Victor Wembanyama could probably make free throws with his eyes closed.
Would anything that the San Antonio Spurs' 7-foot-4 superstar does surprise you? Wemby certainly feels like the kind of guy who can do anything on a basketball court.
And while he doesn't shoot his foul shots without looking, he does close his eyes just before.
It's part of his routine -- everyone has something they do at the line before shooting, and Wembanyama's order of operations includes his eyes temporarily closing.
He hasn't said anything definitive about it, but there are theories.
Why does Wemby close his eyes before free throws?
Wembanyama, a highly intelligent hooper, probably has a good reason for this process.
He has spoken generally about visualizing things, and this is a chance for him to visualize a made foul shot.
There's more to it, too.
"Closing your eyes, like Wemby does before something like a foul shot, can create something called an event boundary," The Athletic's Elise Devlin says in a video explanation. "Basically, it's a mental cut in your brain, like a scene change in a movie. So when your eyes are closed, even just for a few seconds, your brain interrupts everything that it was just processing and resets your attention."
That means that when Wemby closes his eyes before his foul shots, he resets, and when he opens them, he can immediately focus just on the rim. It helps eliminate distractions.
Wemby is a career 81.7% foul shooter, and has upped that to 82.7% during the regular season this year.
Through Game 1 of the NBA Finals, Wembanyama has shot 87.5% from the foul line in this postseason. So whatever his reasoning, it's certainly working.
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