Making his National Basketball Association debut, Chinanu Onuaku of the Houston Rockets drew a shooting foul and stepped to the free throw line, typically the blandest portion of a game. Except Onuaku held the ball at his waist with both hands and hoisted the ball at the hoop in an underhand motion, his arms spreading apart.
Teammates cheered and pointed on the bench, stars made rapt during a walkover. What remained of the Toyota Center crowd erupted. They had witnessed the return of the "Granny-style" free throw, a relic unseen at the sport's highest level in decades.
Onuaku, a 6-foot-9 20-year-old from Upper Marlboro, outside Washington, D.C., had broken a stigma, or at least shown he would not be victim of one.
Despite evidence it can improve free throw shooting, especially for big men, the form has remained foreign from the NBA since Hall of Famer Rick Barry retired in 1980.
Players uniformly resisted it, afraid of looking foolish, standing out as childish or unmanly. Or at least they had until Onuaku made his debut Monday night and made both free throws he attempted, shooting them underhand.
As a freshman at Louisville, Onuaku made 46.7 percent of his free throws. After the season, Louisville Coach Rick Pitino showed him video of Barry shooting underhand and suggested he copy Barry's technique. Onuaku debuted the form in Greece, while playing in an international under-19 tournament for Team USA, to snickering, bewildered teammates. When he returned to Louisville a sophomore, his percentage rose to 58.9 percent.
"I don't really care what people think," Onuaku told Sports Illustrated last year. "I know they're going to make fun of me. I just brush it off. It's all about getting better."
