So in the absurd "importance of free throw percentage or lack thereof"

[thebadby2]

debate, who thinks that missing the front end of one and ones in the last couple minutes of a close game doesn't have a profound impact on the outcome of the game?

next question--who thinks that having a high team FT percentage doesn't make a difference in the crunch?

Anyone who raises his hand didn't watch any games yesterday.

 

[King Of All Message Boards]

I've been waiting for this haha. Time to go get my popcorn.

 

[NCanton Panther]

I'm with ya badby2, this has always been one of the silliest debates on this site.

I'm not going to mention any names, but the silliest part is that you are sure to get a reply here from one certain poster who was one of the strongest advocates that FT's didn't matter that much or were way down the list on what wins or loses games, and he will claim that no one ever said FT's didn't matter.

 

[Harve74]

In a one point game, EVERY play mattered.

But, if ONE miss decided the game, every missed 3-pt attempt had THREE times the value of a missed FT.

Free throws ARE important. If a team makes their FT's in crunch time, they almost always win.
They're just not the ONLY important stat.

How many straight FT's did LSU miss in crunch tine last night? They scored only ONE point in the last 4:58. I think they missed at least 6 and they were in the double bonus.

 

[thebadby2]

I guess my only point is that not all FTs are created equal. The front end of a one and one in the last 15 seconds of regulation in a one point game is a lot different than that same one and one in the flow of a game with 15 minutes to play. I think it's beyond debate that the higher your team FT% is, the better off you are in that clutch make-and-win/miss-and-lose situation. Unlike a contested deep three point shot or wild layup attempt in the last seconds, a FT is a gimme that any player should be able to make 7-plus out of 10 times.

 

[KiwiJeff]

Team FT% is irrelevant when it comes to one specific FT. A specific players % matters more, but not entirely either. Levance Fields, a pretty good FT shooter, missed 2 FTs to ice VCU in the tourney a few years back. I saw Utah's crappy 40% FT shooter hit two key FTs to help win the game last night.

The only % that matters is the % of the FT you are shooting. It will either be 100% or 0%. Any aggregate % is somewhat meaningless, other than you can generally say a better FT shooter will be more likely to shoot them better than a poor FT shooter. But if you needed stats to figure that out, well, let's just say that should go without saying.

 

[KiwiJeff]

Does Pitt still have a math program, or did they shut that down?

A team % is irrelevent. If Uchebo, Randall, Wright and Newkirk are on the bench, your team % is not meaningful at all. What's the % of the guys on the floor?

Second, if someone shoots 70%, that means they miss 30% of the time. If someone shoots 65%, that means they miss 35% of the time. On one specific FT, what is the 5% improvement worth? Now, I would trust an 80% guy over a 40% guy, but the spread has to be pretty wide to have any meaning.

Question: Two out in the 9th, man on second and down 1 run. Pirates team BA is .263. Cutch is hitting .330. How does the .263 factor into whether Cutch will get a hit or not get a hit? If the team is hitting .282 rather than .263, and Cutch is still hitting .330 in the same situation, is he more likely to get a hit because the team is hitting .019 higher?

This post was edited on 3/20 12:05 PM by KiwiJeff

 

[King Of All Message Boards]

LSU did miss 6 FTs in a row. Mickey had 4 of those. And they missed 12 straight FGs I believe. You could feel the wind being sucked out of the Consol.

I didn't see much of LSU this year. After the first half my buddy and I were puzzled as to the bad losses LSU Had. And their talent/athleticism seemed to say they should have been better than 11-7. After the last 5-6 minutes I think it became obvious.

 

[levance2]

Originally posted by thebadby2:
I guess my only point is that not all FTs are created equal. The front end of a one and one in the last 15 seconds of regulation in a one point game is a lot different than that same one and one in the flow of a game with 15 minutes to play. I think it's beyond debate that the higher your team FT% is, the better off you are in that clutch make-and-win/miss-and-lose situation. Unlike a contested deep three point shot or wild layup attempt in the last seconds, a FT is a gimme that any player should be able to make 7-plus out of 10 times.

End of game FTs are more about strategy and plays to get the ball into the right person's hands than what the percentages are.

It is also really, really difficult to simulate that type of situation in practice. There's really no way to replicate a season-ending situation in your practice gym.

