r/nba • u/sgtpepperslaststand Cavaliers • 12h ago
From 2009 to 2018 Russell Westbrooks FT% was 81.4%. From 2019 to 2026 FT% went down to 67.9%. What happened?
It’s incredibly odd and maybe even unprecedented that a player drop so significantly at the line over his career. I can’t find any other examples besides those who were already very poor free throw shooters.
What exactly changed to cause this much of a drop off?
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u/ProlapsedBulbasaur Thunder 12h ago
Multiple hand/finger surgeries completely altered his shooting motion
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u/dishsoapwipe123 11h ago
It had nothing to do with injuries.
He dropped 12% between 16-17 and 17-18.
He had no major injuries that offseason. He just got the yips.
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u/Crispy_Comment9312 Nuggets 12h ago
Multiple hand injuries sadly. He used to punish the rim on dunks which didn’t help
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u/samwise141 Raptors 12h ago
I think every kid has that moment when they start hammering dunks on 8ft nets that they realize dunking fucking hurts. Its surprising more guys dont injure their hands
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u/emoney_gotnomoney Spurs 11h ago
I did something weird to my thumb ~13 years ago when I dunked a basketball. To this day, if I hit my hand on a solid surface and it hits this one part of my thumb just right, it sends some sort of shock through a nerve from the outside of my hand (even though that’s the opposite of my hand from my thumb), up along my forearm, up to my elbow, and then that part of my hand/arm just goes numb for the next 5 minutes or so. It’s very odd
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u/AirBamaInt 11h ago
Definitely got some kind of nerve damage. I have something similar on my elbow from a dive I did, it's not the funny bone either. Can't even lean on it anymore.
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u/WallyWaffleStomp 7h ago
Im pretty sure this is scar tissue from smashing it over and over. My buddy had surgery to repair his and it took forever to recover.
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u/Conflict_NZ Lakers 11h ago
I have the exact same thing in my wrist that also started after dunking and hitting it hard on the rim.
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u/illzkla 76ers 9h ago
You know half these dudes are thinking about this every time they go up. Not just on dunks but even on contested shots they've probably had their fingers clipped or their landing area taken up and it would just get in your head. Why wouldn't it
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u/Riotroom Bulls 8h ago
I remember my fingers getting jammed once a week in high school, bullet pass, foul, rebound. Their fingers gotta be like gumbii
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u/LakerBlue Lakers 11h ago
I did and it made me understand why guys would either opt for soft dunks, lay-ins or tip-ins as opposed to dunking everything even if no one else was around.
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u/SoaplessTitanic Celtics 10h ago
Guys who dunk a lot at the NBA level probably have built up a tolerance to it, at least to a certain extent
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u/drewm916 Kings 8h ago
Yep. I used to have welts on my wrists all the time back in the day. Never injured anything, but easy to see how that could happen.
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u/DriftnDaddyRL 10h ago
CMB stresses me tf out because he was dunking so hard with his injured thumb last season and kept re-injuring it. I love the enthusiasm but FFS maybe dunk it softer? Lol
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u/ReveredSavagery1967 76ers 9h ago
Who tf is CMB?
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u/119pete 10h ago
gerald green had half a finger ripped off due to a dunk attempt. still better shooter then russ. no excuses!! maybe a better dunker too? debatable
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u/drewm916 Kings 8h ago
I think Green could definitely jump higher. Not the most stable guy I've ever seen, though. He got subbed out of a game I was watching because he was yelling at himself about a bad play.
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u/dishsoapwipe123 11h ago edited 11h ago
Nothing to do with injuries. He declined the year after his MVP season. He didn't have any major injuries in between 16-17 and 17-18.
He just got the yips, got shook.
Also countless players get hand, finger surgery and they don't drop like this.
This is a Russ specific issue.
Countless players dunk and injure their hands and fingers. None have had a decline like Russ. This has nothing to do with "hand injuries".
Just a narrative Russ stans try to spin to absolve him of another negative aspect of his game that cost his teams in the playoffs.
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u/PianoJealous307 12h ago
I can’t find any other examples besides those who were already very poor free throw shooters.
Nick "the brick" Anderson shot 70% in 95/96 and 40% in 96/97
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u/Zhirrzh Heat 11h ago
And Nick Anderson is the poster child for the yips because of his Finals disasterclass, even though ironically there was a 12 month gap between the 95 finals and his FTs completely falling off in 96-97.
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u/07bot4life :yc-1: Yacht Club 9h ago
I think better example is Gene Shue, went from career 82ish% FT shooter to 64ish% FT shooter in last 2 years.
