Hack-a-Shaq by teams that are trailing near the end of the game. Basketball, unique among major world sports, permits intentional fouling to gain a strategic advantage; in other sports, it is considered an unfair act or professional foul. Once the fouling team enters the penalty situation, the fouled team is awarded free throws. The typical NBA player makes a high enough percentage of his free throws that, over time, opponents' possessions that end with free throws will yield more points than possessions in which the opponents try to score a field goal. Even the highest-scoring NBA teams average only about 1.1
A Sport and a Pastime of Autun in Burgundy. The book is generally regarded by critics as a modern classic. In "The New York Times Book Review", novelist and critic Reynolds Price wrote, "Of living novelists, none has produced a novel I admire more than "A Sport and a Pastime" ... it's as nearly perfect as any American fiction I know." The critic and biographer Adam Begley, in "The New York Times Magazine", called it "extraordinary ... The book feels utterly true." After Salter's death in 2015, the novel has continued to receive critical attention. In 2017, Sarah Hall (writing for "The Guardian") observed that: