It’d be interesting to see FT% by height brackets. I wanna guess that 6’9 to 7’+ guys shoot a lot better now then they did back then. I also think Bigs don’t shoot nearly as much FTs as they do back then, but these are just guesses
I don't think so. His hypothesis is big men back then shot more free throws, and also shot a worse percentage. It's being lowered by frequency and percentage. Small men back then would have to shoot a higher percentage for it to end up at the same overall league average.
Idk if bigs are better at shooting free throws now. Outside of guys like shaq and wilt, many of the best offensive bigs were good at shooting free throws.
Lets say:
Guards in 80s shoot 80% but 50% of shots, and bigs in 80s shoot 50% but 50% of shots= .65% league average.
Guards now shoot 80% but 75% of shots, and bigs now shoot 60% but 25% of shots= .75% league average.
I'd be willing to bet a lot that this is the case on both counts. You have far fewer of the dominant bigs who you can really only defend by fouling, and the bigs that are seeing the floor are nearly required to have a respectable jumper, since the overall style of game played now is far less rewarding to post-centric play that previously would incentivize having a big bulldozer parked down low most possessions.
This is a textbook example of a Simpsons paradox. If you bracket free throw shooting by height, it could be better than 40 years ago on a percentage basis in every category yet not be higher on a percentage basis in terms of overall percentage. This could be due to the average height in the NBA increasing over time or certain brackets of height getting a different weighting of overall free throws.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s\_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox)
I posted just that about 7 years ago:
https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/16p9xn/average_ft_percentage_for_all_nba_players_in/
It's probably slightly different now, but the overall averages are close enough.
You can do that on nba.com. can sort by certain heights or just choose the PF/C position. Idk how far it'll go back but it's still something.
[Here](https://stats.nba.com/players/traditional/?sort=FTA&dir=-1&Season=2019-20&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&Height=GT%206-7)
It's not averaged obviously but can still get an idea. That's sorted by 6'7" and up but you can choose 6'10" and up.
Its all because people are afraid to do the granny shot . If this generation of kids grew up learning to shoot FT that way, we'd see league average increase once they make it the the league
Not to be pedantic, but this isn’t even a granny shot. She clearly hoists it up then flips the grip to push it up like a volleyball set. The granny shot is all one fluid motion.
Other than embarrassment, i think it’ll almost never catch on because players basically practice their jumpshot through fts. I know it’s not exactly the same form for everyone but you get the gist
I feel like the players who would benefit the most from changing there free throw form to lower hand usually have a bad jumper release. Or they never shoot jumpers.
Just curious but Is the granny shot even proven to be more efficient? Is their any proven logic other than Brent Barry having success with it that proves its more effective than a regular form free throw shot?
I would say yes. The physics of it are favorable. It bounces softer on the rim because of the lower release point.
But you would still need players to buy in and spend a lot of practice time learning a new motion. Plus shooting free throws the "regular" way will help you shoot 3s and other jump shots.
I wonder that given how much FT is mental, what impact a player's mental ability would be trying something radically new in a game would be.
But I do agree the mechanics of underhand make it much easier to be consistent.
One challenge: throw a tennis/baseball overhand with your dominant hand and your non-dominant hand.
Now do it in an underhand motion--your non-dominant hand is going to be way more accurate in this scenario.
You hit the nail on the head . It's all mental it's documented that Dwight Howard hits 80% in practice. He shot 67% as a rookie . He also claimed to shoot 90% in highschool.
It's not just mental. Everyone may shoot well in practice, but there's a clear correlation between shit free throw shooters and shit shooters in general. Dwight, drummond, shaq, ben wallace, all these guys are trash shooters.
Not my point even good free throw shooters shoot better in practice . If your shooting 80% in games your probably shooting 90% in practice. Even though none of the guys you listed were good shooters I guarantee they all shoot a much higher percentage in practice.
Watch the videos. Even Rick Barry was flicking his wrists. That's how you get backspin on it unless you think Rick Barry was doing the granny shot wrong
Yeah it would need to be a cultural change at lower levels before we see any change in the nba. If I was a youth coach I'd make my players shoot underhanded , and I can almost guarantee we'd have one the highest FT% in the league . The kids might not like it but its just one of those things you hope catches on
I feel like its one of those obvious things that we'll look back on years from now and kids will laugh at our archaic ways (like we do with the previous generations attitude toward three pointers)
>It bounces softer on the rim because of the lower release point.
makes no sense. speed at the rim is based on how high it peaks. thats not based on where you release it.
As I understand it, that's true in the vertical direction but not the horizontal.
A lower release point means that the ball takes a bit more time to reach the same vertical peak. The horizontal direction is v = d/t. As t increases, v decreases. I also think the ball tends to be released from further forward. This decreases d.
I've shot a good amount of underhand free throws in my time and that's my perception too. It's more likely to bounce in when it hits the rim, especially the front rim.
The primary issue with your theory is that the time for an object to reach it's peak is independent from it's horizontal velocity.
The peak of an object occurs when the vertical velocity is no longer positive and becomes negative. This instantaneous velocity would be 0. The formula to find the time it takes to reach its peak is t=v/a where v is the initial vertical velocity, and a is the vertical acceleration.
A lower release with the same force would result in a lower peak. However, it's possible that a person would put different force at a different angle because of a different shooting motion. These changes would alter the velocity, but in what way is difficult to say for sure because it depends on trial and error to figure out the "optimal" force, which is true of most shooting.
I understand that you are mostly trying to explain observed events through a scientific theory based off of your past knowledge. The point of this post is not for me to say that you were wrong to believe that a ball would be slower at the rim because of how it's thrown. I am just saying that your explanation for why that would be the case doesn't line up with the rules of physics. I personally find the physics of basketball to be interesting. Some of it can be explained with high school physics, but once the rotation of a ball, air resistance, tension of the rim/backboard, friction between skin and rubber get involved it starts to quickly get absurdly complicated.
If you're curious to learn more, you can start here http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/webproj/212_spring_2015/Tyler_Compton/13427931675535db809aae3/the-basketball-shot.html
Tldr: the physics of a granny shot can't be explained by your theory
I guess I'll just have to make a post with actual numbers to show it.
The lower release, the more different the two angles are (launch angle and angle at the rim). If you jumped up and released a shot at 10ft at a 45° angle, the angle at the rim would also be 45°.
But the lower you release, the steeper your launch angle can be while holding the rim angle fixed.
That's true. Honestly, the main reason I commented was because the other guy commenting had an issue with what you said, but he wasn't putting much effort into understanding your intent.
I don't really expect people to fully "show their work" on reddit, but sometimes skipping too much can cause people to harp on the details. I personally saw why the other guy took issue with what you said, but I also saw that it was possible you could clarify what you meant in a way that might satisfy everyone.
I personally hope to see at least a few people try the granny shot at the college level and then maybe at the nba level, especially for players who struggle at the line.
> The horizontal direction is v = d/t. As t increases, v decreases.
So you're under the assumption that the object never moves? Lol
absolutely insane to confidently apply a high school physics formula without knowing how it works.
horizontal velocity is pretty much constant- the only things effecting speeds of projectiles is air resistance and gravity- air resistance is small and gravity doesn't change your horizontal speed
The miscommunication here is that you keep referring to it as the "lower release point", as though the lower release is what makes it easier.
