What if Free Throws were Free?
Plus, Why Isn't LeBron Better at Free Throws?
Before we dive into free throw hypotheticals … I wrote an article for HoopsHype looking into NBA referees and their personal interests! It was sort of silly, and fun and has cool charts like this:
Check it out here: Do referees who love drama stir up drama? A fun look at NBA survey data.
Earlier this week I wrote about free throw merchants, and noted that, had the Thunder missed every free throw they took last season, they still would’ve finished with the best record in the NBA.
That got me thinking about the reverse hypothetical: what if players and teams made every free throw they attempted? That is, what if free throws = free points?
Note: Obviously game planning would change in this scenario, but for the purposes of this thought experiment I’m assuming that all stays the same.
Let’s start with the team records. The Thunder lose three more games (still winning 65) if everyone makes their free throws, which checks out given they were near the bottom of the league in attempts. The Pacers would be the biggest droppers however, losing six more games in the regular season. Free free throws would have robbed Indiana of a few of their buzzer beating playoff wins as well.
The WNBA did actually institute automatic free throws, for this year’s All-Star game. If they brought that over to the regular season, here’s what the current standings would look like:
The Liberty take a big tumble, paving the way for the Mercury and Fever to move up and take home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. Further down the table, the battle for the eighth and final playoff spot would be even more intense.
What about the players? Napheesa Collier is currently leading the league with 23.6 points per game, 5 of which come from the line where she’s missed just 15 shots all year. A’ja Wilson is second, but given she leads the league in free throw attempts and misses about one per game, she would top Collier and the rest of the league in scoring with free free throws. Dearica Hamby, who misses two free shots per game, would jump up from 10th to 4th.
In the NBA, Shai led the league in scoring last season, with and without free throws, but he would not have led the league in scoring with free free throws. That honor would go to Giannis, who gave up four points per game at the charity stripe and would have averaged almost 35 points with free free throws. Also, with free rein in the paint, he would be unstoppable.
Like Shaq. Shaquille O’Neal conceded about five points per game by missing free throws in a typical season, including the year he still managed to win the scoring title. If this hypothetical actually played out, “Hack-a-Shaq” goes out the window and defenders would have been left helpless to stop the Big Diesel from dunking on their heads. He would have broken all kinds of records, maybe even putting up Wilt-type numbers.
Speaking of Wilt, if his free throws were free he’d have averaged over 40 in seven different seasons, peaking at 57(!) points per game in 1961-62. That was the year he put up his 100-piece, a game in which he actually only missed four free throws, going 28 of 32 from the line.
For his career Wilt only made half of his (NBA record 11) free throw attempts per game, but in this season he sank over 60%, which I’ve heard is because it was the one season his coach convinced him to shoot underhand. Yes, that means that 28 of Wilt’s famous 100 points came granny style.
LeBron James peaked at 31 points per game in the 2005-06 season, but that could have been 34. Despite being a below average (74%) free throw shooter he is the NBA’s all-team leading scorer, with just over 50,000 points across the regular season and playoffs. If he had made all of his free throws, he’d have an extra 4,000. That’s one Wilt Chamberlain season worth of points. For perspective, the WNBA’s leading scorer of all time, Diana Taurasi, would only get a boost of 379 points in her entire 20 year career.
Why Isn’t LeBron Better at Free Throws?
In any given season LeBron James has made between 67% and 78% of his free throws. That’s certainly not DeAndre Jordan levels of struggle from the line, but it’s not great. In fact, it’s one of the few things that the first or second best player of all-time has been decidedly average at over his career. His own son has a higher free throw percentage than the King for goodness sakes! Chris Paul wouldn’t let that happen.
For someone who puts a ridiculous amount of time, effort, and money into optimizing every part of his game, you’d think he’d have been able to figure out free throw shooting at some point in the last two decades. It’s one of the most isolated, easy to practice events in basketball. So why is’t LeBron better at shooting free throws?
Reddit tells me it’s because his form is wonky and his routine inconsistent, which is supporterd by Tom Haberstroh's great deep dive into the subject. Haberstroh endured hours of LeBron free throw shooting tape over the course of the 2016-2017 season and noted 18 distinct free throw variations. That’s not a very routine routine. He also brought in the idea of the “yips” to James’s struggles.
The eye test is almost certainly the way to evaluate shooting struggles, but I was curious if I could find any patterns in the data as to James’s free throw malaise.
What makes a free throw a unique shot in basketball? Well there’s no defender, it’s from the exact same 15-feet away every time, you can take all the time you need to catch you’re breath (unless you’re Giannis), and (especially if you’re LeBron1) you usually get multiple takes at the same shot over the course of the game.2
Overall, LeBron is a good shooter: he ranked 36th out of 117 eligible players3 last season in effective field goal percentage (57.1%) and is in the top 10 percentile all time. But LeBron is not good on the aspects of shooting that are isolated in free throws.
No Defender
Using NBA tracking data, we can look at shooting percentage on “wide open” shots, when the closest defender is over 6 feet away. For some players, the extra time and space takes them out of their rhythm and makes what should be an easier shot, a more challenging one. That seems to be the case for LeBron.
He makes just over half of these wide open twos, amongst the lowest rates in the league. Interestingly, Steph Curry, aka the best shooter of all time, is also down here, making exactly half of his 24 wide open twos last season.
15 Feet
LeBron was one of just 20 players to take at least 100 field goals from between 15-19 feet last year, and he made just 44% of them, about average amongst these volume midrange guys. At least he makes a higher rate than that on the 15-foot free throws.
As a sidenote, it’s kind of hilarious how far ahead (behind?) DeMar DeRozan is in the midrange. He’s a rebel.
Multiple Attempts
LeBron does get slightly better at making free throws when he gets more attempts on a given night. If he only takes two in a game, he makes just 70% on average, whereas in games he takes 10 he makes closer to 75%. Most of the 11,735 free throws he’s taken in his career have been in games where he attempted between four and eight, where there is no noticeable difference in percentage between those ends of the spectrum.
Time Between
Relatedly, you would expect a player to make more free throws if they are taken closer together, as it gives them the ability to calibrate from recent attempts. It’s why players make the second of two free throws much more often than the first. However, LeBron makes just 75% of attempts taken within a minute of his last free throw, only 1.3 percentage points above his average.
Catching Your Breath
Finally, LeBron’s percentage is slightly better later into games, when he’s played over 35 minutes, which may suggest a sharper mental focus despite, or maybe because of, the physical fatigue accumulated. However, the majority of LeBron’s free throws come earlier, when they are less directly important and he is less locked in, and his percentage slips south of 70%.
To recap: LeBron seems to struggle (relatively - he’s still the GOAT) with:
Sticking to a consistent free throw routine.
Making wide open shots.
Making shots from 15 feet.
Improving with more attempts or less fatigue.
That’ll make it hard to make free throws more than three-quarters of the time.
He’s averaged 7.5 free throw attempts per game in his career.
Also, for some reason it is a “throw” and not a “shot”.
Minimum 300 field goal makes.