Description
Free throws can normally be made at a high percentage by good players. In the NBA, most players make between 70–80% of their attempts. The league’s best shooters (such as Steve Nash, Peja Stojaković, Ray Allen, Chauncey Billups, Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant, and Dirk Nowitzki) can make roughly 90% of their attempts over a season, while notoriously poor shooters (e.g. Dwight Howard, Blake Griffin, Ben Wallace, Tim Duncan, Rajon Rondo, Andre Iguodala, Kendrick Perkins, Glen Davis or Marcin Gortat) may struggle to make 50% of them. During a foul shot, a player's foot must be completely behind the foul line. If a player lines up with part of their foot on the line, a violation is called and the shot doesn't count. Foul shots are worth 1 point.
Tall players often shoot free throws poorly; though theoretically, taller players should be better at making them. One possible explanation for this is that the high release point of their shots can cause them to stand overly erect. Hall of Famer Wilt Chamberlain made just 51.1% of his free-throw attempts, one of the lowest percentages of all time, and the poor free throw shooting of players such as O'Neal and Wallace, have led to the 'Hack-a-Shaq' and other intentional fouling tactics. On the other hand, there have also been big men who have been prolific scorers from free throws, who not surprisingly also have good outside shooting range (an example is Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki who, at 2.13 m (7.0 ft), has a career average of 88% (.877).)
Read more about this topic: Free Throw
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“As they are not seen on their way down the streams, it is thought by fishermen that they never return, but waste away and die, clinging to rocks and stumps of trees for an indefinite period; a tragic feature in the scenery of the river bottoms worthy to be remembered with Shakespeare’s description of the sea-floor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail. The description does not describe them to you, and to- morrow you arrive there, and know them by inhabiting them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I was here first introduced to Joe.... He was a good-looking Indian, twenty-four years old, apparently of unmixed blood, short and stout, with a broad face and reddish complexion, and eyes, methinks, narrower and more turned up at the outer corners than ours, answering to the description of his race. Besides his underclothing, he wore a red flannel shirt, woolen pants, and a black Kossuth hat, the ordinary dress of the lumberman, and, to a considerable extent, of the Penobscot Indian.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)