Shaq's FTs (was Re: Pardon my enthusiasm)

[Alexander Wang <awang@MIT.EDU>]

So I come back to the list after vacation with the Celtics at 20-12, and 
we're talking about Shaq's free throws and business philosophy. Here's my take:

Jim Hill thinks that Shaq is lazy for not fixing his free throw woes, and 
suggests that he doesn't deserve his paycheck because of it. He suggests 
publicly embarrassing him to fix the problem. Tough luck if he doesn't like it.

He later says that people should be paid for production. There's a 
contradiction here I think, because in his original post, he's implying 
that people should be paid for hard work. Of course production and hard 
work are not the same; there are lazy talented people who outperform 
hard-working idiots all the time. Shaq's an example of this: he's among the 
best producers in NBA terms, despite the fact that he's supposedly 
overweight and lazy about his free throws. He deserves to be among the 
best-paid NBA players.

As for publicly embarrassing your employees to get better performance: I'm 
no management guru but I'm really skeptical about this. Jim mentions 
Antoine being motivated by boos but honestly I haven't seen this. What has 
the FleetCenter crowd booed the most in recent years? Missed three 
pointers. And what is Antoine leading the league in?  And notice that 
Antoine never kept to an offseason workout schedule when Pitino constantly 
harped on it, but he did when O'Brien took over and constantly praised him 
despite his conditioning? O'Brien has never embarrassed his players 
publicly - in fact it's almost comical how much he praises them - but they 
seem to be performing because of it.

These NBA players are extremely valuable employees that are not so easily 
replaced. Maybe Jim's tough guy employer approach - "Shape up or ship out!" 
- works when you're managing a McDonalds. When your employees are actually 
worth millions of dollars in terms of both personal wealth and production 
value, you're not going to get through with threats and humiliation.

Basically the only motivation Shaq has is his personal goals and pride. 
Maybe he has a huge ego and cares about his perception in the media, and 
Phil Jackson harping on it in the media actually will motivate him. On the 
other hand he could say, "You know what? I've won two titles and I'm 
probably the most valuable player in the NBA. If Phil disrespects me in the 
media, maybe I'll just demand a trade." Whoops. But this idea of cutting 
off his paycheck because he doesn't deserve it is ridiculous, even if it 
were possible. Similarly, if you decide to embarrass your valuable 
employees because they're not meeting their ultimate potential, they can 
find other jobs.

Alex