Over the years that I’ve been watching basketball, I’ve noticed that the best freethrow shooters in the league are typically the shorter players, players who are around 6’ tall, while the worst freethrow shooters are often the tallest players, players who are around 7’ tall. Why is this the case?
If they all had the same level of skill, I would expect that the taller players would be slightly better at shooting freethrows, because the total distance the ball has to travel is slightly less- they release the ball from a higher elevation- therefore less room for error.
I also think that the taller players get fouled more often, so they should have more incentive to practice their freethrows.
I realize that there are tall players who shoot freethrows very well, and I’m sure there are some short players that suck at it, but the general trend seems to be that freethrow shooting ability is inversely proportional to height. But why?
Probably because the tall guys get to dunk all the time, and since that is so much cooler than shooting free throws they would practice that more often. Since the shorter guys can’t dunk as well, they get better at shooting. I got no cites for this, just a WAG.
Just a WAG, but I would think that in a sport that values height, shorter players need better overall skills.
Second WAG, but I think the basket, being parallel to the ground, makes it easier for an arcing shot to go in. Seven footers tend to have very flat free throws.
Sorry, but the main issue is hand size. Big hands are very clumsy with the finesse touch needed for consistent shooting.
For a guy like Shaq, his hands dwarf the ball and prevent him from shooting smoothly. Wilt complained of similar challenges.
Yes, it is exaserbated by the fact that they don’t have to be shooters, but even after considerable practice, the enourmous hands are the main obstacle.
Yes, that must be why baseball pitchers have such a hardtime consitantly throwing strikes, since the size of their hands are so much bigger than the ball…
I think that’s just a lame excuse for not practicing.
I believe, with all my heart, that it is a matter of physics.
(I am 5’11 and have won several FT and other shooting competitions, including making 96/100 FTs in one).
A player 5’11 HAS to create a higher arc to get the ball over the front of the rim. A player 7’2, releasing the ball at full arm extension, is only 1 1/2 feet or so below the rim. To create the same angle of descent that I get, he would have to shoot as if the rim were 11 1/2 or 12 feet high.
Flat shots have a much lower chance of dropping in than one with a higher arc. BB players are taught to shoot by looking over the front of the rim, which lends itself to creating flatter shot arcs the taller you are.
Basically, by the time someone got to the NBA, his shot is mostly set…would be very hard to retrain someone to shoot with an exaggerated arc.
First of all, no one has actually done the research to show that shorter players DO, in fact, have better free throw percentages than taller players. Lots of things that seem just as obvious as this have turned out not to be true. I would not be too shocked to find out that there’s little correlation between height and free throw percentage.
That said, I wouldn’t be too surprised to find that the very tallest players shoot free throws worse than the league average. After all, if you’re going to make it in the NBA being ‘only’ 6’4" , you need some good shooting skills, wheras a Shaq or Yao -sized forward can make it even without being able to rain down the outside shot.
Now there are a lot more people who are 6’4" than there are 7’1", so, even if there are no advantages to being shorter, there will just naturally be more good 6’4" shooters than good 7’ shooters. There will also be more bad 6’4" shooters, than bad 7’ shooters (because there are more 6’4" people to start with) but they just don’t play in the NBA.
I think your comparison is off. What percentage are strikes…what type of throw is a pitch versus a free throw…what is the size of the strike zone verus the size of the ball? What percentages are considered ‘good’?
Are you telling me that 85% of pitches are strikes, and that the strike zone is to a baseball as a hoop is to a basketball? If so, you need to check the data you built into your analogy.
Shaq cannot properly hold a basketball, nor could Wilt, for the finesse needed to hit 80% of the shots. On the floor, if his shots(non lays, non dunks)landed 45% of the time, he’d be ok. But the standard for free throwning is very high %-wise.
There have been big guys who shoot free throws well, Karl Malone being one of them. He was terrible when he first came in to the NBA, but he worked hard at it and got better, although as he has gotten older, he has slid back to down to the 70% level.
The best free throw shooter in the NBA last year was Allan Houston who is 6’6". Little guy indeed.
Dirk Nowitzki, who is officially listed as being 7’, was seventh in the NBA in free throw shooting at 88.1%.
125 players had enough attempts to qualify for the leaders list in the NBA. In last place was 6’9" Jerome Williams of Toronto, who shot 55.5%,
Another reason for the perception that big guys are the worst free throw shooters may be the presence of three big bame players: Shaq, Tim Duncan, and David Robinson toward the bottom of the list.
But even an accomplished point guard like Gary Payton (6’4") was only 71%
I can pretty much guarantee that shorters players are better at shooting free throws if for no other reason that the effect of the extreme cases. All the NBA’s worst free throw shooters are tall. There is no player under 6’5" who is even in Shaquille O’Neal’s zip code as a free throw shooter. I can’t think of a single short player who’s even mediocre from the free throw line.
