This category is very similar to the previous one, field goal percentage, in many respects.
If your Fantasy Basketball League does use it, make sure you check out the players carefully so that you know which ones will give you the most advantage or harm your team the most.
Remember, just like all the rest of the categories, this one counts just as much as popular categories like points scored, rebounds, and assists, so treat it as such. Make sure your players can make their free throws or you’ll be at the bottom of the pack.
One further note that I should have mentioned on field goal percentage, but will do so now. Once you are about half way through the year, there won’t be much you can do to affect your field goal or free throw percentages. You might be able to get a percentage or two, if you really try, but usually by that point your low free throw percentage is set in stone.
Address it early in the season, and drafting the right players is the best place to start.
One other note that should be mentioned before I give you the list is the fact that the only players that really help you are the ones that shoot a lot of free throws and make most of them, and, along the same lines, the only players that really hurt you are the ones that shoot a lot of free throws and miss too many of them. Don’t just look at straight percentages. If they never go to the charity stripe, you can ignore them as far as this category is concerned.
And now, drumroll please, the free throw shooters…
Free Throw Percentage:
With this category, I only picked players who shot more than 250 free throws. That’s a little more stringent than I picked for field goal percentage, but I figured that was okay. I’m making the rules.
- Steve Nash – 92.1% (257/279)
- Peja Stojakovic – 91.5% (238/260)
- Ray Allen – 90.1% (324/359)
- Dirk Nowitzki – 90.1% (539/598)
- Chauncey Billups – 89.4% (465/520)
- Michael Redd – 87.7% (501/571)
- Caron Butler – 87% (289/332)
- Sam Cassell – 86.3% (289/335)
- Hedo Turkoglu – 86.1% (255/296)
- Yao Ming – 85.3% (337/395)
- Kobe Bryant – 85% (696/819)
- Mike Bibby – 84.9% (342/403)
- Chris Paul – 84.7% (394/465)
- Richard Hamilton – 84.5% (256/303)
- Antonio Daniels – 84.5% (284/336)
I decided to stop this one at 84%. Maybe next year, I’ll delve a little deeper.
Just so you know, anything above 80% is actually good. In fact, depending on how good the players in your league are, you can often win with less than that. My leagues normally have a couple of teams just above 80% and the rest of the teams drop from there. Behind the high free throw shooting of Ray Allen and Chauncey Billups (who are also very good at Field Goal Percentage, Points Scored, and Three Pointers Made), I managed to have a team above 80% on the year.
Most often in my leagues you end up with most of the teams around 77%.
One notable person who is not on this list because of injuries last season is Corey Maggette. If you wanted to risk that he will be healthy this season, he is a difference maker in the free throw percentage category. In only 32 games last season, he shot 82.3% which was 212 of 256 free throws which projected out over 82 games would be 543 of 656, which was surpassed only by Kobe Bryant.
It should also be noted that Eddie Curry, Tim Duncan, Dwight Howard, Jamal Magloire, Shaquille O’Neal, and Ben Wallace shot attrocious free throw percentages and each of them shot more than 250 free throws. Sometimes you can overcome one of them with a number of people from the list of 15 above, but it’s usually better to avoid them altogether. For Fantasy owners everywhere, that is a bummer, because you’ll see that those players headline lists like Field Goal Percentage, Rebounds, and Blocks.
As a side note, I’ve seen players pick up several of these poor free throw shooters with the hopes of throwing away that one category and making it up with their remaining categories (because their rebounds, field goal percentage, and blocks would be top notch), but I’ve never seen that strategy actually work.
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