 

[KiwiJeff]

LSU shot 0% on those last 6. They choked. Their team % is 68.4%. The guy missing most of them is a 72% FT shooter. Not terrible in college standards. Team % and his own % were totally irrelevant here. But they were important, and he did choke.

 

[Pittbaseball11]

All FTs are equal. A missed FT early in the game costs just as many points as a missed FT late in the game. That's pretty much the essence of KenPom and possession based stats.

All possessions -- and their outcomes -- are equally important. An empty possession in the 1st half yields the same result as an empty possession in the 2nd half, a possession that ends in a 3 in the 1st half is the same as a possession that ends in a 3 in the 2nd half.

Just because cognitive biases cause us to register late game possessions as more important, doesn't mean they are. If a team makes more shots in the 1st half, then maybe those late game possessions would be viewed as meaningless. Our biases also tell us that clutch exists or that "insert something that's believed to be a huge issue or a pet peeve" happens WAY more frequently than it actually does.

It's the nature of the beast.

 

[KiwiJeff]

Originally posted by NCanton Panther:
I'm with ya badby2, this has always been one of the silliest debates on this site.

I'm not going to mention any names, but the silliest part is that you are sure to get a reply here from one certain poster who was one of the strongest advocates that FT's didn't matter that much or were way down the list on what wins or loses games, and he will claim that no one ever said FT's didn't matter.

Nobody ever said FTs didn't matter. Badby even wrote FT % in the title of the post, and you were still not clever enough to catch that. Nobody ever said FTs themselves were not important. The Team % is not a leading indicator at all of whether the team will be good, or the team will win this specific game, or whether womever is at the line currently will or won't make this specific FT.

If you don't understand that, that's not on whatever poster you are referencing, it's on you. Do you understand that nobody can hit 68% of one free throw? On one specific FT, one team is shooting 70%, if the team was rather shooting 72%, how much difference will that make if the guy at the line is shooting 44%? Even the 44% shooter, will he make this specific FT or not? He makes 4 of 10, so odds are against him making it, but he still could make it. He could make 5 in a row. He could then miss 10 in a row over the next 3 games. It really isn't that hard.

 

[GrowthHormone]

Originally posted by Pittbaseball11:
All FTs are equal. A missed FT early in the game costs just as many points as a missed FT late in the game. That's pretty much the essence of KenPom and possession based stats.

All possessions -- and their outcomes -- are equally important. An empty possession in the 1st half yields the same result as an empty possession in the 2nd half, a possession that ends in a 3 in the 1st half is the same as a possession that ends in a 3 in the 2nd half.

Just because cognitive biases cause us to register late game possessions as more important, doesn't mean they are. If a team makes more shots in the 1st half, then maybe those late game possessions would be viewed as meaningless. Our biases also tell us that clutch exists or that "insert something that's believed to be a huge issue or a pet peeve" happens WAY more frequently than it actually does.

It's the nature of the beast.

Since you are a fellow disciple of KenPom, see the link below. You might be surprised by what you see. Ken, explicitly, doesn't agree with what you are saying. This is a topic I can't make my mind up on. Everything in my brain says to agree with you, but my Pope says otherwise.



KenPom: All points are not created equal

 

[thebadby2]

You're right--all I meant to say is, if you have a bunch of bricklayers with say, 2 good foul shooters, you're playing with one arm ties behind your back in the clutch.

That's why teams trying to claw back into games start fouling strategically at the end, and that;s why it often. Nobody can expect to have a bunch of bigs shooting 80%, but your guards--all of them--and wings should be pretty damned close to that, and those are the players that are going to be handing the ball at the end of every close game.

 

[KiwiJeff]

Absolutely badby. If the whole team sucks, if the whole team is shooting 50%, then you will be hurt in that situation. There are very few teams in that situation though. Most are within the normal distirbution, with some outliers. But it's possible to shoot 80% FTs as a team, but your tallest guy is 6'3" so you are 3-28.

I just randomly looked at the SEC. If I throw away the two outliers, Ole Miss (77%) and Florida (63.5%) and Texas A&M (65%), the rest of the teams are between 73.7% and 66.6% That's 11 teams. Which one of the 11 teams that shoot within 7% of each other are most likely to hit a FT at the end of the game? Nobody can answer that by knowing the team %. It's a stupid metric overall.

 

[DT_PITT]

I suspect what people could/ should say is ...