Most tall players aren’t BAD from the free throw line, and Dirk Nowitzki was seventh in the league. The league’s tallest player, Yao Ming, shot .811 from the line, which is pretty good for a rookie. Most of the league’s best free throw shooters are around the middle of the height curve - Allan Houston led the league last year and he’s 6’6". I would say short players are perceived as better simply because there are no BAD free throw shooters among short players, no Shaqs.
It’s simply a matter of talent selection; a short player must shoot free throws well. Really tall players can get away with not shooting them well if they do other things well - O’Neal is very talented aside from his free throw. If they DON’T do other things well, though - well, you don’t see Yinka Dare around anymore.
No, I don’t buy it. I’ve shot free throws with small (and very small) basketballs before, and have had basically the same rate of success as I have with normal sized balls. Give Allan Houston a kiddie-ball, and I think he’d still be above 80%, at least.
“Because they have to” is the safest answer (and, I think, the right one). Besides that, I’d say Jax is on to something.
Guards tend to shoot free throws better but it isn’t a statistically wide gap. If I had the time (I know I have the inclination) I’d pore through the stats for the last couple of NBA seasons, pair them with height and graph it out. As it is, I’ll just ask that you rely on my 20 years of playing, watching, and coaching experience and knowledge.
Shorter players tend to be guards. On offense, a guard is most likely positioned outside for shooting purposes. Hence, in practice, he will spend a lot of time on outside shooting. Working on the outside shot will benefit the free throw percentage. Much of the form is the same.
Big players are fouled more often in the act of shooting, but tend to not practice their free throws more often. It would make sense to have players that shoot free throws often in games, practice them more. But, coaches tend to stick to regimented practice plans where everyone is doing the same thing for the same amount of time. Unless a player works on his own, he will tend to have the same level of improvement as everyone else.
Physics. A shorter player releases the ball from a lower angle, resulting in a downward arc through the hoop rather than a more horizontal one. Sounds silly, but a wider entry angle and favorable vectors on rim contact help. Also, bigger hands can hurt a poorer shooter. Take Shaq. A lot of his shots don’t require proper shooting technique. On a free throw, he now has a lot of hand to ball coverage and an unfamiliar technique.
All that said, I still don’t buy that it is a statistically significant difference. Just for the sake of it, what would be the barrier between short and tall? Or, should there also be a medium. Answer those and I may play around with it tonight.
If anybody here has ever played on a short hoop, like a child’s hoop attached to a door, it gets surprisingly hard to make a long-distance shot. So I agree with the ‘arc’ theory. Shaq makes his free throws when he arcs it a bit, and misses all the time when he doesn’t.
Of course, PRACTICE would help some of these tall guys, but I guess some of them aren’t interested.
What I was thinking was that this was because taller people just aren’t as coordinated as shorter people.
When you’re shooting a basketball, your brain is calculating all of the necessary movements in your shoulders, arms, and hands. You aren’t conscious of it, but your brain is giving your muscles a series of commands- “rotate left shoulder at an angular velocity of 0.471 radians/second, open right elbow at 0.252 radians/second for a duration of 24 milliseconds…”. As you grow taller, all of your body’s dimensions will increase proportionally. Therefore, if your brain makes a slight error in positioning your arms as you shoot, the error becomes magnified.
Interesting call, Quercus. I pulled twenty NBA players at random & did some statistical analysis. Correlation between their height and their free throw percentages from last season was -0.1767. That’s a very small negative correlation-there’s at best a slight tendency for smaller players to shoot free throws well. Some players with interesting stats in the sample I pulled:
Elden Campbell, 7’0", shot 109 for 136 from the line last year-80.1%.
Junior Harrington, 6’4", went 73-112 for Denver, for an abysmal 65.2% average.
A couple of ‘big’ stars turned up in my sample. 6’11" Christian Laettner hit 120 of his 144 free throws last season for the Wizards, an impressive 83.3% rate. And heading on up the line, Yao Ming was able to sink 301 of his 371 free throws (81.1%) despite his 7’5" frame.
Go figure.
Still, the leage leaders list is of interest. 7’0" Dirk Nowitski made #7 on the list, but nobody above him is over 6’6", and most are considerably less. (How much less is dependent on the reliability of the reported heights. #3 Steve Nash is listed at 6’3", but I’m fairly certain he must have been wearing high heels the day they took that measurement. )
I wish I could quote from it…but my old Sports Medicine Textbook said that the higher position was advantageous. That’s why free throw shooters jump when they shoot, to get as high into the air as possible.
Geometrically, it means that the shot has the greatest possible latitude and still make it through the basket. e.g., if you shoot from six feet, you have to be accurate within 2 degrees (numbers just picked at random, since my text is not available) whereas if you shoot from eight feet, you only have to be accurate within 2.5 degrees.
Oh, well: mark this one down as “something I read once in a book.”
um, no one “jumps” when they shoot free throws.
unless you are 7 years old.
the only reasons you shoot jump shots are to get higher initially than a defender, or to use your legs to drive the shot. All your arms do is “guide” the ball, for lack of a better word. From the FT line, you don’t have to elevate to generate the power to get the ball to the hoop.
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