Edward Sebastian "Ed" Palubinskas (born 1950) is an Australian NBA shooting coach and the President of the National Basketball Shooters Association. He is a member of the Basketball Australia Hall of Fame.[1]
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Palubinskas started his collegiate career at Ricks Junior College in Rexburg, Idaho in 1970, where he led the U.S. in free throw percentage with 92.4%. He holds the record for the most consecutive free throws in a game (14) and 43 consecutive for the season. He was also selected as an All-American that year while breaking most records at Ricks College which is now BYU-Idaho. Palubinskas then transferred to Louisiana State University, after playing in the Munich Olympics where he was second leading scorer missing the Olympic scoring title by one point. At LSU, Palubinskas averaged 18.6 ppg and was selected to the All-SEC Coaches Team.
Ed was selected in the 1975 NBA Draft by the Atlanta Hawks in the 3rd round. He was then traded to the New Orleans Jazz and drafted in the 8th round of the ABA draft by the Utah Stars.
Palubinskas is widely regarded as one of the greatest Australian basketball players ever. After being the 2nd leading scorer in the [[Basketball at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich], Palubinskas was the top overall scorer in [[Basketball at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal]. He set three Olympic scoring records in Montreal, most notably the record for most points scored in a single Olympics (269), which was broken by Brazilian Oscar Schmidt during the 1988 Summer Olympics.
The most points he scored in one game was 48 against Mexico in overtime.[2]
Palubinskas began his coaching career in 1976 right after he graduated from Louisiana State University. After 2 years coaching in baton Rouge, He became Head coach of the Bahraini National handball team while working for the United States Sports Academy. Upon returning to the States he decided to get his Masters degree with a thesis in Sports Art. Immediately after he got a coaching job in Sunnyside Utah as the Head coach at East Carbon High school. After a year here he got the coveted job at East High School in Salt Lake City, Utah (where they just won the State championship) where he coached till 1986 then decided to take the assistant coach position at Brigham Young University in Hawaii, where he stayed only for a year due to an illness by his wife causing them to return to the mainland in Idaho to be near his wife's parents. After sitting out a couple years from coaching he got back in and became the Head coach at Mountain Home High School in Idaho where he stayed a few years before returning to Baton Rouge Louisiana in 1991. In 1992 He became the head coach at Central Private where he won 3 state championships over the next few years. He became a voluntary assistant coach at LSU during the 1991-92 season, helping the Tigers win a Southeastern Conference Championship that year.
After a four year campaign as the head coach at Central Private High School from 1992 to 1996, Palubinskas took a position as shooting coach to Shaquille O'Neal with the Los Angeles Lakers for the entire 2000-01 NBA season. Shaq's improved Free throw shooting helped lead the Lakers to the 2001 NBA Championship.
Along with his valuable coaching experience at every level, Ed has served as a shooting consultant for the Phoenix Mercury of the WNBA and the Australian Women's Olympic Team which won the gold medal the next year (2006).
In addition, he founded the Palubinskas Basketball Academy in 1996 to teach shooting fundamentals and aggressive scoring techniques to basketball players of all levels. His vision is to change the dynamics of shooting on a national and global scale.
Palubinskas is a Latter-day Saint.[4]