The Hack-A-Insert Player Here strategy has been heavily utilized since the 2000’s, when dominant big man but terrible free throw shooter Shaquille O’Neal would constantly be fouled on purpose as it was very likely he would miss at least one of his free throws.
The strategy has received a lot of flak over the past few years, being used against Dwight Howard, DeAndre Jordan, and Andre Drummond, as fans were becoming annoyed with how slow games were progressing when the strategy was employed.
One of the strangest times we’ve seen Hack-A-Player used, however, was back in 2016, in a regular season game between the Houston Rockets and Detroit Pistons.
Then-Rockets bench player KJ McDaniels was brought in at the start of the third quarter in a 56-47 game — Rockets down — with the explicit intent of fouling Andre Drummond — who was a 35% free throw shooter — to get him to the line.
McDaniels proceeded to foul Drummond five times in the space of 9 in-game seconds, stopping before he was about to be fouled out with 6 personal fouls. Take a look.
You can tell why fans had had enough of this sorta stuff, as both McDaniels and Drummond could realize how stupid it was.