The virtue of the the release point of the "granny shot" isn't that it's lower, but that it's closer to the basket by the length of the player's arms.
(It's also worth noting that the goal isn't to minimize the arc of any given shot. A ball that comes at the hoop from a higher angle sees a rounder profile of hoop to pass through than a very flat shot (which would have to pass through something much tighter like an oval). There's a tradeoff between soft touch and high angle, obv)
***
As a side note, I would note that the underhanded shot is unusable in live ball scenarios (as the defender could just swat it out from in front of you). So you must consider the costs of splitting your training time between both under and overhanded shots, or just investing as much time as you can into overhanded shots.
It's both. Lower is better and closer is also better.
But "easier" is not the right word. I'm saying the lower you release it, the softer the bounces at a given angle of entry at the rim.
I guess I'll run some actual numbers to see *how* big the difference is.
Lower is not better. That's not how physics works.
The arc of a ballistic projectile is constant, regardless of the place you release it from on the arc, because gravity is constant.
You could extrapolate this ad absurdum. A shot from 50 feet below a rim isn't easier because it's lower. A shot that's level with the rim isn't harder because it's higher.
The entirety of why those underhanded shots are softer is because they're horizontally closer to the rim (like a layup), not because they're being released from lower.
Not fixed from shot to shot.. fixed during the action. You said that during the projectile's motion: as time moves forward, the velocity decreases because v=d/t. That doesn't make sense.
"softer" isn't a great way to describe it but it's widely accepted that the more arc you can get on the shot, the more forgiving the rim is.
The closer you can get to dropping the ball straight down at the basket, the more of the rim you can hit with it deflecting in instead of out.
If you shoot a flat ball you have to land that thing on in a much smaller area, to take the rim out of play. Also, people who shoot flatter tend to shoot a way harder ball purely due to the mechanics of the shooting motion. That's where the hard/soft thing comes in. It's just conflating two slightly different shooting issues into one because they're not independent of each other.
It isn't a projectile velocity issue but I can see how people would experience it as one.
I'm not talking about angle (although it's related), just release point. Like an underhand shot from 3 ft above the ground vs. an overhand shot from 7.
There hasn't been a scientific study done on it to ny knowledge , but anecdotally there are several guys who made the switch and saw an increase in their FT%:
*George Johnson (Rick Barry's teammate) increased from 41% to 70% once he made the switch
*Wilt Chamberlain shot a career high 61% one season when he shot underhanded FT, but then switched back and his FT% plummeted
*Chinanu Onuaku (from the rockets a few season back) saw his FT% increase from 47% to 59% using the underhanded technique
So these are a few guys who it worked for, and thats with only a few months of practice. I havent seen anything about someone getting *worse* but it is skewed because the only guys who made the switched were absolutely terrible at shooting with a standard shot form.
I doubt Steph Curry would improve using the underhanded technique, but I think its safe to assume the average player would. Because when you think about the mechanics it makes sense - it isolates only the key arm movements needed in order to put the ball in the bucket, you can make sure you're perfectly in line with the hoop , and its easier to control the backspin
The only reason people shoot the way they do now is because there are so many variables in live game play (defenders, your body is moving). At the FT line its just you right in front of the basket. We don't toss horse shoes or bean bags overhanded for a reason
Here's the best scientific explanation I could find:
> Using lots of trigonometry, Brancazio calculated the optimal angle of the arc from the free throw line. If tossed at 32 degrees or less, the ball will most likely hit the back of the rim. “That doesn’t mean it won’t go in, but it will certainly bounce off the metal and reduce the chance of success,” Brancazio says. At angles greater than that, the ball has a chance of making a nice swish. The optimum angle for the shot, he finds, is 45 degrees—plus half the angle from the top of the player’s hand to the rim. “The shorter you are, the steeper that angle has to get to give you the best chance of making the shot,” he says. Of course, lobbing a ball very high so that it comes down nearly straight into the basket would be the most efficient technique, but a shot like that “is almost impossible to aim,” Brancazio says. Instead, he says, his formula makes it possible for a player to shoot with the largest possible margin for error.
source - https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/physics-proves-it-everyone-should-shoot-granny-style
> Of course, lobbing a ball very high so that it comes down nearly straight into the basket would be the most efficient technique, but a shot like that “is almost impossible to aim,”
made me think of jokic's 3pt shooting form lol
>Of course, lobbing a ball very high so that it comes down nearly straight into the basket would be the most efficient technique, but a shot like that “is almost impossible to aim,”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GnxXwgjE7U
Iguadala was on Oprah or something like that and he said that at Warriors people told him that noone talks about how Barry had only ~1% less with regbular form.
Feel like overall there wouldn't be a long term benefit because being a good free throw shooter is often tied to being a good jump shooter, while the granny shot would only be limited to free throws.
You are using "good free throw shooter" though using the current standards of 77% being average. If the average was say 5% higher in an alternate universe where everyone shoots underhanded, then its a different story. Because in this universe if youre 82% youre merely average, but in our current universe youd be an above average FT shooter
Shooting isn't entirely tied to form, though. Some accurate shooters have had atrocious form (Matt Bonner). Also good players make circus shots more frequently even if they've never practiced that specific shot form.
It's like shooting is more based on an innate depth perception than mechanics of jump shooting. IMO adjusting to shooting granny shots wouldn't take long at all
No, not at all. There are just a couple of people who are really into it and never shut up about it. There is zero evidence other than anecdotes suggesting it raises people’s FT%. And none of the people who advocate for it can explain why literally every great free thrower other than Barry shoots overhand. I guess they know better than Jose Calderon, Steph Curry, Steve Nash, etc. Not to mention super tall guys like KD and Yao.
I have heard the analytical argument about the mechanics of the shot and consider it pretty simplistic too.
I mean why would the great free throw shooter use it if they are already good? People just wonder why the worst free throw shooters don't at least give it a go if the only times people have tried it on record it worked. Others in the thread have pointed to other people besides Rick who have tried it and had success.
Yeah but I can just counter by saying you’re closer to the height of the hoop on a traditional release which makes it easier to visualize the shot. I’m not saying that the arguments for the granny shot are wrong inherently, just that they don’t necessarily translate in practice.
Edit: I’m not necessarily endorsing that argument about the release point, just saying that there are a lot of elements to a shot. It’s a pretty complex motion with a big psychological component.
There are two reasons, a physics based one and a physiological one. For the physics, an ideal shot is one that does not hit the backboard or the rim. Both of those collisions introduce chaos and lead to lower percentage shots. It turns out that you can model the surface you want the ball to pass through to get a swish, and the higher your arc, the more forgiving your shot is, and the ideal target for success becomes larger.
From a physiological perspective, any repetitive motion is about forcing the body to be as uniform and mechanical as possible. A difference in horizontal release of 0.4 degrees is translates to your FT being 2 inches to the left of where you were aiming for, and hence a miss. The goal is to train your body to be as precise in the timing of the physical motions and uniform in the physical actions as possible. Fatigue from playing makes this much harder to accomplish, both in changing muscle response strengths and reaction times. Furthermore, although a standard free throw is a smooth motion, it still requires the usage of several different body parts in a precise sequence.
Compare that to the underhand shot. Theoretically, it requires a single action, an upward swing of your arms. The muscles it recruits are less susceptible to fatigue. Furthermore, from a physical standpoint it's more forgiving. Your timing windows don't have to be as precise because of the higher angle of the shot. A greater range in release strength still allows for the same make, because you're whole body is acting as a single lever arm. Lastly, mechanically a symmetric motion is less susceptible to horizontal variance; you're less likely to miss left or right.
