homecourtloss wrote:McBubbles wrote:Greyhound wrote:It’s obvious that this mistreatment is being legislated from the top. It’s far too consistent no to be.
I do not understand why a league would treat the absolute biggest draw in their sport this way. It’s getting outrageous.
LeBron and especially Jokic's lack of free throws is absolutely **** bonkers, but it's been like this his entire career.
Dwayne Wade in 3 straight seasons from 05-07 had free throw rates of 56.1%, 57.7% and 58.3%, and had his career high FTA in 06 where he had 10.8FTA per game on 19 shots.
LeBron James has only had a FTR of over 50% once in 2010 where it was 50.6% and he got 10.2 FTA a game on 20FGA. How on earth does a player with a playstyle identical to Lebron's have 3 seasons that destroy Lebron's career high FTR? Even if we just go off FTA, Lebron peaked in 06 at 10.3FTA per game on 23 shots and then 10.3FTA per game again in 08 on 22 shots. It took Wade 4 less shots to get more free throws, in both the aforementioned 06 and 07 where het got 10.5FTA, another season above Lebron's career high. Paul Pierce also has two seasons above Lebron's career high FTR because of course he does.
More examples of this nonsense. As mentioned in 2010, LeBron peaked in FTR at 10.2FTA on 20.0FGA. Kobe's FTR and FTA peaked in 05 as he got 10.1FTA per game on 20.1FGA with a FTR of 50.2%. KD's FTA peaked in 10 as he got 10.2FTA per game on 20.3FGA with a FTR of 50.4%, and his FTR peaked in 2013 with 9.3FTA on 17.7FGA for a FTR of 52.3%.
Why in the mother of god do two jump shooters in KD and Kobe Bryant have peak free throw rates near identical or higher than the slashing contact absorber that is Lebron. That's ridiculous.
Hell, in 2020 I asked people why Jimmy Butler was getting such a ridiculous amount of free throws, as it was flying under the radar. They said "he makes a lot of contact" as if Lebron didn't. Jimmy Butler took only 13FGA a game but was getting 9 **** free throws a game for a FTR of 69.3%. That's 4.6FGA per game below Lebron's career low in attempts whilst tying for his 5th best season in FTA. Absolutely ridiculous. He has 5 seasons above Lebron's career high FTR as well of course
In the 09 Post Season Lebron took a GOAT, peak Shaq level 13FGA a game in the paint and the restricted area combined. That was one of the few stretches in his entire career where he got the calls he should have, and go figure, he ended up having the best scoring post season in NBA history. A lot of people don't know that but yes, Lebron's 09 Post Season isn't just "ATG" or "one of the best", it's literally per 100 the highest scoring post season in NBA history, or at least it was pre-2019-2021, haven't actually checked since then.
Imagine if Lebron got the leeway that his peers did his entire career.
Harden obviously, Allen Iverson, Wade, KD, Dantley, REGGIE MILLER, Paul Pierce, DeRozan, Gilbert Arenas, Kirilenko, Richard Jefferson, Lou Williams, Chauncey Billups, Grant Hill, Bosh and Butler all have higher FTR for their careers than Lebron, with Ginobilli's being 0.2% lower, and so basically identical.
And for the people that think maybe he's just getting reffed that way because of his size;
David Robinson's career average FTR is 57.7%, meaning it's much higher than Lebron's peak FTR of 50.6%.
In fact David Robinson had a free throw rate above 50% every single year of his 14 year career except for one year in 2000 where it was 49.6%, still higher than Lebron's 2nd career high of 47.2% lmao.
Shaq is basically the same, and also has a career average massively higher than Lebron's career high, as do Wilt, Barkley, Kemp, Moses Malone, Karl Malone, Embiid, Alonzo Mourning and Dwight Howard who has a career average FTR of 79% which is some super GOAT **** that poops on everyone's. Magic Johnson, Giannis and Amare have career averages of 48.9% and 49.5% respectively. That's higher than Lebron's 2nd career high of 47.2% and basically damn near 10% higher than Lebron's career average of 40%.
Bill Russell, Pau Gasol, Duncan, Blake Griffin, AD and Boogie also have higher FTR's for their careers.
So there's literally no consistent criteria by which Lebron should be getting less free throws than everyone. Has a lower free throw rate than the likes of skinny ass jump shooters in KD and Reggie god damn Miller and a SIGNIFICANTLY lower free throw rate than the likes of his strong peers like Barkley, Karl Malone, or Kemp etc, with KD and Kobe have higher peaks than him.
Much more in depth post than I anticipated making when I first clicked reply lol, but basically, for Lebron's entire career he's been reffed like a jump shooter that's good at drawing contact not a GOAT slasher that's good at drawing contact.
For reference, pre Wizards MJ had a FTR of 37% and Kobe's is 39%. LeBron is at 40% right now and will be sub 40 by next year. The fact that Lebron James will retire with a free throw rate comparable to MJ, KD and Kobe's and WITH A LOWER FREE THROW RATE THAN REGGIE MILLER OR 0x ALL STAR RICHARD JEFFERSON is a **** joke. Especially while Magic is sitting damn near 50. LeBron might be the only muscular athletic inside player in NBA history to retire with a FTR that's not near the 50's, let alone in the **** 30's. It's an outlier of insane proportions. I'm not a fan on conspiratorial thinking or jumping to conclusions but it is ridiculously odd.
All of this.
Got even more information. I look through players iconic series / Finals regularly for whatever reason, and I always thought that Lebron sometimes had great numbers with an oddly low amount of free throws, and that if he got given more he'd go from having ATG Finals to undisputed GOAT Finals, like in 2016 where he averaged 30/11/9 on 23.7 shots, but only took 6.1 free throws to get it.
After I recently looked at the numbers and found Lebron has a ridiculously low free throw rate for his playstyle on average compared to other stars I chomped through some NBA Finals free throw rates for all the perimeter players in the consensus top 20 all time.
And what do you know, LeBron has the lowest free throw rate out of every single player barring Steph Curry, who's is only slightly lower than Lebron's and who's peak FTR in the Finals is actually higher than Lebron's. Curry got his peak Finals FTR of .429 in 2017, higher than Lebron's peak Finals FTR of .426 that he had in 2012. Also worth noting that in the 2017 Finals Curry got more free throws than LeBron despite taking 5 less shots a game, as LeBron took 23.4 shots and had 7.4 free throws (for a FTR of .316) compared to Curry's 7.8 free throws on only 18.2 shots.
Another fun fact. Despite Magic Johnson only averaging 10 shots a game in the 1982 NBA Finals and LeBron averaging 23.7 in the 2016 NBA Finals, guess who got more free throws in their respective series
that's right! Magic, as he got 6.5 a game to Lebron's 6.1. Lebron had well over double Magic's volume and still couldn't get more free throws. Final fun fact. LeBron only got over 10FTA a game once in all of his 10 finals appearances and it was in 2015, only when he took a 4th highest in NBA Finals history 32.7 shot attempts a game.
Anywho, here's the list.
Magic Johnson - 0.518
Dwayne Wade - 0.433
Jerry West - 0.404
Dr J - 0.372
Oscar Robertson - 0.362
Michael Jordan - 0.361
Kevin Durant - 0.345
Larry Bird - 0.342
Kobe Bryant - 0.327
LeBron James - .324
Steph Curry - .294
Idek what to say tbh. Just look at it lol. One of those things are not like the others. Primarily slashers at the top half, primarily shooters on the bottom half, and then Lebron right next to **** Steph at the very bottom lmao.
