An Adventure in Advanced Statistics: Free Throws

All numbers from Hoopdata and www.nba.com . And when I say adventure, I mean I look at numbers and copy and paste interesting ones.

League Free Throw Average: 75.8%

Best team: Dallas Mavericks (81.5%)

2nd Worst  team: Orlando Magic (72.3%)

Absolute worst: Detroit Pistons (71.4%)

Dallas being up there makes some sense. Dirk Nowitzki shoots a sizable chunk of his team’s free throws, and he’s a great free throw shooter (no need to fade away/be soft when no one is guarding you!). Orlando being low makes sense too. Dwight Howard gets the most free throws in the league, and he’s not that great at them. For a long time, Orlando was the worst in the league percentage wise.

But wow, Detroit. Their low % can be traced to one thing. The Ben Wallace free throw. 2-20 in the past 5 games. Even scarier is that Detroit shoots 71.5% on free throws at home, and 77.3% on the road. In fact, they seem to shoot a lot better in general while away.

29.6% vs 36.7% for 3’s.

44% vs 46.6% overall.

Their two best players, Rip Hammie and Tayshaun Prince, were injured for some games so I took a look to see if they had played more road games than home games. Results of a quick glance? No they haven’t. Talk about home court disadvantage. Oh, and talk about sucking too.

Yao Ming is tall

Almost looks like a normal couple in the rain, until you realize Yao Ming is like a thousand million feet tall and his wife Mrs. Ming is like a thousand million feet minus a “Yao head”™ tall.

They’re both basketball players. One has to wonder if they talk ball during breakfast. Perhaps they talk about how to defend the pick and roll, or how to set a proper screen, or how Yao becomes useless when he is fronted. Only soon to come  baby Yao will know.

The Baby Eater

 

Jason Maxiell eats babies. Jason Maxiell meets Big Baby aka Uno Uno aka Glen Davis aka Ronald Glen Davis. Jason Maxiell the baby eater is reaching for the ketchup.

Rejection

A little late on this but here goes. I had heard about T-Mac sending Lebron a message about how great it is to play in New York (if you like losing) but I hadn’t heard about Lebron’s response.

From the NYPost:

T-Mac and LeBron have been in communication. "He's a good friend,'' McGrady said at the morning shootaround at Quicken Loans Arena. "He wanted to see me back on the basketball court and congratulate me on being back. I sent him an email that said: "I'm in the Big Apple. I'll see you here next season.''

LeBron's response was a "LOL.''

Now I don’t know how legitimate this is. Maybe it’s just a joke and I’m not seeing it. Only way Lebron is in the Big Apple next season is when he’s there to drop a triple double against the Knicks. Also, who’s to say T-Mac won’t be playing in China by then anyway?

Pacers at Lakers

Today the Indiana Pacers take on the Los Angeles Lakers. What’s that you say? What is a Pacer and what is a Laker? Well, I don’t know either. Maybe their team logos will help us solve this mystery.

Nope.

Celtics interested in Michael Finley

The San Antonio Spurs waived Michael Finley today per his request to be released. The deadline to be a free agent still eligible for the playoffs was today. Right off the bat, the Boston Celtics have expressed interest in signing him.

Finley is 36 years old, and has played in 25 games this season, averaging 15.8 minutes and 3.7 points on 38.1% shooting. Despite that, I can see how this might work out for the Celtics. Ray Allen is 34 years old, KG is 33, Paul Pierce 32, Scalabrine 31 (not that he really matters), Rasheed Wallace is 35.

These players are getting up there in terms of their basketball life, and they’re not going to get younger. So why not try to make them *feel* younger by bringing in an old dude? They might look at Finley and realize that they have to try extra hard this year because in a year or two they’ll become useless too. Fear as motivation? Why not.

Michael Jordan’s Ownership Starts Out Poorly

As you may have heard, Michael Jordan has bought the Charlotte Bobcats and will officially take over by the end of March. To celebrate, Jordan decided to pick on a rookie in a game of Horse.

One of Michael Jordan's first acts since reaching a deal to buy the Charlotte Bobcats: losing two games of H-O-R-S-E to guard Gerald Henderson.

A trash-talking Jordan attended the Bobcats' shootaround Monday morning before their game against Dallas, challenging the rookie Henderson to a shooting competition after the workout.

While Jordan made a free throw with his eyes closed and relentlessly needled Henderson, he couldn't hold him off in either game.

Gerald Hender-who? Henderson is a rookie guard who has played in 29 games this year and has shot 33.8%, albeit in limited minutes. And Michael Jordan still lost. At least he chose to compete against a guard though. MJ may end up challenging Tyson ‘I can only score when Chris Paul sends me an alley-oop, oh and I’m injured’ Chandler during the next shootaround to regain his pride.