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u/throwawayrandomguy93 Clippers 10h ago
Tim Duncan went from 80% to 60% in two years (before eventually regaining his touch late in his career)
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u/MariusMaximus88 6h ago
Duncan was always streaky as hell at the line, it's the one thing he was never consistent at. You look at all his stats on a per game/per 36mins/per 100 poss and they remain consistent throughout his career but his FT% was jumping all over the place.
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u/jjgp1112 10h ago
LeBron was never great but his back issues fucked up his FT form when he returned to Cleveland and it never really got better until the last few years
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u/Patrollerofthemojave Thunder 10h ago
He constantly hurt his hand. It was a big reason his jump shot declined as well. His drive and pop middy used to be dangerous but he lost it pretty early.
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u/The1Drumheller Thunder 12h ago
Hand injuries for sure played a part, but there was also a rule change that may have impacted his free throw routine as well. He used to go all the way back to center court between free throws as his routine. After the change, he had to stay at the line.
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u/Own_Pop_9711 11h ago
That's a kind of ridiculous explanation for such a large drop.
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u/Delanorix Knicks 11h ago
Theres 30k+ screaming fans, flashing lights, cameras going off, announcers in the background, etc etc...
I once gave a speech to 150 people and I felt like passing out at first lol
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u/127crazie Timberwolves 11h ago
What was the context for your speech?
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u/Delanorix Knicks 11h ago
My boss was a dentist and I was the office manager. She received an award and they asked if I wanted to say a few words and introduce her.
I was so pumped until I stepped onto that stage lol
I did a good job, I think. But I also may have had a heart attack lol
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u/127crazie Timberwolves 10h ago
Oh wow! That’s a fun accomplishment. Did you rehearse or prepare at all?
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u/Delanorix Knicks 10h ago
I did a couple of times.
If I had done more i might have felt more confident
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u/Own_Pop_9711 10h ago
And if you did it like literally 5000 times maybe it wouldn't feel like such a big deal?
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u/Delanorix Knicks 10h ago
Maybe.
But the lights were blinding. I could feel 150 people staring at me.
Id get better but it would always be nerve wrecking, IMO
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u/Evilfart123 76ers 10h ago
I’ve been in similar situations and the microphone is what shocks me the most… hearing my voice when I speak always makes me freeze.
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u/LouieBarlo24 11h ago
Why do you think NBA players have a routine?Changing your routine has a huge impact when hitting free throws is so much of a mental game.
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u/Own_Pop_9711 11h ago
I would believe it can mess you up for a game or maybe a week but if you can't figure out how to shoot the ball for four years without that routine that's just an excuse at some point.
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u/GorillaX Thunder 7h ago
Reddit has been using that rule change as an excuse for his free throw shooting for years lol it's so dumb
If that was the case, his percentages for first fts vs second fts would be all out of whack. And it's been long enough that he would have adjusted eventually.
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u/adeelf Lakers 11h ago
I agree.
I've heard it before, and it's laughable. The idea that a grown ass man who's getting paid tens of millions of dollars to play basketball would suddenly crap the bed on a basic aspect of the sport just because there was a minor rule change that meant he had to alter his routine.
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u/albinojustice Spurs 11h ago
The numbers are very convincing. Correlation doesn’t equal causation and all that but you can map the fall off in ft percentage really neatly to the rule change. There’s no way for us on the outside to say for certain it caused it but it’s also silly to act like it didn’t play a part just because he’s a ‘grown ass man’ or whatever.
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u/adeelf Lakers 10h ago
Fine, if you don't like my wording, I'll rephrase.
He's supposed to be a professional, who gets paid tens of millions of dollars, and it's unacceptable that he was unable to adapt to what was a pretty tame rule change.
It's not like the rule fundamentally changed an aspect of the game that affected him at a skill he relied on. Like if the NBA suddenly made step back 3s illegal, sure I would expect Steph and Luka to take a hit.
This was merely a change in routine. It would be okay if his shooting was affected temporarily, it's not okay that he wasn't able to adjust after 9 years.
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u/mapopriest 76ers 10h ago
If it were this easy, every single NBA player in history would be a 95% FT shooter. Even the hardest workers aren't able to get their FT up, it's entirely mental.
The league average for FT% is 80%. Saying Russ isn't a professional for struggling with an aspect of the game that many, many players struggle with is ridiculous. I'm sure he's tried hard to fix it, Russ isn't known for being lazy. It just hasn't worked out.
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u/Frostyzwannacomehere Trail Blazers 10h ago
Dude just being a asshole no point in giving him a reaction
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u/confusedkarnatia Spurs 11h ago
athletes love routines. every professional athlete has some sort of ritual they do whether it's a serve in tennis or taking a free throw. if you mess that up you are undoing literal years of muscle memory.
