Top 5 bigmen with best touch inside the paint

[70sFan]

Who are the top 5 bigs ever with the best shooting touch inside the paint (so excluding midrange and long range shooting)? Please share your list.

[tsherkin]

Shaq, Kareem, Wilt, Artis Gilmore and Jokic come to mind pretty fast.

You have to at least talk about Al Jefferson, whose major sins were that he couldn't get all the way to the rim and couldn't draw fouls in terms of his bleh scoring efficiency. But he was a master at the hook shots he was so readily able to get. Adrian Dantley comes to mind as well.

[capfan33]

Chuck probably deserves a mention from his shot charts, haven't watched much of him.

[tsherkin]

Chuck probably deserves a mention from his shot charts, haven't watched much of him.

Ah beans, he's definitely a good addition.

[70sFan]

Shaq, Kareem, Wilt, Artis Gilmore and Jokic come to mind pretty fast.

You have to at least talk about Al Jefferson, whose major sins were that he couldn't get all the way to the rim and couldn't draw fouls in terms of his bleh scoring efficiency. But he was a master at the hook shots he was so readily able to get. Adrian Dantley comes to mind as well.

To me, top 3 were easy to think about - Kareem, McHale and Jokic. I don't love Shaq and Wilt choices, they had underrated touch inside but far from the top tier.

[tsherkin]

To me, top 3 were easy to think about - Kareem, McHale and Jokic. I don't love Shaq and Wilt choices, they had underrated touch inside but far from the top tier.

Bah, I can't believe I forgot about McHale.

Shaq and Wilt had fine touch inside 8 feet; Shaq in particularly was a 44, 45% guy from 3-10 feet, and on significant volume. You also didn't specifically define what "in close" meant, for me to reach out too far beyond. Of course had I remembered McHale, and Barkley, I'd have mentioned both of them before I started in on Big Al, hah!

McHale was a phenomenal post scorer, though, he absolutely deserves to be in this discussion without hesitation.

[penbeast0]

Guys like Artis and Shaq (and Barkley) got a lot of their value from being able to physically overpower their defender. It doesn't take great touch to slam down a 2 handed jam (not speaking from any personal experience here). Might look at guys who used a lot of finesse shots, floaters, etc. and who consistently ranked at or near the top in fg% as well. Not sure you need a big scorer either since OP specified touch rather than shotmaking ability. So a guy like Bobby Jones might be in the mix.

[PistolPeteJR]

Shoutout rookie Jahlil Okafor

[Djoker]

Top 5... jeez probably something like Kareem, McHale, Hakeem, Duncan and Jokic.

[Yuri36]

Kareem, Hakeem, Jokic, Sabonis (Arvydas of course) and Duncan.

It's almost a blasphem that Arvydas Sabonis wasn't even mentioned until my post

[LukaTheGOAT]

I will also shoutout Zion.

[trex_8063]

I'm not sure who the full five would be, but this list starts with Nikola Jokic.

I don't know if people don't realize because it doesn't look flashy, but what Jokic does near the hoop has never been matched. Ever.

Look at his conversion rate between 3-10'.....
Just so I can't be accused of cherry-picking, I'll look at his last three seasons COMBINED: he's hitting 61.5% in that range.

We have shooting data for the last 28 seasons [including the present year]; I challenge anyone to find a player who even has ONE season within 2% of that mark. The best I have found was '22 DeAndre Ayton (58.8%).

Tim Duncan doesn't have a single season that's even within 10% of what Jokic has averaged for 3 years from that range.
Arvydas Sabonis [in the NBA, at least] has only ONE season within 10% [barely, -9.9% to Jokic's average, at 51.6%].
Joel Embiid only has two seasons where he's even within 15% of Jokic's 3-year average from that range.

My limited shot-tracking data, I have Kareem so far making 41.5%; though it's possible there are more shots on the edge of 3' that I count differently than what is shown on bbref. Still, it's thus far looking unlikely that Kareem touched that mark with any regularity.

Jokic's touch in-close is in-human. I'm of the opinion that NO ONE has done before what he is doing now.