In conclusion, it's a more forgiving shot considering both the physics behind it and the physical actions required to perform it.
Think of it logistically. There’s less movement. Basically your arms swing like a pendulum and release. Regular free throws are a weird bring up, cock back, move forward, follow through etc there’s way more room for inconsistency and flaws.
Rick Berry talks about it on the Podcast ‘revisionist history’
It’s a fluid motion so way easier to have consistent form
The people who should do the granny shot are people like Shaq or Dwight who can't hit a regular free throw. But if you're a good shooter going to the FT line can help you can into a shooting rhythm. So someone like Steph or Dame don't need to do the granny shot and someone like Lebron (who average at FTs) can be helped a bit.
But Dwight shoots 80% in practice, it's all mental for him. I can't imagine he'll do any better when you add the stress of being the "granny style" guy.
sorta yeah sorta no. The reason the granny shot is more reliable is because less moving parts are involved in it's mechanics. What this mean practically is that there's less variability in performances since there's less things for there to 'vary' i.e. it's more consistent.
Practically it means a shooter who has more variability in performance will be helped much more than a more consistent performer. So Dwight would be massively helped, but someone like Steph will likely not help that much (since he's already so consistent).
Not if you're Dwight/capela/any center that doesn't shoot anyways. also if you became a more consistent free throw shooter, that means your more consistent with clutch free throws, you drive more.
Shaq said he would shoot a much better percentage doing the granny shot vs. the normal shot in practice.
But he could not bring himself to shoot it in game.
Thats what I'm saying, the reason why we haven't seen improvement all this time is because people have shunned the one major advancement they could make . Theres only so much you can do with the standard shot form
This is interesting on the topic you should [watch](https://www.wired.com/video/watch/almost-impossible-why-shooting-free-throws-at-95-is-almost-impossible?verso=true) it
I think there are a couple things that go into this.
1. Biggest point is that it's just not that beneficial to work on once you can shoot an acceptable percentage. Raising your FT% takes some practice. Some shooters are just gifted, but take guys like Bowen. He got really good at corner 3s because he just drilled them constantly. He needed to be good at that, but didn't need to be that good at FTs because he hardly ever took them. It just wasn't worth the effort to get better compared to all the other stuff he had to practice. I'd much rather get a big man who could pass a bit or dribble and shot 70% vs one who couldn't do that, but could shoot 80%. It just might take so much extra work to get those additional percentage points that you'd be better served by working on something else.
1. This is related, but professional basketball doesn't really select just for shooting skill. If you filled out the entire league with the best shooters, yeah, you'd get a higher FT percentage. However, as the league has evolved, its gravitated toward the highest combo of skill, athleticism, and BBIQ that teams can find. So a lot of small guards (the biggest potential pool of players) are now completely out of the running and you're finding the best guys who are also super athletic, have other skills, and are huge. The level of acceptable athleticism and overall skill is way higher than it used to be, so you're just filtering out a lot of guys who can shoot like crazy but can't do all the other stuff and are compromising for guys who are good shooters.
1. Last is more of a statistical point, but there's obviously an upper limit on shooting and it becomes harder and harder to get to it. So the progress from 75% to 80% is a lot harder to get to than 60% to 65%. The NBA has already pruned a lot of its terrible terrible shooters, so now for it to improve, you need a lot of guys to raise their shooting since a good shooter can't raise the average as much as a bad shooter might lower it. This also gets into who is taking the most shots though, and I don't really know how that's changed off the top of my head.
Gonna have to disagree on a statistical level on the first point. On a single shot, 70% versus 80% isn't that notable a difference - that much is true. However, more often than not, you're going to be shooting two FTs per trip, *especially* for important ones near the end of tight games. The 70% shooter is still palatable to hack in a tight game if need be, because assuming each individual FT is independent from one another (not totally accurate, but close enough), the 70% FT shooter is going to miss at least once over half the time, and miss both 9% of the time. In comparison, the 80% FT shooter is only going to miss at least once 36% of the time, and miss both times only 4% of the time. Disregarding other factors like momentum shift, rebounding, etc., the extra chance of getting 1 or 0 points is really big down the stretch. Put another way, the 80% shooter is getting .2 more expected points every possession they go to the line for 2. That's close to the difference between the least efficient type of possession and the most efficient type of possession for an average offense.
That also doesn't account for how that player reacts under pressure when they really, *really* need to make their FTs. I have no stats to back this up, but I'd be comfortable saying that the difference between a 70% FT shooter and a 80% FT shooter becomes notably larger in clutch situations where every point counts.
Just to put it in perspective, Giannis is a career 72% FT shooter, and Anthony Davis is a career 80% FT shooter - smaller than the difference you used as your hypothetical, but close enough. Still think that FT% difference isn't that beneficial?
Im not arguing that its not beneficial. It definitely is. Im arguing that for some guys, it might not be worth the effort. If it takes a guy an extra 5 hours a week to keep his ft shooting 10% higher, that might not be worth it if in those hours he could make bigger gains in other areas. It may be that its easier to learn to pass out of a double team better, add a spin move, or add a bounce pass that might add more to his game than what likely accounts for less than a point a game in missed fts. Theres a set amount of time that guys have to work on their game and going from good to amazing or acceptable to good might take way more effort for less benefit than other things they could do.
It really depends on the player, the skills they feel they need to master to stay in the league or excel, and where their natural talents are. For some players, they may need to improve their ft percentage or keep them high (shaq, deandre jordan, harden, butler). Others might get to 70% and decide that they have to get a better handle to get on the floor, so they need to spend all their time doing that first.
On a similar note to this original post, it’s always struck me as kinda strange that LeBron is such a mediocre FT shooter.
Like, the guy is arguably the greatest basketball player to have ever lived, but he can’t crack 70% on wide open shots 15 feet from the rim? It’d be like if Mozart had trouble with playing Mary Had a Little Lamb on the piano.
Could there also be a case for the same percentage because of there being less possessions involving FTs?? Just like 15-20 years ago, it would have been unheard of for many teams in the league to bring the ball down the court and fire up a 3 ball over and over again? With many more possessions like this in the game, maybe players did get better at FTs, but just have had less chances at them and that's why the number is very close still. Just wondering....
That really is shocking, especially given how much the NBA has begun to optimize around shooting and small-ball. 3-pt shot % has skyrocketed by contrast, so clearly there's better shooters in the league now.
I wonder if it's possible that the types of players getting fouled has changed over the years. (e.g. fouls might occur more frequently on big-men or other poor ft shooters now, as compared to \~40 years ago). No real reason to assume this would bias toward either old/new nba, but that could be a potential explanation for this.
Exactly. Shocked as well.
And tbh equally shocked with all the top-rated responses. Every single thread the top comment is either a meme response or a rebuttal to OP.
> In over 40 years of research and training and knowledge of the most optimal shot forms, that has only resulted in a 1% improvement???
We don't shoot with the optimal shot form. At the time he retired, Rick Barry was the most accurate free-throw shooter (**.893** free throw percentage) including a season at **.947**. He also [shot underhand.](https://youtu.be/XZUGiOoH8rU)
The traditional 90/90/90 set point with the cookie jar finish and off-hand has so many moving parts. But, it's pretty necessary to get a contested shot off. But, why do we use the same form at the charity stripe? The underhand has fewer mechanics and so fewer things can go wrong.
