“The Man Can’t Shoot” by Revisionist History tells the story of once known as one of the greatest basketball player Wilt Chamberlain. Starting his journey in the NBA Chamberlain excelled in everything defense, free throws, even shooting under tremendous amount of pressure. But, that was not always the case you see Malcolm Gladwell explains that “At the start of his career Chamberlain was a horrendous free throw shooter”. At that time Chamberlain was only shooting at Forty percent. In other words Chambers only made the ball into the basket forty percent of the time each game. That all changed when Chambers decided to change his shooting technique. As we are accustomed to shooting a basketball by bringing the ball right above the forehead, then extending our arms forward and pushing the ball with our fingers(overhand). Well, something like that. Gladwell explains that chamber ended up shooting with the underhand technique what’s that? well to put it simple picture Chambers making each basket doing the granny shot. For a while this particular technique was getting results Chamberlain’s stats had risen so instead of shooting at forty percent he was shooting as eighty-seven point five percent. That is a tremendous improvement. Although Chamber’s foul shot percentage had risen, it did not last very long. Chambers went on in changing his shooting technique back to his previous one and that what caused his states to crumble leaving him once again how he had started. Malcolm Gladwell’s producer Jacob smith went to meet up with Columbians women basketball team to test the underhand technique and the results showed that you are more likely to make the shot performing the underhand technique than the overhand. So why go back to shooting the way you did knowing that was the problem to begin with?
As Chamberlain put it ” I felt silly, like a sissy shooting underhand, I know I was wrong, some of the foul shooters shot that way, Even Rick Barry. I just couldn’t do it”. Chambers believed that it made him feel silly but, it seems that the underhand was not enough of a reason he had went back to his previous technique because we all have our own beliefs we all have our own way of thinking. Sociologist Mark Granovetter said in the interview “when people get into crowds their independent judgement went out the window”. Granovetter added “the issue is not about the peoples beliefs about what’s right and then suddenly losing these beliefs because you’re in a mob. The issue is about threshold”. According to Gladwell beliefs are internal like emotions, Threshold are external for instance something like peer pressure. As an example given by Mark Granovetter ” Take your 18 year old son driving at 100 miles an hour with three friends, it’s not because he believed going that fast was a good idea. His Beliefs are irrelevant. His behavior is guided by his threshold”. So, really why Chambers went back to his old technique was not his beliefs but because of his threshold!? Makes perfect sense see Chambers was not the only basketball player to refuse to shoot underhand . You have Shaq and a few other players, even Rick Barry himself once refused to shoot with that technique. It wasn’t until Barry’s farther had given Barry some advice “It doesn’t matter how you shoot, they can’t make fun of you for making the shot”. As the interview goes on Barry mentions about the time that he shot the ball underhanded and had one of the audience criticize while another defended Barry and on that point Barry’s threshold has risen. What Granovetter claims seems to make sense we all have our own beliefs and everything but, what really makes us act out of character is our low threshold. Just look back at Chamberlain and look at Barry one cared about the thoughts of other while the other stopped caring.
Abovetheclouds 