Rick Barry has left behind quite a basketball legacy.
His four sons with his first wife—Scooter, Jon, Brent and Drew—all played professionally.
But the thing the former Golden State Warriors great is probably best remembered for are his underhand free throws. Barry underhanded his way to the seventh-best free throw percentage in NBA history—tops in ABA—and the best of any Hall of Fame player.
Now, Canyon Barry, a son by his third wife, is carrying on the unconventional tradition.
Yes. Canyon Barry shoots underhanded free throws. https://t.co/OhmWCKI1xv
— Cody Worsham (@CodyWorsham) December 1, 2015
Canyon Barry is a junior star at College of Charleston, where he leads the team in scoring (20.7 ppg) and has made 27 of 31 free throw for a .871 clip, just percentage points behind his dad’s career mark of .893.
But he didn’t always shoot like that.
From SB Nation in 2012:
So convinced by its ease, Barry — like his father before him — has enlisted his youngest son, Canyon, a freshman at Division I College of Charleston in South Carolina, to embrace precision and use the underhand. During his high school career in Colorado Springs, Colo., where Rick lives with his wife Lynn, Canyon — a gangly 6’6 guard still growing into his body — improved from 60 to nearly 80 percent after making the switch as an upper-classman. It is through his son that Barry may find this piece of his legacy back in the league.
During an NBA veterans dinner in 2012, Rick Barry explained the unorthodox technique to this reporter.