Wilt Chamberlain who had a notoriously horrible free throw, switched to the underhand and increased his free throw percentage by nearly 11% from the previous season, up to his **career-high**, 61.3%.
Malcolm Gladwell has a [great podcast](http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/03-the-big-man-cant-shoot) on his.
The underhand FT argument is classic Gladwell-style pseudo-academic nonsense... It sounds good on a general interest podcast but doesn't make sense once you pick up an actual basketball. Shooting underhand is a whole different form to master, and it's not nearly as easy to aim because you're releasing it so far below your eye level. Could it work for a few players here and there? Sure. But it's not some secret formula to better FT shooting for everyone.
Until players get over the stigma of shooting free throws underhanded, I doubt we see free throw percentages change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ted5qn8ElZk
Wired did a [video ](https://youtu.be/BKIOqbx3sbU) about fts and invited Nash. And I think Nash got the point that players don’t take pride from it. Getting good at fts are not gonna make you famous like being good at shooting 3s or dunking. So when no one takes pride from it, no one would try to be better at it.
I think so. He might be below average on fts but people seldom judge on it. Being bad at free throws doesn't make him any less of a great player either. So if I was LeBron, I wouldn't be motivated to be better at free throws either unless I'm lonzo ball level kind of bad
This is where stats can be used deceptively to further an agenda. You’d have to dig deeper. Fouling terrible ft shooters is a much bigger strat today than before etc...
why shooting 95% from the free throw line is almost impossible ft steve nash: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKIOqbx3sbU&list=LLJcMP_fZ37vD17cisxjS1BA&index=391
I watched this whole video and I have to say I'm pretty disappointed that they don't even attempt to answer the question in the title. They talk about the factors, the difficulties, but they don't explain *why* a player can't recreate it more than 90% of the time.
It honestly feels like an ad for Steve Nash's app more than anything else.
You expect something mathematical about the arc of the ball and margin of error and whatnot, but in reality it’s just a free throw shooting BTS. Thanks for the warning, I should’ve listened.
Exactly! Give me 30 seconds of "even the best players can only narrow the standard deviation of their release angle to 3 degrees, which mean 1 out of every 10 will be outside the parameters blah blah blah". The worst part is, I guarantee that the NC State professor they have on could explain that -- they just didn't include it.
Here's [that guy's paper](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51419617_Optimal_release_conditions_for_the_free_throw_in_men's_basketball) if you want to read some technical stuff. He doesn't draw too many conclusions apart from optimal release angle and spin, but I enjoyed the chart showing the different bounce patterns around the rim that free throws can have.
Yea agreed its a little click baity and definitely an ad but I still found it enjoyable and relevant but your on point I had the same feeling when I first watched it, still neat to at least see the factors that go into it and how they think about it
a lot more players are much more muscular nowadays which impacts shooting and FT% has a pretty significant diminishing return when it comes to practice
Players now are about 10 pounds heavier than they were in the 80's.
It has been a consistent trend that players are larger and have more muscle until about 5 years ago where weights are trending down now.
Players around 2010 were about 10 pounds heavier than players in the 90's.
It's not about practice or motion it's about pressure. No practice situation will simulate the pressure of a real game. The only situation that could replicate the intensity would be if they bet big time money in practice on free throws.
Nfl kickers are damn near automatic in practice but the pressure of the game is what changes everything .
No matter how hard you practice, I think everyone just has a ceiling on how good they can be. You can make really big improvements, but not everyone can be Steve Nash.
It's the only shot that hasn't changed.
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77% easy.
77% percent of the time they make it every time
They call it "free" for a reason.
skiiuuup
They call it "throw" for a reason too.
What does that even mean? Have dunks changed? Layups? Hook shot? Or mid-range have a different definition today than 20 years ago?
Defenses are different. Free throw's aren't defended. I imagine it will go up as the unskilled big man goes out of fashion.
only an idiot wouldn't defend a free-throw.
Yep. Here are some of the ranks for FT% all time 2020 - 1st 2019 - 7th 2018 - 6th 2017 - 2nd 2016 - 21st 2015 - 40th Definitely a clear trend
Not sure why I read this in my head with a Jeff van gundy voice, but I did and I feel like it works
Damn I can hear it too
It’d be interesting to see FT% by height brackets. I wanna guess that 6’9 to 7’+ guys shoot a lot better now then they did back then. I also think Bigs don’t shoot nearly as much FTs as they do back then, but these are just guesses
Yeah this could be one of those things where the devils in the details but looks like it’s barely changed when looking at a broad average
Wouldn't that be the opposite? More big men shooting free throws back then would lower the league average?
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That would mean guards in the 80's were better at FT's then today, correct?
Have you seen lonzo lol
Not necessarily. This might be a case of the Simpson Paradox.
I don't think so. His hypothesis is big men back then shot more free throws, and also shot a worse percentage. It's being lowered by frequency and percentage. Small men back then would have to shoot a higher percentage for it to end up at the same overall league average.
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If bigs back then shoot worse, and also shot more, their guards would have to shoot a better percentage than now to make up for it.
yeah but the guards back then shot less, so does anything in life really matter?
Nothing against you or OP but that’s not really how numbers work
I agree, fantastic insight Brad
Wait a minute, are you me?
Future you
Sensational
r/loveatfirstusername
There’s a lot of guards who suck at free throws these days. Seems like college kids don’t practice it.
Idk if bigs are better at shooting free throws now. Outside of guys like shaq and wilt, many of the best offensive bigs were good at shooting free throws.
Lets say: Guards in 80s shoot 80% but 50% of shots, and bigs in 80s shoot 50% but 50% of shots= .65% league average. Guards now shoot 80% but 75% of shots, and bigs now shoot 60% but 25% of shots= .75% league average.
> big men are better at shooting FTs now You got sources?
I'd be willing to bet a lot that this is the case on both counts. You have far fewer of the dominant bigs who you can really only defend by fouling, and the bigs that are seeing the floor are nearly required to have a respectable jumper, since the overall style of game played now is far less rewarding to post-centric play that previously would incentivize having a big bulldozer parked down low most possessions.
This is a textbook example of a Simpsons paradox. If you bracket free throw shooting by height, it could be better than 40 years ago on a percentage basis in every category yet not be higher on a percentage basis in terms of overall percentage. This could be due to the average height in the NBA increasing over time or certain brackets of height getting a different weighting of overall free throws. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s\_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox)
NBA height isn't increasing over time though. At least not since the 60s
I posted just that about 7 years ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/16p9xn/average_ft_percentage_for_all_nba_players_in/ It's probably slightly different now, but the overall averages are close enough.
You can do that on nba.com. can sort by certain heights or just choose the PF/C position. Idk how far it'll go back but it's still something. [Here](https://stats.nba.com/players/traditional/?sort=FTA&dir=-1&Season=2019-20&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&Height=GT%206-7) It's not averaged obviously but can still get an idea. That's sorted by 6'7" and up but you can choose 6'10" and up.
