RJ Barrett claims he shoots better right-handed, still shoots with his left
RJ Barrett has been playing basketball left-handed for years.
The New York Knicks guard has shot with his left hand all season, averaging 13.9 points per game throughout his rookie campaign, and played that way during his collegiate career at Duke.
Except Barrett isn’t left-handed — and said he actually shoots better with his right hand.
“I’m right-handed with everything,” Barrett said Wednesday, via the New York Post. “My mom was lefty. I do a lot of things with both hands.
“I’ve been told I have a better shooting form with my right, but I’m more comfortable with the left. I started as a kid shooting [with] two hands and gravitated to the left.”
Barrett’s shooting has been pretty inconsistent this season. He dropped 21 points in the Knicks’ loss to the Houston Rockets on Monday, 14 in the first quarter, but has gone just 2-of-10 from the 3-point line since the All-Star break. He’s shooting less than 40 percent from the field and just 31.1 percent from behind the arc this year, too.
In his defense, he has been battling a sprained ankle, which sidelined him for 10 games last month. In the 16 games before the ankle injury, though, Barrett shot 36.7 percent from the 3-point line, via the New York Post — an impressive jump up after a cold start to his NBA career.
“He went a 20-game stretch before he got hurt where he improved 10 percent on his 3-point shooting from the first 25 games,” Knicks interim coach Mike Miller said, via the New York Post. “That’s a big jump for a young guy. He’s on the right track. The Houston game, he was as healthy as we’ve seen him on how to bounce back. That’s a big part of shooting is having your feet under you and feeling comfortable.”
For the time being, it sounds like Barrett is going to stick with his left hand. After all, it’s already gotten him this far.
If he ever hits a shooting slump, though, he won’t have to look far to find a solution. Apparently, all he’ll have to do is just switch hands.
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