Get back to the basket, Mr. Smith
Across the board, the Hawks grabbed fewer offensive rebounds last season. But the player whose offensive rebounding percentage regressed most was Josh Smith. He grabbed 6.1 percent of available offensive rebounds last season after grabbing 9.0 percent of them in 2009-10.
That regression goes hand-in-hand with Smith's shot selection. The farther Smith was away from the basket, the less chance he had to get a rebound. And last season, he was shooting far from the hoop a lot more often than he was in 2009-10. He took less than half of his shots from inside the paint, after taking nearly 3/4 of his shots from the paint in '09-10.
Josh Smith's shots, last four seasons
Smith's effective field goal percentage only dropped a fraction (from 50.5 to 50.2 percent), but along with deeper shots came fewer free throws. He attempted 106 fewer freebies than he did the year before.
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You too, Mr. Horford
Smith wasn't the only Hawk whose shot selection changed dramatically. After attempting 69 percent of his shots from the paint in his first three seasons, Al Horford attempted more than half of his shots from outside the paint last season.
Like Smith, Horford got to the glass and free throw line less often. His offensive rebounding percentage regressed from 9.7 percent in '09-10 to 8.1 percent last season. His free throw attempts fell to 2.5 per 36 minutes, down from 3.4.
Horford's free throw attempt rate (FTA/FGA) put him in the company of mostly finesse big men.
Lowest free throw attempt rate among players 6-foot-10 or taller
Player
Channing Frye
Spencer Hawes
Charlie Villanueva
Rashard Lewis
Darko Milicic
Al Horford
Ersan Ilyasova
Hedo Turkoglu
Al Jefferson
Ryan Anderson
Minimum 500 FGA