... I missed front end of a free throw (or missing two free throws for that matter) is equally problematic to a missed shot or a turnover, as none of these outcomes means points for your team.


This post was edited on 3/20 12:56 PM by DT_PITT

 

[levance2]

Re: I suspect what people could/ should say is ...

Originally posted by DT_PITT:
... I missed front end of a free throw (or missing two free throws for that matter) is equally problematic to a missed shot or a turnover, as none of these outcomes means points for your team.

That would very much depend on the situation. With a narrow lead and limited time remaining, a shot clock violation would be preferable over an immediate foul and a missed front end, giving the trailing team effectively 30+ more seconds to compete.

I guess missing the front end would be preferable to a 5-second violation too though.

All about perspective.

 

[DT_PITT]

Now you are just being ...

.... difficult, aren't you?

Still, I understand your point.

So allow me to rephrase: ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL, a missed front end of a free throw (or missing two free throws for that matter) is equally problematic to a missed shot or a turnover, as none of these outcomes means points for your team.

What I was getting at (as you probably know) is that I think to many people, a free throw miss "feels" more troublesome than it is. After all, we can forgive a guy for missing a 22 foot jumper or a tough finish from 8 feet. But a foul shot feels like it is more costly because the guy is just standing there unguarded. All he has to do it HIT IT.

I'm a little bit kidding with this, but maybe some of the problem may be in the word "Free." But they are not free. Like everything else in basketball, they must be earned. Every point on every possession must be earned. But an empty possession is an empty possession.

So someone could look at free throw shooting stats and say: "we went 10-20 from the free throw line but we lost 65-63. If we had just shot 65%, we would have won!"

But if in the same game, if your team shot 25-62 from the floor, rarely would you hear someone say: "If we had just shot 43.6% from the floor instead of 40.3%, we would have won!"

And it's not as if points are taken away from a team if a foul shot is missed.
This post was edited on 3/20 2:51 PM by DT_PITT

 

[thebadby2]

I just watched the Michigan State v. Georgia game...

Georgia mounted a furious comeback in the last 1:30, had the benefit of some really suspect foul calls, and got the game to within 2. In the last 30 seconds, clinging to that little lead, MSU, a poor FT% team this season, methodically got the ball into its best foul shooter, Denzel Valentine, who went to the line 3 times in the last 30 seconds and never missed a FT. The bricklayers never touched it.

Valentine is a big point forward and an excellent ballhandler, and is easier to inbound the ball to against tight defense.

That's how it's done.

 

[KiwiJeff]

Re: I just watched the Michigan State v. Georgia game...

Exactly. Georgia was better on the season and in the game with team %, but lost. Not a leading indicator whatsoever.

 

[bobfree]

Oh that's great.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

I don't know.....

you might be referring to me here, so I'll happily respond.

First off, make a list of all the people that ever said that FTs don't matter. I'll wait, but my suspicion is that I'll be waiting for a long, long time because quite frankly no one here, most certainly not me, ever said that FTs don't matter.

Now on to your other point. FTs were a big bone of contention again with our loss on Tuesday night. We missed nine. Here are two questions that I have asked several times that the people who think that when a team loses a game by less points than the number of foul shots they missed that the problem was FT shooting. Pitt missed nine fouls shots. Pitt missed seven threes. Which one of those two cost Pitt more points? Second question, Pitt missed nine fouls shots. Pitt turned the ball over 16 times. Which one of those two cost Pitt more points?

If I give you a choice, you can have a team that shoots two of the three types of shots absolutely average and the other one as one of the best teams in the county, which would you pick? Would you prefer the team that is a great FT shooting team but average shooting twos and threes, or one that it great shooting twos but is average shooting FTs and threes, or one that is great shooting threes but is average on FTs and twos? I suppose the "correct" answer would depend on how your team plays, whether you want your team shooing a lot of threes or fewer threes. But there is one thing that is absolutely certain, and that is that being very good at shooting either twos or threes would be superior, vastly superior in fact, to being very good at shooting ones.

Saying that FTs are way down on the list of what wins or loses games isn't some sort of controversial statement that needs defending. It's actually something that is so completely obvious that no one should ever have to say it. That's the reason that it's one of the silliest debates on this board. You can't really have a serious debate when one side is obviously correct and the other side obviously wrong.

 

[UPitt129]

Nova shoots 91% from the line, and loses.