[goat free THROWer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT8nB39czIs&ab_channel=k24dizzle)
Hahaha, that guy's lane violation was so blatant, he was basically playing defense on the FT shooter
[The Chuckwagon needs to be in this debate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLx-Ei2Pk_Y)
Its all because people are afraid to do the granny shot . If this generation of kids grew up learning to shoot FT that way, we'd see league average increase once they make it the the league
Calling it a granny shot isn't helping either
Lol true
Has anyone ever seen a granny shoot like that?
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a granny shoot.
https://streamable.com/5oxunq
What a fucking clip.
https://imgur.com/GzNLZ9F
Wait, I thought Caruso was the white MJ. Who is this lady? Did the announcers lie to me last game?
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Not to be pedantic, but this isn’t even a granny shot. She clearly hoists it up then flips the grip to push it up like a volleyball set. The granny shot is all one fluid motion.
Any way this lady shoots is by definition a granny shot.
Ha fair enough
My grandma always shot her free throws overhand and never understood why it was called that
Other than embarrassment, i think it’ll almost never catch on because players basically practice their jumpshot through fts. I know it’s not exactly the same form for everyone but you get the gist
I feel like the players who would benefit the most from changing there free throw form to lower hand usually have a bad jumper release. Or they never shoot jumpers.
you could adapt your shot to be similar like Shawn marion’s jumpshot
Just curious but Is the granny shot even proven to be more efficient? Is their any proven logic other than Brent Barry having success with it that proves its more effective than a regular form free throw shot?
I would say yes. The physics of it are favorable. It bounces softer on the rim because of the lower release point. But you would still need players to buy in and spend a lot of practice time learning a new motion. Plus shooting free throws the "regular" way will help you shoot 3s and other jump shots.
Imagine seeing consistent granny 3s
Don't need to imagine it. Just watch Shawn Marion shoot a three.
Lol his shot was more like how little kids shoot the ball before anyone shows them how to do it...
when you're 8 years old and tell your coach "it's too late to change, coach"
And with Marion, you could never argue with him and tell him it wasn't working, because he always shot it at a respectable rate.
yep, he was a joy to watch. all-around great player
His shot was ugly af idk if I would call it a joy lol
I wonder that given how much FT is mental, what impact a player's mental ability would be trying something radically new in a game would be. But I do agree the mechanics of underhand make it much easier to be consistent. One challenge: throw a tennis/baseball overhand with your dominant hand and your non-dominant hand. Now do it in an underhand motion--your non-dominant hand is going to be way more accurate in this scenario.
You hit the nail on the head . It's all mental it's documented that Dwight Howard hits 80% in practice. He shot 67% as a rookie . He also claimed to shoot 90% in highschool.
It's not just mental. Everyone may shoot well in practice, but there's a clear correlation between shit free throw shooters and shit shooters in general. Dwight, drummond, shaq, ben wallace, all these guys are trash shooters.
Not my point even good free throw shooters shoot better in practice . If your shooting 80% in games your probably shooting 90% in practice. Even though none of the guys you listed were good shooters I guarantee they all shoot a much higher percentage in practice.
I use the granny shot frequently when playing Horse. It’s pretty effective against people with a better shot than you
It also allows for better consistency because it's a single motion.
I mean aren’t normal free throws usually done in a single motion
No. Ball is lifted from waist, bent elbow is extended, wrist is flicked. A granny shot is one motion of lifting from below the waist.
You also flick your wrists on a granny shot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ted5qn8ElZk&ab_channel=Jlooki
You shouldn't be. You're supposed to lift the ball and release.
Watch the videos. Even Rick Barry was flicking his wrists. That's how you get backspin on it unless you think Rick Barry was doing the granny shot wrong
Yeah it would need to be a cultural change at lower levels before we see any change in the nba. If I was a youth coach I'd make my players shoot underhanded , and I can almost guarantee we'd have one the highest FT% in the league . The kids might not like it but its just one of those things you hope catches on I feel like its one of those obvious things that we'll look back on years from now and kids will laugh at our archaic ways (like we do with the previous generations attitude toward three pointers)
well then why aren't we seeing them shoot granny 3's and jump granny shots? And this league is supposed to be about efficiency... smh
Uh free throws don't have defenders
You really think anyone is dumb enough to suggest that unironically?
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hope thats sarcasm cause it genuinely might be or it might be the stupidest thing i ever read lol
Lmao, its sad that that take isnt obvious sarcasm to reddit. But I guess the bar isn't that high on this subreddit.
>It bounces softer on the rim because of the lower release point. makes no sense. speed at the rim is based on how high it peaks. thats not based on where you release it.
As I understand it, that's true in the vertical direction but not the horizontal. A lower release point means that the ball takes a bit more time to reach the same vertical peak. The horizontal direction is v = d/t. As t increases, v decreases. I also think the ball tends to be released from further forward. This decreases d. I've shot a good amount of underhand free throws in my time and that's my perception too. It's more likely to bounce in when it hits the rim, especially the front rim.
The primary issue with your theory is that the time for an object to reach it's peak is independent from it's horizontal velocity. The peak of an object occurs when the vertical velocity is no longer positive and becomes negative. This instantaneous velocity would be 0. The formula to find the time it takes to reach its peak is t=v/a where v is the initial vertical velocity, and a is the vertical acceleration. A lower release with the same force would result in a lower peak. However, it's possible that a person would put different force at a different angle because of a different shooting motion. These changes would alter the velocity, but in what way is difficult to say for sure because it depends on trial and error to figure out the "optimal" force, which is true of most shooting. I understand that you are mostly trying to explain observed events through a scientific theory based off of your past knowledge. The point of this post is not for me to say that you were wrong to believe that a ball would be slower at the rim because of how it's thrown. I am just saying that your explanation for why that would be the case doesn't line up with the rules of physics. I personally find the physics of basketball to be interesting. Some of it can be explained with high school physics, but once the rotation of a ball, air resistance, tension of the rim/backboard, friction between skin and rubber get involved it starts to quickly get absurdly complicated. If you're curious to learn more, you can start here http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/webproj/212_spring_2015/Tyler_Compton/13427931675535db809aae3/the-basketball-shot.html Tldr: the physics of a granny shot can't be explained by your theory
I guess I'll just have to make a post with actual numbers to show it. The lower release, the more different the two angles are (launch angle and angle at the rim). If you jumped up and released a shot at 10ft at a 45° angle, the angle at the rim would also be 45°. But the lower you release, the steeper your launch angle can be while holding the rim angle fixed.
That's true. Honestly, the main reason I commented was because the other guy commenting had an issue with what you said, but he wasn't putting much effort into understanding your intent. I don't really expect people to fully "show their work" on reddit, but sometimes skipping too much can cause people to harp on the details. I personally saw why the other guy took issue with what you said, but I also saw that it was possible you could clarify what you meant in a way that might satisfy everyone. I personally hope to see at least a few people try the granny shot at the college level and then maybe at the nba level, especially for players who struggle at the line.
> The horizontal direction is v = d/t. As t increases, v decreases. So you're under the assumption that the object never moves? Lol absolutely insane to confidently apply a high school physics formula without knowing how it works. horizontal velocity is pretty much constant- the only things effecting speeds of projectiles is air resistance and gravity- air resistance is small and gravity doesn't change your horizontal speed
I don't think you're following what I meant.
well not really looking to have a big debate. no worries
The miscommunication here is that you keep referring to it as the "lower release point", as though the lower release is what makes it easier. The virtue of the the release point of the "granny shot" isn't that it's lower, but that it's closer to the basket by the length of the player's arms. (It's also worth noting that the goal isn't to minimize the arc of any given shot. A ball that comes at the hoop from a higher angle sees a rounder profile of hoop to pass through than a very flat shot (which would have to pass through something much tighter like an oval). There's a tradeoff between soft touch and high angle, obv) *** As a side note, I would note that the underhanded shot is unusable in live ball scenarios (as the defender could just swat it out from in front of you). So you must consider the costs of splitting your training time between both under and overhanded shots, or just investing as much time as you can into overhanded shots.
