I was recently in a league in which all players were from 2016-2017. Five people had James Harden on their team. Those five guys (Five Guys, I'm hungry, I haven't had that much to eat this week.) averaged exactly 450 free throw attempts. In real life he shot 881 free throws (and hit 84.7% of them). I realize that he is playing against better players who foul less in this league, but shouldn't he get to the line more than 51% of what he did in real life?

Posted by Midge on 9/3/2017 11:10:00 AM (view original):
I was recently in a league in which all players were from 2016-2017. Five people had James Harden on their team. Those five guys (Five Guys, I'm hungry, I haven't had that much to eat this week.) averaged exactly 450 free throw attempts. In real life he shot 881 free throws (and hit 84.7% of them). I realize that he is playing against better players who foul less in this league, but shouldn't he get to the line more than 51% of what he did in real life?

If he is being guarded by players with low fouls per 48 minutes, he will shoot less free throws.

breaking news! The sim does not generate FTAs at anywhere near IRL #s

Yeah, I know that, I'm just saying that the guys who shoot a ton of free throws should get to the line more than just regular guys.

There were also five of LeBron James in the league. They averaged 387 free throw attempts, which was 73% of what he shot in real life (531). So why does James hit the 73% mark while Harden is at 51%. Shouldn't there be more consistency than that? (Yes, I know it isn't perfect.)

more breaking news! the sim is random as hell!

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Muggsy Bogues outrebounding Dennis Rodman off the shoulder of Orion. I watched Steve Nash turn the ball over 19 times in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost, in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

Posted by Midge on 9/3/2017 1:20:00 PM (view original):
There were also five of LeBron James in the league. They averaged 387 free throw attempts, which was 73% of what he shot in real life (531). So why does James hit the 73% mark while Harden is at 51%. Shouldn't there be more consistency than that? (Yes, I know it isn't perfect.)

Harden has a higher fta to fga ratio than LeBron.

Yeah, there's a hidden stat called fouled% that we can't see that has something to do with it.

However, this is pretty much fact at this point: Players with a large number of free throw attempts often don't end up anywhere close to their RL total, while players with fewer ftas end up much closer or often exceeding said total. If you run lower total usage, you will see the ratios start to line up more closely, but you're losing games at the expense of trying to achieve a real number. Don't do that. Just accept that Steve Nash & James Harden go to the free throw line about the same number of times and that Harden at least is a better defender than Bill Russell ever dreamed of being.