Yao Ming Best Free Throw Shooting Big Man All Time?

Jack Sikma is generally regarded as the best shooting Center in history. His FT% was a pretty healthy .849, and he spent two whole seasons over .900. If we're including Dirk then he's probably got the best career mark, at an astounding .862. Yao is behind both of these guys with a .808 career mark, and even this year's .839 lags a bit behind.

But it looks like Yao's stroke is only getting better and more consistent. Who know? Maybe Yao can make history by shooting .600 from the field and .900 from the line one of these years. That would be an unheard of accomplishment, but actually an outside possiblity for Yao.

 

Laimbeer was a great free throw shooter, so was my usernamesake.

Stuart

 

Yeah, my first guess was Sabonis. I think Hippie Walton was a pretty good shooter as well, not sure about his career FT%.

Also, Chris Dudley was an excellent free throw shooter.

 

Zydrunas Ilgauskas has been leading the whole year as for as the best free throw shooting center. Yao finally passed him. This guy is shooting at a 84% clip.

 

Tell me you are not joking.

 

Brad Miller is shooting .853 this season.

 

You were on the money. Man, I didn't ever think somebody so tall could shoot so well. His best years were 1988- 92.2 FT% and 1989- 90.5 FT%.


Jack Sikma 6'11" 230 lbs
stats
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/s/sikmaja01.html

 

All due respect to Jack Sikma, the most he ever went to the line per game was 7.5 times one season. Yao will probably be doubling that for much of his career. I'm not sure if that makes it more difficult to maintain that FT% or easier. Certainly a miss counts for more the fewer free throws you shoot, but I'd also think towards the end of games in which you've taken lots of shots and been beaten on all game, it would be more difficult to make free throws.

Anyhow, no matter where Yao falls on the greatest free throw shooting big man list, we're fortunate to have a big man as dominant as he is that can hit free throws at such a high rate.

 

Yeah, Sikma is the guy that comes to mind when you talk about great big man ft-shooter. His career average is close to 90%. I don't care how many fts he shoots per year. It's a CAREER average, not just a sudder spurt or a small sample.

Yao had a poor stretch last year that pulled down his career average so far. But he has been close to upper 80s after his come back. If that trend keeps on for the rest of his career, he will be listed as one of the all time ft big men because he gets fouled a lot.

 

pfffft

Dudley had NUTTIN on Bo Outlaw

 

Nowitzki (7ft) is CURRENTLY shooting a higher FT% than Yao.

 

Yao Ming might be the best free throw shooting dominant low-post scorer in the league. And I can't think of many past players with a similar profile. Nowitzki and Sikma are more perimeter players. And Ilgauskus and Sabonis also play more on the perimeter or high-post than Yao.

 

If you want to narrow it down a bit more, he might also be the best 7'5 Chinese male in the world at shooting FTs the point being, the answer to your original question is No, Yao isn't the best free throw shooting big man of all time.

 

Now this is just not right.

I looked at single season leaders for free throw percentage. The first center and the first big man (if you allow that Bird was a 3) was Mike Gminski @ #61 in 1988. Jack Sikma came in second among centers at #63 in 1989.

 

Well he's 4 inches taller and about 40% better from the line than Shaq.

 

Only one 7'5 Chinese male. Dozens of dominant low post scorers.

 

Not sure where you get that. Even Shaq, who has been consistently among the top two or three players in the league in free throw attempts throughout his career, only averaged a little more than 10 per game for his career. In his best year in attempts - one of the more prolific hack-a-shaq years - he barely averaged 13 attempts per game, far an away more than anyone else in the league.

So, no way Yao averages close to 15 FT attempts per game.

 

Wonder how much Karl Malone averaged???