Talk:Hack-a-Shaq

Conventional Wisdom vs. Advanced Statistical Analysis

somewhat lifted from my comments on another talk page

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/intentionally-fouling-deandre-jordan-is-futile

Hack a Shaq strategies have been shown to be significantly less effective than previously thought. 50% FT shooting rate when teams routinely score more than 1 pt per possession on average seems to imply that a team should foul a poor FT shooter every time, even if the team is in the double bonus. This is not the case however, as offensive rebounds, inability to get a fast break possession (which are worth more on average than a half court possession) after made free throws and almost no chance of a turnover (which leads to more points on average than a typical fast break) if purposefully fouling lead to a much more nuanced situation. For example, in cases where a team has very good rebounders and a very solid half court defense, a poor (60% or so) free throw shooter should not be fouled. Even with a team that has a weaker half court defense, weak offensive rebounding and a very poor (50%) free throw shooter, the Hack a Shaq strategy is still only a very marginal improvement, much less so than conventional wisdom seems to imply.

Even if there is a case for using the Hack a Shaq strategy, a couple of points per 100 possessions is most often insignificant as this strategy is only ever employed at the very end of the game for only a handful of possessions, leading to a statistical gain of fractions of a point per game on average. This is actually the strongest case for rewriting the NBA rules to discourage Hack a Shaq strategies. Rarely does it make sense, it is often incorrectly used and even when it does make sense, it leads to almost no difference other than to annoy fans with the switch from basketball to a FT competition in the waning minutes of what could be a close, and exciting, competition.

Another interesting set of arguments that I cannot find a good citation for is that teams usually don't play really bad FT shooters unless they are really good at things that make the strategy less useful. Shaq ironically fits the argument against Hack-a-Shaq strategies as he was a very good half court defender but an incredibly poor fast break defender and a very good rebounder. Though the FT shooter's rebound ability most likely does not play as much a role. Players do not rebound their own FT's as often. Furthermore, if there is a weaker player that also is a weaker FT shooter, chances are he will not be in at the end of the game but the only time that this strategy truly makes sense is when all three are in effect.

155.101.8.198 (talk) 16:48, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

References

Comments

the creator of hack-a-shaq was mike dunleavy, not don nelson

(the page below is in spanish, but is a great source) i would modificate this article but i'm not wikiful enough

www.acb.com/redaccion.php?id=23112

No, I don't think so. My Spanish is very poor, I'll admit, but from what I can make out of that article, it's referring to Dunleavey using the tactic of intentionally fouling Shaq when Shaq had the ball. That is different from what is usually referred to as the Hack-a-Shaq: fouling him when he does not have the ball. Even in this article, in the fourth paragraph, notes that it was Nelson who first used the strategy in this way. Mwelch 00:00, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Not that different, now that I think about it some more, though . . . Dunleavey's tactic did depart from the usual fouling strategy. It was kind of like an intermediate state on the way to what Nelson did. So it probably should be mentioned in some capacity. When I get a chance, I'll try to read that article again (did I mention my Spanish is bad?) and see if I can come up with something. Mwelch 18:47, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, after further research into the matter, the idea defintiely is Nelson's and Dunleavy's wasn't even an intermediate step. Despite the conclusions drawn by the above-mentioned article, it would seem that Dunleavy's Blazers playing the Lakers and fouling O'Neal alot the day before Nelson's Mavericks played them and then Nelons using Hack-a-Shaq was just a conincidence. Why do I say that? Because it turns out that that game was not the first time Nelson used the tactic. He used it two years earlier against Dennis Rodman during a game between the Mavericks and Bulls. So he definitely didn't get the idea from what Dunleavy did in the 1999 game this article is talking about. Mwelch 01:46, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Mmm... but wasn't the hack-a-Rodman tactic (that's a silly name, but is more understandable in this kind of dicussion), an strategy to keep Rodman away from the ball??, in Dunleavy's situation, Portland had the need of hitting Shaq in possesion of the ball, that's completely diferent of Nelson's tactic against Rodman. i just found a reference about why isn't completely incorrect to afirm that Nelson is the hack-a-Shaq creator:

