Dwight Howard Hires the Magic Man

In his quest to become a better free-throw shooter, Dwight Howard has turned to a man who bills himself as the "Shooting Surgeon General" and the "Free-Throw Master."

Howard is working with shooting coach Ed Palubinskas, an Australian sharpshooter who played in the 1972 and 1976 Summer Olympics and is the career free-throw percentage leader at LSU. Palubinskas has worked with Orlando Magic power forward Brandon Bass and also briefly worked with Shaquille O'Neal.

Palubinskas had attempted to work with Howard for at least a year.

In May 2010, Palubinskas sent an e-mail message to the Orlando Sentinel in which he said that he had written and called Howard to offer his services but had received no response.

"I will completely change his numbers in less than one week and you won't recognize him," Palubinskas wrote then.

Howard is a career 59.8 percent free-throw shooter.

After the 2010-11 season ended, Howard announced he would hire a shooting coach. He conducted interviews with at least several potential hires before he picked Palubinskas.

Palubinskas, who made 87.5 percent of his free throws at LSU, has said he has been a 99 percent free-throw shooter for the last quarter of a century.

On his website, Palubinskas writes that he once made 1,206 of 1,265 free-throw attempts in one hour.

In 2009, the Sentinel interviewed Palubinskas after the Magic made only 22 of 37 foul shots in Game 4 of the NBA Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers.

"Here we are with multimillion-dollar, superb, phenomenal athletes, and millions of people are watching [the Finals] and saying, 'I don't believe it,' " Palubinskas said then. "I believe it because their mechanics are so flawed."