It’s More Than a Stroke of Luck

By his count, Shaquille O’Neal had been given “probably ... a couple hundred thousand” articles on free-throw shooting, a likely exaggeration.

He had claimed to have read none of them, easier to believe.

Lately, perhaps, he’d been unable to resist.

His shooting percentage from the line improved briefly late last week before his unreliable stroke returned Sunday night, when he made only six of 14. At the line midway through the third quarter, he shot an airball, and the crowd rode him for the next quarter and a half.

O’Neal’s progress, fleeting as it was, appeared to be the result of his attention to several teachers. After years in which he did his own thing, he and his free throws have been linked recently to, among others, University of Houston Coach Tom Penders, shooting coach Bob Thate, teammate Bryon Russell and long-distance instructors Dennis Hans and Dr. Tom Amberry.

Hans recently e-mailed Laker General Manager Mitch Kupchak with his theories. Kupchak wrote back, saying he’d pass them along to Coach Phil Jackson.

Amberry espouses something called “auto hypnosis” (video, $29.95) and is believed to be the “old man” O’Neal referred to in his postgame news conference Friday. In 1993, Amberry is said to have made 2,750 consecutive free throws.

Thate is a regular at Laker practices, where he tutors Russell and Luke Walton and, if he asks, O’Neal.

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Nineteen years into his NBA career, Karl Malone sits at his locker before every game and is surrounded by reporters.

Often, he is the only Laker player in the room. The rest duck into the trainer’s room or find a corner away from the media.

Not Malone. He tells folksy stories about his farm in Arkansas. He talks about his late mother. He makes fun of writers he likes. Sometimes, the conversations turn to basketball, but not regularly.

“I sit out here because ... this is my time to sit down and get my head ready,” he said. “And because that’s part of the job. It took me a while to realize that. Not all of you are bad people.”

He laughed. In his final years, and maybe his final playing days, Malone said, “I’m just savoring it.”

*

Gary Payton is in the same mode we left him last. “Just let us win and I’ll be cool,” he said. “Let’s win and get this ring and I can deal with everything next year.”