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Need assistance with explaining % of ftm out of pts made
Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2014 6:19 am
by bsped
For some reason I just do not think Kevin Durant is as good as the national media says he is. I do not think he is overrated, but I also think he gets a little help from the league.
As of 1/27/14, the correlation of fg% to ft% is -.48 (that is pretty significant even though I know correlation is not causation). KD is at 88% ft% and 51% fg%. 28% of his points come from free throws (5th highest % in the league amongst the top 20 scorers this year, side note: James Harden is at 31% and leads the league within the top 20 scorers currently) . I'm pretty sure players in the NBA are aware of this, yet it feels like KD gets to the line all time.
I am more than willing to be dissuaded from thinking KD is overrated. But looking at the numbers makes me feel something is off. Please talk me down from this conspiracy ledge if you can.
Re: Need assistance with explaining % of ftm out of pts made
Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2014 1:24 pm
by Mike G
bsped wrote:... I just do not think Kevin Durant is as good as the national media says he is. I do not think he is overrated, ..
I guess I may not know what "overrated" means.
Some guys get to the line more than others. It doesn't require any kind of conspiracy to see that some players get fouled more frequently. It may be that they are bad FT shooters, especially relative to their inside scoring ability -- Dwight, Drummond, Bogut -- so it's a tactic used by the opponent.
But Durant, Harden, Griffin, LeBron and such are scorers in motion, and they're often double teamed while driving to the basket. This is where they get their FT. If you don't try to stop them, they'll score. If you do try to stop them, you often foul them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9bXSEzNc_s
Re: Need assistance with explaining % of ftm out of pts made
Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2014 2:06 pm
by v-zero
KD did and does make excellent use of the rip-through rule before and after the change to stop it being a shooting foul. Obviously in the penalty his rip-throughs get him to the line still, which probably helps him a bit.
Re: Need assistance with explaining % of ftm out of pts made
Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2014 12:51 am
by bsped
@MikeG That is what I figured. I guess I need to look at where KD is at when fouls are called on hi
But someone who gets 1/4 of their total points from the ft line, just makes me wonder if us non-Thuder fans have to deal with league bias.
I am still bitter from the "goaltending" call a few years back that went in KD's favor and thus lead to the Blazers collapsing.
Re: Need assistance with explaining % of ftm out of pts made
Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2014 3:34 pm
by Mike G
Durant is perhaps not that unusual in his % of points from FT.
Basketball-reference.com now furnishes 'FT rate', shown as FTr
= FTA/FGA
This is more a measure of how often a player is fouled, relative to his FGA. Some bad FT shooters rank high in this.
I just searched for the 100 most FT (made) per 36 minutes in a season and then looked up all players in that list; I omitted 3 players whose FTr peaked before the shot clock and 3 more who were mostly or entirely in the ABA.
http://bkref.com/tiny/9eVUk
Ranked by age of peak FTr, I've listed career FT/36, FTr for career and at age 25 (Durant's current age), peak FTr and age of that peak, and final season FTr.
Only seasons with at least 1000 minutes are considered for Peak and Last values.
Current players (in parentheses) show this year as their Last year, regardless of minutes.
Code: Select all
FTA/FGA FT/36 Career Age25 Peak AgePk Last
Carmelo 6.2 .393 .407 (.466 20 .330)
Jordan 6.4 .358 .442 .459 21 .212
D Harris 4.6 .460 .582 (.583 22 .348)
Amar'e 5.9 .509 .571 (.595 22 .397)
Wade 6.3 .472 .556 (.578 23 .313)
B King 4.9 .360 .382 .460 23 .321
Sears 5.9 .542 .587 .591 23 .553
Barry 6.0 .301 .447 .592 24 .198
Arenas 5.4 .405 .464 .479 24 .208
Free 6.3 .438 .523 .656 24 .339
Barkley 5.8 .554 .661 .741 24 .532
Baylor 6.1 .366 .432 .462 24 .340
Howell 5.6 .458 .513 .617 24 .459
Durant 6.9 .437 .502 (.523 24 .502)
Kev Martin 6.1 .487 .650 (.650 25 .323)
Stackhouse 5.5 .429 .524 .524 25 .281
D Thompson 6.2 .433 .543 .543 25 .411
Kobe 6.3 .389 .452 (.502 26 .288)
Nowitzki 5.5 .377 .323 (.490 26 .298)
Pettit 7.3 .481 .492 .536 26 .439
FTA/FGA FT/36 Career Age25 Peak AgePk Last
West 7.0 .462 .459 .564 27 .326
Foust 5.4 .512 .517 .676 27 .411
Bing 4.8 .360 .425 .451 27 .315
Maggette 7.1 .624 .666 .783 27 .581
Wilkins 5.7 .345 .319 .415 27 .367
Pierce 5.7 .452 .473 (.555 28 .408)
Yardley 6.1 .454 .417 .502 28 .388
J Drew 7.1 .495 .547 .584 28 .485
Moses 6.6 .572 .520 .704 29 .543
Oscar 6.3 .468 .539 .568 30 .329
Archibald 5.4 .456 .429 .548 31 .362
Dantley 7.2 .552 .516 .663 31 .525
Issel 5.7 .398 .337 .561 32 .403
Iverson 6.1 .410 .397 .512 32 .416
Wilt 4.6 .505 .431 .780 32 .776
D Robinson 6.3 .577 .569 .689 33 .510
Mailman 6.4 .503 .589 .602 35 .563
Mourning 5.6 .604 .662 .725 36 .725
.averages .458 .496 .577 26.7 .409
Smaller/perimeter players tend to peak earlier; bigs later. Notable exceptions among both, but it seems equally true throughout history.
Durant's career (so far) FTr is below the avg of these 38 players. His peak (so far) year is well below the avg.
Re: Need assistance with explaining % of ftm out of pts made
Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2014 11:21 pm
by bsped
Awesome! Thanks for doing that. I guess I just have to direct my anger to the Blazer's front office for not drafting KD.
I find the FTr stat really interesting and was always something I kept my eye on. Especially with OKC being in the top 10 for the past 5 years. But I never got around you exploring historical data that much. I did go back the past 10 years to look at the top 20 scorers in the league to see how many of their points came from the FTs. KD seems to be in the higher side of the average. It seems FTr is a better stat for this question.
Seriously, thanks for doing this.