Surprise, surprise: FT shooting never better
Surprise, surprise: FT shooting never better
With little fanfare, NBA players are on pace to establish a new league record for accuracy from the charity stripe
LAS VEGAS — Back home in The 214, they probably aren't thinking too much about the G League Showcase here in Sin City.
The hoopheads where I live are presumably too steamed about free throws, among various Dallas Mavericks ills, to expend much brain power on the stuff I'm tracking out here in the desert.
That's because the Mavericks have cemented several losses during their choppy 15-16 start with some truly foul shooting from the stripe. In three one-point defeats thus far, as neatly summed up by Bally Sports Southwest stats ace Brian Sperry, Dallas has shot a ridiculously poor 34-for-64 from the line (53.1%).
The misfiring includes a 12-for-19 (63.2%) showing as recently as Saturday night in Cleveland, preventing the Mavericks from stealing a much-needed road win without Luka Dončić and four other rotation regulars against a stunned Cavaliers team that gleefully moved to 15-2 at home with a 100-99 escape in overtime.
Even before that loss, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban had lamented to The Dallas Morning News that his team would “probably have five more wins” and a much cushier slot in the Western Conference standings had they just managed to match the league-average success rate on free throws in several close shaves, including a fall-from-ahead L against Phoenix on opening night and in subsequent losses to Detroit on the road and Denver and Milwaukee at home.
Yet some clarification is needed about that league average and the implication that it's an easy conversion rate to hit.
Teams leaguewide were shooting 78.1% from the foul line this season entering Tuesday's play, which would merely be the highest league average ever.
That's right: NBA free-throwing (Dallas' foibles aside) has never been better.
There's still a long way to go, obviously, given that we've only just recently passed the one-third marker of the regular season. If form holds, though, this would be the first campaign in league history in which the NBA average from the line lands in the 78s.
There have only been six previous seasons in league history in the 77s, in fact, but that happens to include the past three seasons. Which means free-throw shooting has been legitimately trending up for nearly a half-decade now.
The NBA average was 77.3% in 2019-20, rose to a record 77.8% in 2020-21 and dipped only slightly to 77.5% in 2021-22.
Before the pandemic-interrupted season of 2019-20, by contrast, there were only three other NBA seasons that crossed the 77.0% threshold: 1973-74 (77.1%), 2008-09 (77.1%) and 2016-17 (77.2%).
There's no excuse for the Mavericks' repeated bricking on completely uncontested 15-footers. That home defeat to the Bucks, in which they shot 10-for-24 (41.7%) at the stripe and missed their final six free throws in a 106-105 loss, remains particularly difficult to process. As does a 21-for-34 (61.8%) showing in Phoenix on Oct. 19 when the Mavericks squandered a 22-point lead.
But the big picture is prettier. It seems that the expanded shooting range of big men and the ever-increasing emphasis teams place on having as much shooting on the floor as possible in the modern game has hushed that Players Had Better Fundamentals In My Day crowd in at least one vital discipline.
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Mailbag Time!
Early in 2023, I plan to ring in the new year with a full-scale mailbag that is long overdue.
So I was wondering …
What’s on your mind?
While I certainly have some questions saved up for the occasion, it’s always best to put the call out for some fresh material.
So please write in with anything on your mind via email here: marcstein@substack.com. Or you can fire away with a question in the comments section below that you specify is earmarked for Mailbag use and I will retrieve it that way.
PS — Can you believe 2023 is basically 10 days away?
Numbers Game
🏀 5
The NBA's annual five-game Christmas slate has to compete with an NFL tripleheader for the first time. Only one of the six gridiron football teams on Sunday's schedule (8-6 Miami) has a winning record, but the competition for viewers figures to be daunting no matter what for a hoops menu (in chronological order) that features: Sixers at Knicks, Lakers at Mavericks, Bucks at Celtics, Grizzlies at Warriors and Suns at Nuggets.
🏀 45,000
San Antonio announced Monday that it has already sold 45,000 tickets for its Jan. 13 home date at the Alamodome against Golden State. The Spurs are playing a game at their cavernous former home as part of their 50th anniversary celebrations and think they can break the league's single-game record attendance of 62,046, set by the Atlanta Hawks when they hosted Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls at the Georgia Dome in 1998.
🏀 39,554
The Spurs' previous single-game record for attendance fell just short of 40,000 at the Alamodome for Game 2 of the 1999 NBA Finals against New York. The Spurs beat the Knicks in five games in those Finals to secure the first of the franchise's five championships under Gregg Popovich.
🏀 31
San Antonio's loss Saturday to Miami in Mexico City marked the NBA's 11th regular-season game and 31st game south of the border including preseason dates. That makes Mexico a more frequent host of NBA play than any country apart from the United States and Canada, with 22 different NBA teams in action since Houston and Dallas played the first exhibition game there in October 1992.
🏀 18,048
Damian Lillard became the leading scorer in Portland's franchise history Monday night when he surpassed Clyde Drexler's 18,040 career points in the regular season. Next in line: LaMarcus Aldridge with 12,562 points.
🏀 40-27-10
Denver's Nikola Jokić racked up an incredible 40 points, 27 rebounds and 10 assists in Sunday's victory over Charlotte. The most recent two 40-20-10 games before Jokić were posted by New Orleans' DeMarcus Cousins in January 2018 (44/24/10) ... and Milwaukee's Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in February 1972 (44/20/11).
🏀 2-13
Golden State's 2-13 start on the road was the worst for a defending NBA champion through 15 away games since the 2002-03 Lakers also went 2-13.
🏀 107.0
The LA Clippers, at 107.0 points per game, are the NBA's lowest-scoring team this season.
🏀 106.1
A decade ago, in 2012-13, Denver was the league's highest-scoring team at 106.1 points per game.
🏀 3-2
Your humble correspondent has been plagued by incessant second-guessing here in Las Vegas since the early evening on Monday. My Buffalo Sabres happened to be in town, too, and I desperately wanted to sneak away from the NBA's G League Showcase to attend my first Golden Knights game. I talked myself out of it under the guilty guise of this is supposed to be a basketball trip and, well, I blew it. The Sabres rolled up a 3-0 lead and held on for a 3-2 win … and I wouldn't have even been subjected to the hurt of seeing Jack Eichel in Vegas colors because he was out injured. Yup: I completely, totally blew it ... with the only consolation being that the Sabres are making their annual Dallas visit in about a month.
Does the HOF has a cap on how many members can be accepted each year? Pop, Dirk, and Wade are locks... can either Tony or Paul get pushed to next year because a cap amount?
Wilt had four 40, 25, 10 games, yet it seems today’s basketball media likes to blow him off. I am tired of hearing about LeBron as well.