Comments on: BBR Mailbag: FT% Spikes

By: Romain

Romain — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 07:38:41 +0000

It's too bad that with the way you've built these lists, Duncan's not in there I mean, There's no logic in this man's FT shooting: .761 in 2000, .618 in 2001, .799 in 2002 (which is really good for a PF/C), .599 in 2004 (just horrible)... How many players have basically go from .60 to .80 and then back to .60 in just 4 years in their prime?

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 01:04:21 +0000

Dale Davis deserves a little more analysis. 3 seasons 2001, 2002, 2003 all on your signifcant uptick list - all in Portland. Not sure why previous season where he shot 68% in Indy didn't make your list. It might suggest, that something had changed to make him signifcantly better.
But, like Shaq, Davis' FT% seems very noisy with Std Dev of almost 8%. His career average is slightly below his rookie season, and Davis seems to have had seasons in first half of his career where he was a below 50% FT shooter. So it is hard to make a sound conclusion.

Unlike Shaq, if you sort Dale Davis' career by FT%, the top 6 seasons are all in the second half of his career, and the bottom 6 seasons are all in the first half of his career. The only season where he dipped below his career average post 30, was a season where he had only 15 FTA.

I would also make the observation that many of the people on your lists are big men with not much of a reputation for a consistent stroke. So a larger natural variability is to be expected.

By: P Middy

P Middy — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 20:32:09 +0000

It's one to thing to go from bad to good. But you gotta love those guys who went from good to great.

1985 Moses scores 80 more points because of his improved percentage.