Josh Smith the Worst FT% shooter in the league

[exodus]

Please. Anyone who suffers a drop THAT drastic in percentage it is obviously more than mere lack of repetition unless they haven't played in years. It's not like that is true.

Bottom line, if you think free throws are almost purely repetition, than you are sadly mistaken. Funny how you didn't address the countless examples where I showed why.

If it's almost purely repetition as you so much want it to be, how do you explain all the players on teams who are bad free throw shooters and practice them all the time yet are still worse than most? Do you think Billups and Nash just work on free throws more than anyone in the NBA?

I just don't think you've ever played much basketball. I'm not questioning your knowledge of the sport, but on this particular subject you seem a little off by suggesting a player will lose form, etc. Losing form comes after sitting on a couch for a year+ and not touching a basketball.

Muscle memory is nowhere near as simple as hawksfanatic makes it out to be.

I have gone months at a time without touching a ball and then gone out shooting and started hitting after 5 minutes. I remember one time this guy challenged me to a foul shooting contest out of the blue and i hadn't practiced free throws in years. i made 8 of 10 the first time and 10 of 10 the second time. he told me to keep going and i ended up making over 30 straight.

Hawksfanatic thinks that Smith was practicing normally in december but then suddenly stopped practicing in January and hasn't been practicing since even though his foul shooting is in the toilet. Sure

What surely happened is that Smith started trying to change his technique so he could become better than a 70% foul shooter and it blew up in his face. Now it has gotten in his head. As a former competitive golfer i can relate.

[mrhonline]

Personally, I think he's overthinking it.

He's not likely to ever be a great FT shooter, so he should focus on being consistent...

[AHF]

Man, my partner was WAY past caring WHERE the ball landed in the service box, he just wanted it IN. It got so bad that he would hit his first serve at about 50% of his capability (far less than the pace of his "normal" second serve) just so he wouldn't have to hit his second serve.

In your pitching analogy, think of a guy who just wanted to get the ball across the plate, even if it was slow and right down the middle. Think Tom Glavine lobbing the ball underhanded like a softball pitcher just trying to get it across the plate. That is where my partner was at.

That is what I was trying to get at. Free throws are not in the same world as serves from a strategy standpoint. However, from a pure mechanics standpoint the breakdown in a guy not being able to place his serve in is not an issue of overthinking strategy. It is a mental block which I think is fairly analogous to someone who develops a block on free throw shooting. It is something both players can do easily and consistently when things are normal but when a block develops, it can prevent you from functioning normally. I don't think the block is related to strategy in either case - it is a loss of confidence that undermines your mechanics.

[Guest]

Please. Anyone who suffers a drop THAT drastic in percentage it is obviously more than mere lack of repetition unless they haven't played in years. It's not like that is true.

Bottom line, if you think free throws are almost purely repetition, than you are sadly mistaken. Funny how you didn't address the countless examples where I showed why.

Actually I did, you have yet to come with an example outside of your anecdotes.

If it's almost purely repetition as you so much want it to be, how do you explain all the players on teams who are bad free throw shooters and practice them all the time yet are still worse than most? Do you think Billups and Nash just work on free throws more than anyone in the NBA?

No, but when you have a change in your percentages one way or the other it is because of repetition. A high variance in FT% is correlated to how much repetition you are putting in. When you have a large decrease or increase it is because of an increase or decrease in the amount of time you are spending. Did Malone, Nique, Jamison, and Amare all just go through mental lapses? I assume thats what you are saying since you haven't addressed those at all. But please, enlighten me on your simpleton encounters of JV high school basketball, it is so insightful to recount your wonder years of 3 years ago.

[exodus]

Actually I did, you have yet to come with an example outside of your anecdotes.

No, but when you have a change in your percentages one way or the other it is because of repetition. A high variance in FT% is correlated to how much repetition you are putting in. When you have a large decrease or increase it is because of an increase or decrease in the amount of time you are spending.

Everything you are saying is complete nonsense.

Smith shot 69.4% from the line in December which is right in line with his career average.

