This isn’t a knock on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander at all (because he’s awesome), but rather an observation about the power and efficiency of free throw shooting. SGA’s splits happen to illustrate it well this year.
Gilgeous-Alexander has improved across the board – and considerably so. But because SGA is shooting fewer free throws (from 10.9 to 6.4), his overall efficiency has remained constant.
Two-point percentage: up from 53.3% to 57.5%
Three-point percentage: up from 34.5% to 36.0%
Free-throw percentage: up from 90.5% to 92.8%
True shooting percentage: dead even at 62.6% to 62.6%
all stats from basketball-reference
That’s good. While TS% measures scoring ability, a lower difference between FG% and TS% means less variance and off games, especially in the playoffs.
I bet he’ll dominate in the playoffs tho. I find people who rely on the whistle to get high TS% are very inconsistent in the playoffs.
I find people who rely on the whistle to get high TS%
lol they rely on the whistle to increase ppg, not TS. foul baiting decreases FG% and TS%
I find people who rely on the whistle to get high TS%
lol they rely on the whistle to increase ppg, not TS. foul baiting decreases FG% and TS%
In case anyone wants to learn more about this type of phenomenon, in statistics this is called Simpson’s Paradox, when an effect is observed in each subgroup, but disappears when the groups are combined, due to frequency data (ie. the amount of datapoints does not remain the same in each group).
he’s shooting more 3s too, pretty nuts
This is why EFG% > TS% when comparing how good scorers are
I see his box scores and he often only ends up with 0-3 3pa. Why is that? Lack of confidence in his 3?
Simpson’s Paradox baby
He gets called a free throw merchant, which if you watch him for even 1 game is clearly false, but I would like to know how he compares on FG% on shooting fouls. He seems to make a lot of them when he’s fouled, compared to someone like Harden who was never trying to for a bucket.
honestly this just makes Steph’s consistently high TS seem more absurd
He gets called a free throw merchant, which if you watch him for even 1 game is clearly false, but I would like to know how he compares on FG% on shooting fouls. He seems to make a lot of them when he’s fouled, compared to someone like Harden who was never trying to for a bucket.