2 feet behind the line, when he said he was going to start dunking his FTs, they changed the rule so the shooter couldn't corr the line until the ball hit the rim), but his most successful season was 1961-62, when he shot granny style and was a career best 61% from the line. Not great, but better than the low to mid-40% range typical for his career. Why did Wilt abandon the underhanded style after his best season at the line? It made him "feel like a sissy".
Rick Barry, on the other hand, didn't give a fuck what anyone else thought (about anything) and used the underhanded style his entire career. He shot a combined .893 FT% between the ABA (.880) and NBA (.900). That's good for 1st in ABA career FT% and 4th in NBA career FT%. Barry was the career leader in FT% for both leagues at the time of his retirement (a distinction he held for over 20 years before Mark Price eclipsed his NBA career FT% mark). All of it underhanded. Barry was a notorious asshole, but you do have to admire a guy who says fuck it, I'm doing it my way no matter what anyone else thinks. No one since Barry has had the balls to do it.
Good article on the subject here:
https://www.si.com/nba/2016/06/30/m...berlain-rick-barry-nba-free-throw-granny-shot
BNM