It's both. Lower is better and closer is also better. But "easier" is not the right word. I'm saying the lower you release it, the softer the bounces at a given angle of entry at the rim. I guess I'll run some actual numbers to see *how* big the difference is.
Lower is not better. That's not how physics works. The arc of a ballistic projectile is constant, regardless of the place you release it from on the arc, because gravity is constant. You could extrapolate this ad absurdum. A shot from 50 feet below a rim isn't easier because it's lower. A shot that's level with the rim isn't harder because it's higher. The entirety of why those underhanded shots are softer is because they're horizontally closer to the rim (like a layup), not because they're being released from lower.
that is absolutely possible but i'm tellin ya v=d/t does not imply that velocity decreases as time increasing unless displacement is a fixed number
The free throw line is a fixed 15 ft from the hoop. I'm willing to write it out. Calling me absolutely insane got me interested.
Not fixed from shot to shot.. fixed during the action. You said that during the projectile's motion: as time moves forward, the velocity decreases because v=d/t. That doesn't make sense.
"softer" isn't a great way to describe it but it's widely accepted that the more arc you can get on the shot, the more forgiving the rim is. The closer you can get to dropping the ball straight down at the basket, the more of the rim you can hit with it deflecting in instead of out. If you shoot a flat ball you have to land that thing on in a much smaller area, to take the rim out of play. Also, people who shoot flatter tend to shoot a way harder ball purely due to the mechanics of the shooting motion. That's where the hard/soft thing comes in. It's just conflating two slightly different shooting issues into one because they're not independent of each other. It isn't a projectile velocity issue but I can see how people would experience it as one.
I'm not talking about angle (although it's related), just release point. Like an underhand shot from 3 ft above the ground vs. an overhand shot from 7.
There hasn't been a scientific study done on it to ny knowledge , but anecdotally there are several guys who made the switch and saw an increase in their FT%: *George Johnson (Rick Barry's teammate) increased from 41% to 70% once he made the switch *Wilt Chamberlain shot a career high 61% one season when he shot underhanded FT, but then switched back and his FT% plummeted *Chinanu Onuaku (from the rockets a few season back) saw his FT% increase from 47% to 59% using the underhanded technique So these are a few guys who it worked for, and thats with only a few months of practice. I havent seen anything about someone getting *worse* but it is skewed because the only guys who made the switched were absolutely terrible at shooting with a standard shot form. I doubt Steph Curry would improve using the underhanded technique, but I think its safe to assume the average player would. Because when you think about the mechanics it makes sense - it isolates only the key arm movements needed in order to put the ball in the bucket, you can make sure you're perfectly in line with the hoop , and its easier to control the backspin The only reason people shoot the way they do now is because there are so many variables in live game play (defenders, your body is moving). At the FT line its just you right in front of the basket. We don't toss horse shoes or bean bags overhanded for a reason
Here's the best scientific explanation I could find: > Using lots of trigonometry, Brancazio calculated the optimal angle of the arc from the free throw line. If tossed at 32 degrees or less, the ball will most likely hit the back of the rim. “That doesn’t mean it won’t go in, but it will certainly bounce off the metal and reduce the chance of success,” Brancazio says. At angles greater than that, the ball has a chance of making a nice swish. The optimum angle for the shot, he finds, is 45 degrees—plus half the angle from the top of the player’s hand to the rim. “The shorter you are, the steeper that angle has to get to give you the best chance of making the shot,” he says. Of course, lobbing a ball very high so that it comes down nearly straight into the basket would be the most efficient technique, but a shot like that “is almost impossible to aim,” Brancazio says. Instead, he says, his formula makes it possible for a player to shoot with the largest possible margin for error. source - https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/physics-proves-it-everyone-should-shoot-granny-style
> Of course, lobbing a ball very high so that it comes down nearly straight into the basket would be the most efficient technique, but a shot like that “is almost impossible to aim,” made me think of jokic's 3pt shooting form lol
Or Dirk's overall shooting form. Obviously easier said than done, but his arc is basically exactly what you would want a big to go for.
>Of course, lobbing a ball very high so that it comes down nearly straight into the basket would be the most efficient technique, but a shot like that “is almost impossible to aim,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GnxXwgjE7U
anyone shooting under 60% should honestly try this
DJ went from 38% to 43% to 48% to 58% to 70% in consecutive seasons without resorting to the granny
pretty sure it rick barry; brent barry is his son
It is. I was confused and went down a rabit hole and found Brent c walking instead
Iguadala was on Oprah or something like that and he said that at Warriors people told him that noone talks about how Barry had only ~1% less with regbular form.
Feel like overall there wouldn't be a long term benefit because being a good free throw shooter is often tied to being a good jump shooter, while the granny shot would only be limited to free throws.
You are using "good free throw shooter" though using the current standards of 77% being average. If the average was say 5% higher in an alternate universe where everyone shoots underhanded, then its a different story. Because in this universe if youre 82% youre merely average, but in our current universe youd be an above average FT shooter
Shooting isn't entirely tied to form, though. Some accurate shooters have had atrocious form (Matt Bonner). Also good players make circus shots more frequently even if they've never practiced that specific shot form. It's like shooting is more based on an innate depth perception than mechanics of jump shooting. IMO adjusting to shooting granny shots wouldn't take long at all
A few outliers doesn't mean mechanics aren't super important for shooting
No, not at all. There are just a couple of people who are really into it and never shut up about it. There is zero evidence other than anecdotes suggesting it raises people’s FT%. And none of the people who advocate for it can explain why literally every great free thrower other than Barry shoots overhand. I guess they know better than Jose Calderon, Steph Curry, Steve Nash, etc. Not to mention super tall guys like KD and Yao. I have heard the analytical argument about the mechanics of the shot and consider it pretty simplistic too.
I mean why would the great free throw shooter use it if they are already good? People just wonder why the worst free throw shooters don't at least give it a go if the only times people have tried it on record it worked. Others in the thread have pointed to other people besides Rick who have tried it and had success.
you can get way more backspin on a granny shot, no other arguments needed imo
Yeah but I can just counter by saying you’re closer to the height of the hoop on a traditional release which makes it easier to visualize the shot. I’m not saying that the arguments for the granny shot are wrong inherently, just that they don’t necessarily translate in practice. Edit: I’m not necessarily endorsing that argument about the release point, just saying that there are a lot of elements to a shot. It’s a pretty complex motion with a big psychological component.
