7-Foot-2 NBA Center's Bizarre One-Handed Free Throw Technique Is Unlike Anything You've Ever Seen Before
College basketball fans might remember Moses Brown from his time at UCLA. The former five-star recruit was a McDonald's All-American and chose to play in Westwood over offers from Kentucky, Maryland and Florida. He spent just one season with the Bruins before turning pro.
Now, five years later, Brown is turning heads during NBA Summer League — just not for the reasons that he might have hoped. It is his bizarre free throw shooting technique that is getting a lot of attention.
Moses Brown went undrafted in 2019 and has spent the majority of his career in the G League.
Although Brown has played in 128 games on the NBA level, which is an accomplishment in itself, his professional career has not been overwhelmingly impressive. His offensive rebouniding and rim protection is a useful piece in clutch possessions at 7-foot-2, but he is often sluggish on defense and opposing defenses frequently hack him until his offensive confidence disappears.
Moses Brown's free throws are bizarre.
As far as everything else goes, Brown's free throw shooting is his area of least consistency. He made less than 40% of his free throw attempts in college and sits around 50% in the pros.
Some days it is more, some (most?) days it is much less.
Regardless of whether he is making his free throws or missing, Brown's technique is unusual. The 23-year-old uses just one hand to essentially push the ball toward the hoop.
Sometimes it works.
Sometimes it doesn't.
Sometimes, like his percentage, it's 50/50. That was the case on Wednesday in Vegas when the internet really got to talking.
Brown's free throw form is unlike any player to come before him. It is uniquely his own.
As the old adage goes: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Well, Brown's technique is broken. But the attempt to fix it may be worse, because it hasn't always been that way. There were moments, even just last season, that Brown shot with two hands.
What changed? Whose idea was the one-hand push?
Whatever it was, whomever was behind Brown's new form created something that the NBA has never seen before and we must take the time to appreciate it while we can.