Smith shot 50.6% in January

Smith shot 39% in February

So you are saying that Smith suddenly realized at the end of December that he had signed a new contract so he didn't need to practice any more. When other guys are shooting free throws he doesn't bother. He just sits around watching.

That sure sounds logical.....not.

[Guest]

Muscle memory is nowhere near as simple as hawksfanatic makes it out to be.

I have gone months at a time without touching a ball and then gone out shooting and started hitting after 5 minutes. I remember one time this guy challenged me to a foul shooting contest out of the blue and i hadn't practiced free throws in years. i made 8 of 10 the first time and 10 of 10 the second time. he told me to keep going and i ended up making over 30 straight.

Hawksfanatic thinks that Smith was practicing normally in december but then suddenly stopped practicing in January and hasn't been practicing since even though his foul shooting is in the toilet. Sure

What surely happened is that Smith started trying to change his technique so he could become better than a 70% foul shooter and it blew up in his face. Now it has gotten in his head. As a former competitive golfer i can relate.

Big surprise, exodus butts in on an argument when I am involved. That makes this what, each of the last 5 arguments I have been on in this board in a row. Funny how that always seems to happen.

And thanks for the anecdotal stories! They are really wonderful. Why not try to bring up an instance where someone's free throw percentage dropped by more than .1 from one season to another. A close example would be Kirilenko after he got his max contract went from .784 to .699. Then there is Zach Randolph after he got his payday went from .815 to .714. Jared Jeffries after his payday went from .589 to .456.

When you see a situation where there is a large decrease in someone's free throw percentages, the result is usually from an injury or "coincidentally" it is right after someone got a big payday. Go ahead, bring up a situation where you see a large drop in free throw percentage and then examine what happened. Outside of the predictably erratic Shaq I don't know of any other situation. But with Shaq, his FT% from year to year has a much larger variance than all of the other players I have mentioned.

[exodus]

Big surprise, exodus butts in on an argument when I am involved. That makes this what, each of the last 5 arguments I have been on in this board in a row. Funny how that always seems to happen.

And thanks for the anecdotal stories! They are really wonderful. Why not try to bring up an instance where someone's free throw percentage dropped by more than .1 from one season to another. A close example would be Kirilenko after he got his max contract went from .784 to .699. Then there is Zach Randolph after he got his payday went from .815 to .714. Jared Jeffries after his payday went from .589 to .456.

When you see a situation where there is a large decrease in someone's free throw percentages, the result is usually from an injury or "coincidentally" it is right after someone got a big payday.

You do realize that Smith got his payday before the end of December, right?

LOL @ comparing bench presses to free throws. Bench pressing is an excersize. When you don't do it for awhile you get worse because you get weaker, not because you forget how to push a bar up. Strength has no relevance to foul shooting.

BTW it has been weeks since i argued with you about anything so no need to get your paties in a wad.

[Guest]

Everything you are saying is complete nonsense.

Smith shot 69.4% from the line in December which is right in line with his career average.

Smith shot 50.6% in January

Smith shot 39% in February

So you are saying that Smith suddenly realized at the end of December that he had signed a new contract so he didn't need to practice any more. When other guys are shooting free throws he doesn't bother. He just sits around watching.

That sure sounds logical.....not.

Try plotting FT% over time. Have the time variable be free throws attempted. What you will see is a blip on the graph from a 20-30 free throw stretch where the data actually trend upward. All other trends in the data are a steady (stable slope) decline in %. Do you ignore the data as a whole or just focus on this one stretch? What you are saying is to ignore data and look at selections. That and you are twisting around my words as usual.