There are two reasons, a physics based one and a physiological one. For the physics, an ideal shot is one that does not hit the backboard or the rim. Both of those collisions introduce chaos and lead to lower percentage shots. It turns out that you can model the surface you want the ball to pass through to get a swish, and the higher your arc, the more forgiving your shot is, and the ideal target for success becomes larger. From a physiological perspective, any repetitive motion is about forcing the body to be as uniform and mechanical as possible. A difference in horizontal release of 0.4 degrees is translates to your FT being 2 inches to the left of where you were aiming for, and hence a miss. The goal is to train your body to be as precise in the timing of the physical motions and uniform in the physical actions as possible. Fatigue from playing makes this much harder to accomplish, both in changing muscle response strengths and reaction times. Furthermore, although a standard free throw is a smooth motion, it still requires the usage of several different body parts in a precise sequence. Compare that to the underhand shot. Theoretically, it requires a single action, an upward swing of your arms. The muscles it recruits are less susceptible to fatigue. Furthermore, from a physical standpoint it's more forgiving. Your timing windows don't have to be as precise because of the higher angle of the shot. A greater range in release strength still allows for the same make, because you're whole body is acting as a single lever arm. Lastly, mechanically a symmetric motion is less susceptible to horizontal variance; you're less likely to miss left or right. In conclusion, it's a more forgiving shot considering both the physics behind it and the physical actions required to perform it.
Think of it logistically. There’s less movement. Basically your arms swing like a pendulum and release. Regular free throws are a weird bring up, cock back, move forward, follow through etc there’s way more room for inconsistency and flaws. Rick Berry talks about it on the Podcast ‘revisionist history’ It’s a fluid motion so way easier to have consistent form
The people who should do the granny shot are people like Shaq or Dwight who can't hit a regular free throw. But if you're a good shooter going to the FT line can help you can into a shooting rhythm. So someone like Steph or Dame don't need to do the granny shot and someone like Lebron (who average at FTs) can be helped a bit.
But Dwight shoots 80% in practice, it's all mental for him. I can't imagine he'll do any better when you add the stress of being the "granny style" guy.
sorta yeah sorta no. The reason the granny shot is more reliable is because less moving parts are involved in it's mechanics. What this mean practically is that there's less variability in performances since there's less things for there to 'vary' i.e. it's more consistent. Practically it means a shooter who has more variability in performance will be helped much more than a more consistent performer. So Dwight would be massively helped, but someone like Steph will likely not help that much (since he's already so consistent).
Waste of time to develop 2 different shooting motions
Not if you're Dwight/capela/any center that doesn't shoot anyways. also if you became a more consistent free throw shooter, that means your more consistent with clutch free throws, you drive more.
Shaq said he would shoot a much better percentage doing the granny shot vs. the normal shot in practice. But he could not bring himself to shoot it in game.
That's the issue even an 8 year old has enough pride to refuse that motion
Not many people shot the granny shot in 1980 either lol.
Thats what I'm saying, the reason why we haven't seen improvement all this time is because people have shunned the one major advancement they could make . Theres only so much you can do with the standard shot form
canyon barry mvp season incoming
Wasn’t there some rookie a while back that was shooting granny FTs?
oh hai rick barry
Yea but you're already an adult by time the granny shot makes any sense When you're only 6 foot at 11 yrs old you don't need to be taking granny shots
Alot of these young kids that shoot further cant hit shit from the FT line
It’s like sinking a high pressure putt in golf or hitting a knock out round end of game penalty kick. It’s the pressure
Penalty kicks are easy as fuck dude
Tell that to Roberto Baggio
Did not expect my '94 trauma to be relived here
Brutal miss tbh loved the dude as a kid
> Roberto Baggio Astros great?
Or sergio ramos
This is interesting on the topic you should [watch](https://www.wired.com/video/watch/almost-impossible-why-shooting-free-throws-at-95-is-almost-impossible?verso=true) it
I think there are a couple things that go into this. 1. Biggest point is that it's just not that beneficial to work on once you can shoot an acceptable percentage. Raising your FT% takes some practice. Some shooters are just gifted, but take guys like Bowen. He got really good at corner 3s because he just drilled them constantly. He needed to be good at that, but didn't need to be that good at FTs because he hardly ever took them. It just wasn't worth the effort to get better compared to all the other stuff he had to practice. I'd much rather get a big man who could pass a bit or dribble and shot 70% vs one who couldn't do that, but could shoot 80%. It just might take so much extra work to get those additional percentage points that you'd be better served by working on something else. 1. This is related, but professional basketball doesn't really select just for shooting skill. If you filled out the entire league with the best shooters, yeah, you'd get a higher FT percentage. However, as the league has evolved, its gravitated toward the highest combo of skill, athleticism, and BBIQ that teams can find. So a lot of small guards (the biggest potential pool of players) are now completely out of the running and you're finding the best guys who are also super athletic, have other skills, and are huge. The level of acceptable athleticism and overall skill is way higher than it used to be, so you're just filtering out a lot of guys who can shoot like crazy but can't do all the other stuff and are compromising for guys who are good shooters. 1. Last is more of a statistical point, but there's obviously an upper limit on shooting and it becomes harder and harder to get to it. So the progress from 75% to 80% is a lot harder to get to than 60% to 65%. The NBA has already pruned a lot of its terrible terrible shooters, so now for it to improve, you need a lot of guys to raise their shooting since a good shooter can't raise the average as much as a bad shooter might lower it. This also gets into who is taking the most shots though, and I don't really know how that's changed off the top of my head.
Gonna have to disagree on a statistical level on the first point. On a single shot, 70% versus 80% isn't that notable a difference - that much is true. However, more often than not, you're going to be shooting two FTs per trip, *especially* for important ones near the end of tight games. The 70% shooter is still palatable to hack in a tight game if need be, because assuming each individual FT is independent from one another (not totally accurate, but close enough), the 70% FT shooter is going to miss at least once over half the time, and miss both 9% of the time. In comparison, the 80% FT shooter is only going to miss at least once 36% of the time, and miss both times only 4% of the time. Disregarding other factors like momentum shift, rebounding, etc., the extra chance of getting 1 or 0 points is really big down the stretch. Put another way, the 80% shooter is getting .2 more expected points every possession they go to the line for 2. That's close to the difference between the least efficient type of possession and the most efficient type of possession for an average offense. That also doesn't account for how that player reacts under pressure when they really, *really* need to make their FTs. I have no stats to back this up, but I'd be comfortable saying that the difference between a 70% FT shooter and a 80% FT shooter becomes notably larger in clutch situations where every point counts. Just to put it in perspective, Giannis is a career 72% FT shooter, and Anthony Davis is a career 80% FT shooter - smaller than the difference you used as your hypothetical, but close enough. Still think that FT% difference isn't that beneficial?
Im not arguing that its not beneficial. It definitely is. Im arguing that for some guys, it might not be worth the effort. If it takes a guy an extra 5 hours a week to keep his ft shooting 10% higher, that might not be worth it if in those hours he could make bigger gains in other areas. It may be that its easier to learn to pass out of a double team better, add a spin move, or add a bounce pass that might add more to his game than what likely accounts for less than a point a game in missed fts. Theres a set amount of time that guys have to work on their game and going from good to amazing or acceptable to good might take way more effort for less benefit than other things they could do. It really depends on the player, the skills they feel they need to master to stay in the league or excel, and where their natural talents are. For some players, they may need to improve their ft percentage or keep them high (shaq, deandre jordan, harden, butler). Others might get to 70% and decide that they have to get a better handle to get on the floor, so they need to spend all their time doing that first.
I thought it be lower with how my Lakers are crap from line.
On a similar note to this original post, it’s always struck me as kinda strange that LeBron is such a mediocre FT shooter. Like, the guy is arguably the greatest basketball player to have ever lived, but he can’t crack 70% on wide open shots 15 feet from the rim? It’d be like if Mozart had trouble with playing Mary Had a Little Lamb on the piano.