El común de las fuentes americanas atribuye equivocadamente el origen del “Hack-a-Shaq” a este partido y no al precedente, y asimismo a Don Nelson en lugar de a Mike Dunleavy. Hay motivos para disculpar esta imprecisión: Nelson fue pionero en interpretar el “Hack” como una periferia real del reglamento que exprimir de modo más táctico que Dunleavy. Éste dispuso a Jermaine como marcador directo que golpear a su par en el interior, el hábitat natural de Shaq, y siempre con balón. Pero Nelson fue más allá: dispuso abortar de raíz los ataques angelinos faltando a Shaq en el perímetro, sin balón ni par definido. Demasiado aditivo táctico para olvidar a Nelson

(sorry, but i don't want to translate all the passage). It's true that Nelson was who defined 'Hack' as the fact of hitting Shaq anywhere, anyhow even if he wasn't with the ball, but the real meaning of 'Hack-a-Shaq', is definetely to force Shaq to go to the FT line, and the official way is to hit him when in possesion.

So i still believe that Dunleavy created it.

The meaning is to force the player to the FT line, yes. But fouling a player with the ball, when he's in good position to score, in order to make him go to the free throw line rather than get an easy basket, is just common defense used against all players, even good FT shooters. That's what Dunleavye was doing that night, and THAT is not Hack-a-Shaq. Hack-a-Shaq, as the term is used today refers to not even waiting for the player to get the ball, just fouling him immediately. And, as I said, that tactic was used by Nelson against Rodman two years before this Dunleavey game. So there's no way one say Dunleavey created it, despite the claims of this article.

And no, it had nothing to do with "keeping Rodman away from the ball". Why would anyone wish to do that? Rodman was never a threat offensively. He was a rebounder and tenacious defender, but on offense he was no threat at all. There would be no reason any opposition coach would ever want to stop him from getting the ball offensively. The object was not to keep Rodman away from the ball; it was to keep Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen away from the ball. In other words, he tactic was used just as Hack-a-Shaq is described in this article: to minimize the Bulls' scoring by NOT playing standard defense against them, but just send Rodman to the line instead before Jordan or Pippen or the other offensive threats even had a chance to do anything. And that's exactly what the Hack-a-Shaq defense is. Mwelch 02:54, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

This article is hilarious. Just the amount of content and the academic-style language for such a trival thing, I find it amusing.

Alternate spelling

I've seen Haq-a-Shaq, although less frequently. savidan^{(talk) (e@)} 03:47, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, if you try to go to Haq-a-Shaq, it re-directs appropriately. I added re-directs for the various alternate spellings that I've seen. Mwelch 22:59, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

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NBA response

Is it just me, or would it be very simple for the NBA to completely stop this tactic? If, after a shooting foul, the ball was given in-bounds to the offended team, the reason for committing this foul would be completely eliminated -- the other team would never get the ball back. No matter how bad a player was at shooting free throws, no matter how good the other team was at rebounding, his team would always get the ball back after he shot. Or is the league trying to punish the very poor free throw shooters? Personally, the intentional foul seems really lame and slows the game down unforgivably -- it doesn't exist in any other sport I can think of, with the possible exception of the occasional delay of game (hoping to draw an offsides penalty against the other team) in football. One simple rule change would eliminate it entirely from the NBA game. Middlenamefrank (talk) 03:30, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Other Advantages

After reading the article I realized that there is no mention to how successful Shaq is in the lane, I always thought one of the main purposes of hack-a-shaq was that more likely for Shaq to get an easy basket when in the paint, as opposed to making two free throws,which is the main reason why it was used more against Shaq as opposed to Ben Wallace (a much less of an offensive threat) who is also mentioned in the aritlce —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.62.241.76 (talk) 01:24, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I always though so, too. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:57, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Don Nelson didn't invent anything

This tactic was used in Europe long before Don Nelson even thought about it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.190.51.208 (talk) 11:09, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

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