Please, show me some examples of large declines in free throw percentage. Then do a tiny bit of research on the player. What could have caused it? There seems to be a lot of coincidences where it is right after the player got a big payday. I wonder why that is (laziness? complacency?). I said this fully knowing that no one will answer this challenge and try to focus on minor points of my argument. Ex will predictably talk about how I am illogical for ignoring December's blip of data and think that by me focusing on the whole trends that I am huge logical mistake. Conveniently he won't read my posts and see that I am referring to all data of this season and I don't focus on each individual game and each individual free throw because that would be ridiculous to ignore large chunks of data. Atlas will say something anecdotal or make some machismo remark about me not having played basketball even though he has never met me in my entire life and has no basis on the claim (shocking, didn't he accuse me of not having a basis for my claims!). Then even though he claims to be a math major he won't touch any claim about math I have put forth in any of my posts, which leads me to believe he isn't a math major, isn't a very good one, or he doesn't touch my math because it is correct. All in all there will be responses galore that say "This is mental! It's Mark Wohlers all over again!" But is it really? You simply focus on one outcome, to get your team a point and there is only one way to accomplish this. If it were mental, why does it affect Smoove in every quarter equally? Why is it that given he makes the first free throw, he still has the same FT% on the second? And given he misses the first free throw, why is it he still has the same FT% on the second? If it is mental, then there should be a large difference in FT% given he has missed/made the 1st free throw.

[Guest]

You do realize that Smith got his payday before the end of December, right?

LOL @ comparing bench presses to free throws. Bench pressing is an excersize. When you don't do it for awhile you get worse because you get weaker, not because you forget how to push a bar up. Strength has no relevance to foul shooting.

BTW it has been weeks since i argued with you about anything so no need to get your paties in a wad.

Haha, as I was typing up my previous post I had no knowledge of this. I was pretty accurate on my prediction too.

[exodus]

Haha, as I was typing up my previous post I had no knowledge of this. I was pretty accurate on my prediction too.

You still haven't address the issue. Smith signed his contract long before the season started.

He shot more foul shots in December (over twice as many as February) than any other month and shot them at his normal percentage.

If Smith was going to slack off in practice why didn't it show up in december when he took the most foul shots?

[exodus]

Dwight Howard shot 67% from the line as a rookie out of HS. He hasn't gotten over 60% since.

Wilt's ft% went from 61% down to 38% back up to 54% over his career. I am sure all of the variace was due to practice habits.

:sad:

[AtLaS]

When you have a large decrease or increase it is because of an increase or decrease in the amount of time you are spending.

More fact telling.

Again, free throw shooting is such a simple technique and players shoot the same way with the same routine EVERY shot, the only way a player would have a drastic drop in percentage because of purely repetition they would have to avoid basketball for at least a year. If you're shooting free throws every day that isn't going to happen unless it's a mental issue.

You are the only one in this thread arguing this point. When you make statements such as "A player will lose his form" if he doesn't practice enough you are obviously naive on the subject. Because losing form would take years.

[AHF]

2003-04 Ben Wallace shoots .490 from the line (not a work ethic issue)

2004-05 Ben Wallace shoots .428 from the line

1995-96 Nick Anderson .692 (seemed to be more mental than work ethic related)

1996-97 Nick Anderson .404

1994-95 Dennis Rodman .676 (I won't opine on the mental state of the worm)

1995-96 Dennis Rodman .528

2006-07 Chuck Hayes .618

2007-08 Chuck Hayes .458 (for his career Chuck has gone .644, .618, .458, .400 and Hayes has a huge work ethic)

Otis Thorpe

91-92 .657

92-93 .598

93-94 .657

94-95 .594

95-96 .710

96-97 .653

Anthony Mason (both years on same contract with Charlotte)

96-97 .745

97-98 .649

Many others with significant differences with and without new contracts.

[Guest]

Nick Anderson might be the best comparison for someone who wants to argue a mental issue. Of course Nick Anderson had a massive choke job in the NBA Finals while Smoove's impetus for a mental breakdown would be...hard to point to anything as severe as what happened to Nick the Brick but maybe its a hidden matter that none of the public knows about. Wallace doesn't have nearly as big of a drop as Smoove. Thorpe has a huge variance. Hayes really doesn't shoot enough free throws to qualify, he only shot 24 in his 'drop-off' season.

If this were a mental issue, I would expect to see a large difference in expected value of FT% between the multiple different situations of free throw shooting. What is his FT% in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th? What is his FT% when he just shoots one? What is his FT% on his first attempt? What is his FT% on his second attempt? What is his FT% given he made the 1st? What is his FT% given me missed the 1st? When you look at these, there isn't a big difference. Its a general decline and if its a general decline then that leads me to believe that this can't be explained by simply say "oh well its mental" when there are other signs that point in the other direction.

