Eluding Calvin's curse - Flashback: Micheal Williams' Streak

Basketball Digest, April, 2003 by O'Donnell Chuck

THE EMPHASIS IN THE TERM "free throw" should be on the word "free." When you step up to the line, there are no hands in your face, no double-teams, no jumpers heaved while falling out of bounds. Nothing separates a player from one point but 15 feet of air.

So it's pretty ironic that the average NBA player couldn't make a foul shot if his sneaker contract depended on it. Players have tried everything in pursuit of making basketball's easiest shot: Shooting underhand or overhand, lining up on the left or right side of the foul line, bouncing the ball incessantly--even talking to the ball. Shaquille O'Neal, the stiff, disjointed Frankenstein monster of free-throw shooters, the man who puts "foul" in the term "foul shot," has gotten hundreds of letters suggesting he try yoga or acupuncture or transcendental meditation to solve his charity-stripe woes.

For 12 years, the NBA record for most consecutive free throws was held by Houston Rockets mighty mite Calvin Murphy, who became the guardian of the record, often gleefully cackling whenever a player got close but fell short

In April 1993, Cleveland Cavaliers guard Mark Price came one free throw short of tying Murphy's mark of 78 in a row. After the miss, someone asked Murphy if Price choked. "I don't want to use that word," Murphy said, "but the shot speaks for itself. I can't believe it missed that badly."

Murphy's sigh of relief was short-lived. Out of nowhere came Micheal Williams, a guard for the Minnesota Timberwolves. Everyone had been so focused on Price's streak that they didn't really notice that Williams was right behind Price.

Williams went about his pursuit of Murphy's record the same way he went about his job every day: quietly, methodically, and with little fanfare. Williams was a student of the free throw. The fifth-year player out of Baylor shot hundreds of them in practice, making up little mind games to challenge himself. If he missed one shot, he would have to convert the next 10 to make up for it. He studied golfers and their mechanics and tried to apply them to free-throw shooting. Williams even studied the NBA's arenas, saying that Denver's McNichols Arena had the worst backdrop and that his home Target Center was a little chilly for his tastes.

Williams' free-throw streak started on March 24, 1993, but on that day more people were talking about Michael Jordan than Micheal Williams after a lopsided Chicago Bulls victory.

Night after night, little by little, the streak got longer and longer. April 8 turned out to be a big night: Not only did Williams drop 30 points on the Indiana Pacers--who had traded him in the previous season--but he went 16-of-16 from the line to push the streak to 50.

There were times when the streak was in jeopardy. Once Williams was enlisted to shoot a technical foul--in Denver of all places. T-Wolves teammate Doug West volunteered to take the shot, knowing that Williams sometimes struggled with his shooting at McNichols, but Williams waved him off, saying he wasn't going to duck the shot just because the arena had yellow seats. Williams shot the technical, and made it.

In another game, at home against the Portland Trail Blazers, a Williams foul shot rattled around the rim before getting a friendly roll in. Another shot hit the front of the rim and bounced high; teammate Christian Laettner pulled away from the prospective rebound at the last second, and the ball splashed through.

By now Williams' streak was in the 60s, but you'd hardly know it. Even when Williams pulled to within four free throws of tying Murphy, the feat was overshadowed by the opposing Dallas Mavericks, who won their 10th game and thus avoided tying the NBA record for fewest wins in one season. Williams' 31 points, nine rebounds, six assists, and 11-of-11 shooting from the line were just footnotes.

Murphy, who had been hoping against hope that Willies would miss, surely would have flown in for the Timberwolves' next game against the Utah Jazz, to sit courtside and wiggle his fingers at Williams as if to deliver a curse and keep his record alive. But the Rockets broadcaster had a game to call the night before and couldn't be there on April 25, 1993--10 years ago this month--when Williams broke his record.

In the final game of the 1992-93 season, Williams went 10-of-10 from the foul line to give him 84 free throws in a row. His streak wouldn't end until the next season, when on November 9 one of his shots bounced around and out

Williams' 97 consecutive free throws is still the all-time record. And judging by the way most of today's players shoot, it's safe for a long time.