[CodeBreaker]

1. Jokic

2. Kareem
3. McHale
4. Hakeem
5. Duncan

[OhayoKD]

To me, top 3 were easy to think about - Kareem, McHale and Jokic. I don't love Shaq and Wilt choices, they had underrated touch inside but far from the top tier.

Bah, I can't believe I forgot about McHale.

Shaq and Wilt had fine touch inside 8 feet; Shaq in particularly was a 44, 45% guy from 3-10 feet, and on significant volume. You also didn't specifically define what "in close" meant, for me to reach out too far beyond. Of course had I remembered McHale, and Barkley, I'd have mentioned both of them before I started in on Big Al, hah!

McHale was a phenomenal post scorer, though, he absolutely deserves to be in this discussion without hesitation.

Embid's touch is up there

[penbeast0]

I'm thinking about guys who don't overpower others with size or power and still were extremely efficient and worked close to the basket without a lot of dunks. So guys like Ed Macauley, Bobby Jones, Domantas Sabonis, etc. Again, don't think volume should be a major consideration for what was said in the OP.

[70sFan]

Embid's touch is up there

Interestingly, Embiid's numbers from 3-10 feet look good but not as nice as I thought - he's at 42% efficiency at only 3.6 attempts. He never reached 47% until this season and he looks worse in the playoffs.

I wouldn't put him inside top 5 personally.

[70sFan]

My limited shot-tracking data, I have Kareem so far making 41.5%; though it's possible there are more shots on the edge of 3' that I count differently than what is shown on bbref. Still, it's thus far looking unlikely that Kareem touched that mark with any regularity.

As far as I know, you have tracked 7 Kareem games from 1969-72 period and in the sample, Kareem averaged only 49% efficiency from the field (compared to 56% in the RS during that period). The number of total shots is also quite low - only 144 FGA.

I have tracked 33 Kareem games from 1971-79 period and I counted 575 FGA. In that sample, Kareem shot 54% from the field (still lower than 56% average) and reached 50% from the 3-10 range at staggering 60% of total attempts. These numbers look even more extreme when I take into account only Lakers years (smaller sample, only 386 FGA) - 53% FG% on 63% of total attempts.

I don't think Kareem averaged 61% from that range across three straight seasons like Jokic did, but I don't think assuming high 50s% on much higher volume is unreasonable. Kareem's volume dwarfs Jokic's, unless my tracking data is completely off.

[70sFan]

To me, top 3 were easy to think about - Kareem, McHale and Jokic. I don't love Shaq and Wilt choices, they had underrated touch inside but far from the top tier.

Bah, I can't believe I forgot about McHale.

Shaq and Wilt had fine touch inside 8 feet; Shaq in particularly was a 44, 45% guy from 3-10 feet, and on significant volume. You also didn't specifically define what "in close" meant, for me to reach out too far beyond. Of course had I remembered McHale, and Barkley, I'd have mentioned both of them before I started in on Big Al, hah!

McHale was a phenomenal post scorer, though, he absolutely deserves to be in this discussion without hesitation.

Shaq was around 42%-44% from that range and although his volume is significant indeed (over 40% of his total attempts), I don't think that's good enough to put him in the top tier. Wilt is tough to evaluate, my limited sample puts 1962-68 Wilt efficiency at very strong 48%, but larger sample including Lakers years puts him down to 43%-44%, which looks closer to Shaq. Similarly, I don't think Duncan is good enough at that range to be considered.

I think one very underrated player in that department is Brook Lopez, who also took many shots from that range in Nets and did so with quite strong efficiency.

Very small sample, but based on what we have Gheorge Muresan looks extremely good and I'd expect him to be near the top - that was basically the only thing he did well on offense.

[FrogBros4Life]

Not sure where exactly I'd rank him, but Yao Ming deserves a mention.

[70sFan]

Not sure where exactly I'd rank him, but Yao Ming deserves a mention.

Yao definitely should be in conversation, in 2005-09 period he averaged 49% on over 5 attempts and most of these attempts were self-created.