I mean, I'm sorry, but sending DJ to the free throw line is simply a smart move. It's not pretty or fun to watch him brick everything, but that's not the Spurs' fault. Jordan is a tremendous player, he just needs to work on his charity stripe throws. Until then, don't see why the Spurs can't use that to their advantage. No rule is being broken.
Smart- sure.
But rules
are being broken. Fouling constitutes a break in a rule- that's why it's a foul in the first place. And fouling intentionally because you know that the other player isn't a good free throw shooter is really not so different from cheating. What is cheating if not intentionally breaking rules to get an advantage?
Obviously, it's not quite that simple though. The impetus is also on the players to be good free throw shooters because, as TOX mentioned, it's just a fundamental part of the game. A comparison that comes to mind is in soccer, when there's a shot that's very clearly about to go in and then one of the defending players grabs it out of the air with his hands (Suarez). That player is punished with a foul called against him and if it looks intentional sent off the field. But he's still won his team an advantage, by breaking the rule. Is it smart in a win-at-all-costs kind of way? Absolutely. But it's not really in the spirit of the game, in my opinion.
Nekov is right though, it's hard to imagine how to change these rules. Not only is it hard to monitor these things in live time during the game, but theres also a noticeable difference between hack-a-shaq in the 3rd quarter as a strategy to slow things down and disrupt the flow of the game and hack-a-shaq with 20 seconds left when down by a basket. As for how they might deal with this, if they were going to, I'd think maybe dealing out punishment post-game, after reviewing the tape, would make the most sense. If theres an obvious and patterned strategy of intentionally fouling a particular player in the middle of the game, as there was last night, it's not too hard to miss and punish accordingly.