The 2011-12 Chicago Bulls are a pretty dominant team due to their strengths in multiple areas. An underrated offense, elite defense, and elite rebounding define this team. If there is one glaring weakness for the Chicago Bulls though, it's free throw shooting. This year, we are shooting 72.2%, placing us at an awful 27th/30 teams.
What is particularly interesting is that while it is pretty much universally accepted that Tom Thibodeau is a top five coach in the league, the team has regressed in this area during his tenure as coach. I have always been a firm believer that free throws are a direct result of practice and coaching, so it is pretty surprising that this is one area where Thibs can maybe draw a little bit of justified criticism.
| Player | Career FT | 2012 FT | Diff |
| Carlos Boozer | 72.4% | 69.6% | -2.8% |
| Derrick Rose | 81.5% | 81.5% | 0.0% |
| Luol Deng | 76.6% | 78.0% | 1.4% |
| Joakim Noah | 72.0% | 74.4% | 2.4% |
| Kyle Korver | 87.7% | 83.1% | -4.6% |
| Taj Gibson | 64.0% | 59.0% | -5.0% |
| CJ Watson | 80.6% | 80.0% | -0.6% |
| Ronnie Brewer | 68.8% | 56.7% | -12.1% |
| John Lucas | 78.7% | 84.6% | 5.9% |
| Rip Hamilton | 85.1% | 75.9% | -9.2% |
| Omer Asik | 48.9% | 46.7% | -2.2% |
| Jimmy Butler | 80.9% | 80.9% | 0.0% |
| Mike James | 80.3% | 87.5% | 7.2% |
| Brian Scalabrine | 78.3% | 50.0% | -28.3% |
Numbers as of 4/14/12
As a qualifier, this is not all on Thibs, as free throw shooting is down across the league due presumably to lessened practice time, out of shape players, etc. in the lockout season. Last year, the league average was at 76.3% while this year it has dropped to 75.1%. However, out of the rotation players, only Luol Deng, John Lucas and FingerGuns Noah have improved their free throw shooting while Boozer, Korver, Taj, Brewer, Rip, and Asik have all seen precipitous declines that well exceed the league average dropoff. Notable in particular are Ronnie Brewer, who has fallen off a cliff (-12.1%), Rip Hamilton (-9.2%), Taj (-5.0%), and Korver (-4.6%).
How much should we be worrying about the declining free throw percentages on our team? For a guy like Scal, who didn't even shoot a free throw the entire year last year and only has 6 this year, we probably don't care that he's 28 percentage points below his career average. However, Taj, Boozer, Brewer, Asik, Korver and Hamilton are #5, 6, 7, 8, and 10 in free throw attempts per game on the Bulls, combining to shoot 9.7 free throws per game. As a team, we are only shooting 26 free throws a game. That means that over 1/3 of our free throws are being shot by guys that are well below their career averages.
I am sure that Thibs has these guys work on free throws every practice. However, whatever he is doing clearly is not producing the desired results. With such little practice time, it is understandably hard to allot time to everything, but free throw shooting and the declining shooting in particular of Boozer, Korver, Taj, Brewer, Rip and Asik this season should be something we are cognizant of while watching this team in the playoffs.
There are 17 Comments. Load Now.
Shortcuts to mastering the comment thread. Use wisely.
C - Next Comment
X - Mark as Read
R - Reply
Z - Mark Read & Next
Shift + C - Previous
Shift + A - Mark All Read
Comment Settings
Live comment alert: Hide it!
Comments for this post are closed.