[crimedog]

Free throw shooting is all about the amount of time you put into practicing your free throws. Its not like you are born with the ability to hit 90% like some players are born with the ability to jump 40 inches. My guess is Smoove got his payday and is slacking off. I don't think this is a Mark Wohlers type of situation where he has a mental block that no one can figure out. He was also never dominant at the line, he was about average and now he is the worst in the league. Laziness.

This isn't completely true. Unless you want to imply that Tim Duncan doesn't put in the effort for his FTs.

Same with Dwight Howard.

Those guys obviously work on their games and have never been particularly good FT shooters. Howard shot his best in his rookie season and Duncan has always fluctuated around 70%.

I think its VERY obviously not this with Smith, or at least not completely this. He was .695 in December, .506 in January, .390 in February, and has been 1-7 in March. If it were just a case of him being lazy with his contract, I don't think you'd see nearly as steady or dramatic a decline, rather just a lower % from the line than usual.

[exodus]

This isn't completely true. Unless you want to imply that Tim Duncan doesn't put in the effort for his FTs.

Same with Dwight Howard.

Those guys obviously work on their games and have never been particularly good FT shooters. Howard shot his best in his rookie season and Duncan has always fluctuated around 70%.

I think its VERY obviously not this with Smith, or at least not completely this. He was .695 in December, .506 in January, .390 in February, and has been 1-7 in March. If it were just a case of him being lazy with his contract, I don't think you'd see nearly as steady or dramatic a decline, rather just a lower % from the line than usual.

The 95 foul shots that Smith shot in december were just a "blip" but the 129 that Smith has shot since aren't a blip. Those are the only foul shots that matter.

In hindsight i think it was that game against the Knicks where he went 2-10 that really killed his confidence.

[Guest]

The 95 foul shots that Smith shot in december were just a "blip" but the 129 that Smith has shot since aren't a blip. Those are the only foul shots that matter.

In hindsight i think it was that game against the Knicks where he went 2-10 that really killed his confidence.

Big surprise, Exodus didn't graph the FT% over time, how predictable. Oh wait, I did predict this earlier.

[exodus]

Big surprise, Exodus didn't graph the FT% over time, how predictable. Oh wait, I did predict this earlier.

Speaking of predictions....

Please, show me some examples of large declines in free throw percentage. I said this fully knowing that no one will answer this challenge

That one sure was on the money.

You were given many examples of players with substantial drops in their ft percentage that had nothing to do with salary and your response is "draw a graph".

I don't need a graph to know that Howard shot by far his best as a rookie.

I dont need a graph to know that Wilt's percentage was all over the place his whole career.

i don't need a graph to know that you have no explanation for Thorpe's and Mason's ft shooting falling off a cliff.

What are your explanatations for all these guys? Are you keeping it a secret?

Like Atlas said you state your opinion..

No, but when you have a change in your percentages one way or the other it is because of repetition. A high variance in FT% is correlated to how much repetition you are putting in.

as if it is a fact when you have absolutely no clue how much, or how little, Smith practices his free throws.

Do you really think that smith just sits on the side while everyone else is working on their foul shots in practice? Do you think he actually has the option to NOT work on his foul shooting?

[Guest]

You were given many examples of players with substantial drops in their ft percentage that had nothing to do with salary and your response is "draw a graph".

I don't need a graph to know that Howard shot by far his best as a rookie.

I dont need a graph to know that Wilt's percentage was all over the place his whole career.

i don't need a graph to know that you have no explanation for Thorpe's and Mason's ft shooting falling off a cliff.

Are you so bad at math that you cannot realize that no one that you mentioned right there had a drop of more than .1 from one year to the next? Am I being extremely strict on my criteria? Yes, but everyone on this board knows you have done the same thing multiple times in arguments in the past.

[DChawk]

A timely article just popped up on the NYT. Interesting statistics on freethrow shooting and the remarkable consistency throughout the years. Most Hawks fans will jump on the conclusions on the 2nd page as to why indivisual freethrow shooters get better or worse:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/sports/b...tml?_r=1&hp