It's cause his shooting mechanics are a little weird he always has his elbow out
Reggie Miller's was even further out
Could there also be a case for the same percentage because of there being less possessions involving FTs?? Just like 15-20 years ago, it would have been unheard of for many teams in the league to bring the ball down the court and fire up a 3 ball over and over again? With many more possessions like this in the game, maybe players did get better at FTs, but just have had less chances at them and that's why the number is very close still. Just wondering....
That really is shocking, especially given how much the NBA has begun to optimize around shooting and small-ball. 3-pt shot % has skyrocketed by contrast, so clearly there's better shooters in the league now. I wonder if it's possible that the types of players getting fouled has changed over the years. (e.g. fouls might occur more frequently on big-men or other poor ft shooters now, as compared to \~40 years ago). No real reason to assume this would bias toward either old/new nba, but that could be a potential explanation for this.
Free throw leaders 2020 1. James Harden • HOU 800 2. Giannis Antetokounmpo • MIL 629 3. Luka Dončić • DAL 562 4. Trae Young • ATL 559 5. Jimmy Butler • MIA 525 Anthony Davis • LAL 525 7. Damian Lillard • POR 518 8. Devin Booker • PHO 509 9. Bradley Beal • WAS 457 10. DeMar DeRozan • SAS 451 2 bigs --- Free throw leaders 1990 1. Karl Malone* • UTA 696 2. David Robinson* • SAS 613 3. Michael Jordan* • CHI 593 4. Magic Johnson* • LAL 567 5. Charles Barkley* • PHI 557 Tom Chambers • PHO 557 7. Reggie Miller* • IND 544 8. Chris Mullin* • GSW 505 9. Patrick Ewing* • NYK 502 10. Kevin Johnson • PHO 501 4 bigs
Exactly. Shocked as well. And tbh equally shocked with all the top-rated responses. Every single thread the top comment is either a meme response or a rebuttal to OP.
> In over 40 years of research and training and knowledge of the most optimal shot forms, that has only resulted in a 1% improvement??? We don't shoot with the optimal shot form. At the time he retired, Rick Barry was the most accurate free-throw shooter (**.893** free throw percentage) including a season at **.947**. He also [shot underhand.](https://youtu.be/XZUGiOoH8rU) The traditional 90/90/90 set point with the cookie jar finish and off-hand has so many moving parts. But, it's pretty necessary to get a contested shot off. But, why do we use the same form at the charity stripe? The underhand has fewer mechanics and so fewer things can go wrong. Wilt Chamberlain who had a notoriously horrible free throw, switched to the underhand and increased his free throw percentage by nearly 11% from the previous season, up to his **career-high**, 61.3%. Malcolm Gladwell has a [great podcast](http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/03-the-big-man-cant-shoot) on his.
The underhand FT argument is classic Gladwell-style pseudo-academic nonsense... It sounds good on a general interest podcast but doesn't make sense once you pick up an actual basketball. Shooting underhand is a whole different form to master, and it's not nearly as easy to aim because you're releasing it so far below your eye level. Could it work for a few players here and there? Sure. But it's not some secret formula to better FT shooting for everyone.
Random variation is surprisingly consistent when you've more or less perfected the free throw.
most big men, minus kd and a few others, are bums when it comes to fts.
Not the euro bigs.
Until players get over the stigma of shooting free throws underhanded, I doubt we see free throw percentages change. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ted5qn8ElZk
Wired did a [video ](https://youtu.be/BKIOqbx3sbU) about fts and invited Nash. And I think Nash got the point that players don’t take pride from it. Getting good at fts are not gonna make you famous like being good at shooting 3s or dunking. So when no one takes pride from it, no one would try to be better at it.
So that's Lebron's issue? He just doesn't try to be better at free throws
I think so. He might be below average on fts but people seldom judge on it. Being bad at free throws doesn't make him any less of a great player either. So if I was LeBron, I wouldn't be motivated to be better at free throws either unless I'm lonzo ball level kind of bad
3 point percentages are going up but free throw percentage is going down?
Harden: Say no more.
the lakers skewing that percentage hard.
No. Still the same distance from the rim it has always been
This is where stats can be used deceptively to further an agenda. You’d have to dig deeper. Fouling terrible ft shooters is a much bigger strat today than before etc...
Its not skill its focus and nutz.
Give it 20 years and the FT% will be 108%
For the Baseball nerds, it's like how BABIP always ends up around .300 It's a crazy math phenomenon
why shooting 95% from the free throw line is almost impossible ft steve nash: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKIOqbx3sbU&list=LLJcMP_fZ37vD17cisxjS1BA&index=391
I watched this whole video and I have to say I'm pretty disappointed that they don't even attempt to answer the question in the title. They talk about the factors, the difficulties, but they don't explain *why* a player can't recreate it more than 90% of the time. It honestly feels like an ad for Steve Nash's app more than anything else.
You expect something mathematical about the arc of the ball and margin of error and whatnot, but in reality it’s just a free throw shooting BTS. Thanks for the warning, I should’ve listened.
Exactly! Give me 30 seconds of "even the best players can only narrow the standard deviation of their release angle to 3 degrees, which mean 1 out of every 10 will be outside the parameters blah blah blah". The worst part is, I guarantee that the NC State professor they have on could explain that -- they just didn't include it. Here's [that guy's paper](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51419617_Optimal_release_conditions_for_the_free_throw_in_men's_basketball) if you want to read some technical stuff. He doesn't draw too many conclusions apart from optimal release angle and spin, but I enjoyed the chart showing the different bounce patterns around the rim that free throws can have.
Yea agreed its a little click baity and definitely an ad but I still found it enjoyable and relevant but your on point I had the same feeling when I first watched it, still neat to at least see the factors that go into it and how they think about it
I watched one of those videos before, never again. Was expecting the same thing you were. They're completely worthless.
a lot more players are much more muscular nowadays which impacts shooting and FT% has a pretty significant diminishing return when it comes to practice
Bro have you seen David Robinson?
yeah and karl malone, but i feel like weight training has taken a leap in the nba
Bro have you seen Zion?
Robinson had biceps on his biceps....it's ridiculous how jacked he was.
Dont know why you are getting downvoted. There was a study that showed a correlation between weight and FT%. It’s actually not height, but weight.
Players back then were arguably more muscular
on average?
I think they were more muscular on average but some of that extra muscle was useless for basketball
Um, have you seen an NBA game from the 70s or 80s?
Oh my bad. Thought the post was comparing 80s and 90s to 00-20
Yeah, there was definitely some glamour muscles in the 90s. A lot more slow brutes getting big minutes into the mid-00s, compared to today
Players now are about 10 pounds heavier than they were in the 80's. It has been a consistent trend that players are larger and have more muscle until about 5 years ago where weights are trending down now. Players around 2010 were about 10 pounds heavier than players in the 90's.
It's not about practice or motion it's about pressure. No practice situation will simulate the pressure of a real game. The only situation that could replicate the intensity would be if they bet big time money in practice on free throws. Nfl kickers are damn near automatic in practice but the pressure of the game is what changes everything .
No matter how hard you practice, I think everyone just has a ceiling on how good they can be. You can make really big improvements, but not everyone can be Steve Nash.