Lakers News: Shaquille O'Neal's Ex Says She Was Responsible For This Change To His Game

Shaq's improvement in his final season was genuine!

Laker fans remember Shaquille O'Neal's struggles at the free-throw line. The big man's percentage at the charity stripe varied as a Laker from .484 to .622. He famously said that during crunch time he was a better free-throw shooter. This has never been officially verified, but O'Neal always had a sense of humor about it. Imagine if your biggest struggle had its own name like "Hack-A-Shaq." Would you have that good of a sense of humor?

For a few years, Nicole "Hoopz" Alexander and Shaquille O'Neal were fiancee's. Their relationship lasted for three years before they called it quits in 2012. Recently she spoke with Brandon "Scoop B" Robinson, and she had an hilarious story about how she herself improved O'Neal's three throw shooting.

Shaq's free throw percentage went up 6% his last year in NBA thanks to ex- fiance @TheRealHoopz: "I am responsible for that," she tells me.

"We were in that house on the court all the time making him shoot free throws. I’m like, ‘Nope. Keep shooting them!’"

"It went up." pic.twitter.com/bKylk30tun

— 👑 Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson (@ScoopB) October 4, 2021

That is incredible. There is certainly truths to self-improvement when you have someone help you stay accountable. Many businesses use systems with "accountability buddies" and we're often motivated by our peers and our significant others. Alexander speaks the truth here, as O'Neal's free-throw percentage in his final season was 55% compared to the year before when he shot 49% from the line. O'Neal's career percentage was 52%, so this even was better than his percentage if you include when his legs and body were younger.

Alexander's logic to improve his percentage was very sound, as she elaborated why she worked to help him improve his free-throw percentage.

Shaq's FT's as told by @TheRealHoopz: "In his last year or whatever, he couldn’t be as dominant as he was. That was kind of going down towards… he just couldn’t. So you gotta make up for it somewhere else or whatever, so get the points standing there. We worked on it a lot.” https://t.co/eWXaMvlloU pic.twitter.com/fpzOMZXw71

— 👑 Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson (@ScoopB) October 4, 2021

Sound logic. There's a reason it is called a "free-throw." 

This is an amusing anecdote but only because O'Neal has always had a good sense of humor about his struggles at the line. For his Hall of Fame career, O'Neal missed over 5,317 shots at the line, so it's incredible to think how many more points he would have had if he could have improved his free-throw shooting by 6% total, instead of just over one season. 

Either way, O'Neal brought three championships to LA, and his number 34 is hanging in the rafters at Staples Center, so his biggest struggle didn't hinder him that much!