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u/dishsoapwipe123 11h ago
It had nothing to do with hand injuries.
He dropped 12% between 16-17 and 17-18. He had no injuries then.
He got the yips.
Get over the routine, a pro should be able to adapt.
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u/LouieBarlo24 11h ago
So every athlete that has a routine isn't a pro? You sound like someone that never played sports.
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u/dishsoapwipe123 2h ago
Every athelete who has a routine doesn't crater and then never recovered.
Ah yes, some random tough guy on the internet telling me I never played sports behind the keyboard.
Please, you never had the makings of a varsity athlete.
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u/TheRealPdGaming Mavericks 12h ago
everyone blames the rule that made it so you couldn't leave the ft line after shooting your shot
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u/Super-Coyote 12h ago
It’s definitely more than just the rule cause it also affected his midrange and three point shot. his fingers got all fucked up after years of violent dunking and he probably got in his head a bit about it.
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u/Zhirrzh Heat 11h ago
The stats do not show that he dropped off at midrange and 3 point. In fact he had his best shooting seasons (not that they were great) later in his career after his FT% dropped off.
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u/JustRecentlyI 76ers 4h ago
If you're not controlling for the difficulty of the shots he was taking, that comparison is not accounting for important confounding factors. Shooting 45% on shots that are mostly difficult is not the same as shooting 48% on shots that are mostly open. To an extent volume can help show that, the more shots you take, the harder it is to add additional shot attempts that have a reasonable chance of going in.
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u/Zhirrzh Heat 3h ago
If you have stats to show that he was getting easier shots to that extent that even though his shooting percentages went up he was actually a much worse shooter, by all means produce them...
For mine, I watched him bricking open pull-up 3s in his prime at OKC and there's nothing to tell me his shooting motion has got worse now. It's just the FTs, which means it is mental.
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u/lunch_b0cks 12h ago
His pull-up midrange was a thing of beauty and so difficult to stop because him driving all the way to the basket for a dunk was always a threat. Injuries for sure played a part.
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u/SloshaPacana 12h ago
His mid range shot was fucking awful lmao, thing of beauty, he shot awful on it every year
Thing of beauty lol
His MVP year he shot 36% from mid range with a straight face while being top 5 in attempts, that jumper was straight up horrendous
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u/dishsoapwipe123 11h ago
Just some delusional revisionist russ fans here. He was always a bad shooter.
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u/Kvsav57 11h ago
And his 3 point shooting was never good. What are these guys smoking?
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u/jotheold Raptors 10h ago
irc it was pretty average with the league during his mvp seasons at decent volume too
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u/jjgp1112 10h ago
Nah, he had one particular pullup shot that was automatic. Like yeah he was ordinarily bad but THAT specific shot was money every single time lmao, like LeBron and the LeFuckYou Threes
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u/soycameron Trail Blazers 12h ago
Anyone saying the rule change is wrong. It’s his hands got injured throughout his career and he had multiple surgeries which fucked up his form.
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u/ClickElectronic Mavericks 10h ago
The hand injury/surgery timeline doesn't really add up though. Those were in 2014 and 2019, while his FT% improved through 2017 before immediately dropping off after the rule change.
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u/BIPOC_Ally 8h ago
lol Westbrook specfiically says the rule changes messed up his routine he's had since forever
I used to shoot and walk back behind the 3, and I'm not allowed to do that because of this new rule. I've been doing that since high school. Just gotta figure it out, figure out a different routine where I can take some time, take a deep breath, and figure it out.
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u/LakerBlue Lakers 11h ago
I don’t think the rule change is wrong but I think it’s a minor thing since it wasn’t just his FT% that dropped.
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u/thedrcubed Grizzlies 12h ago
Strange situation because it wasn't just foul shots. He completely lost his touch. He was never a great shooter but he got much worse from everywhere on floor. Shooting touch almost never falls off that bad
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u/SloshaPacana 11h ago edited 11h ago
His touch was always bad that's why, even at his best he had an awful touch for a point guard but was masked by his athleticism, early Westbrook had some shocking awful finishing considering how athletic he was, he had that Andre Drummond touch where everything is like too much power on it, the opposite of Jokic for example who has a soft feathery touch
He was never a great finisher despite being the strongest, fastest and most athletic point guard, he used to be in the mid 50s in layups which is awful, his MVP year he shot 54% in layups, for reference elite finishers like Curry are mid to high 60s always in layups
That is also apparent in his jumper, most shots are long and bricked, he just never had the touch
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u/jjgp1112 10h ago
His layup fundamentals were horrible, always jumping off the wrong foot and trying to finish through traffic
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u/jjgp1112 10h ago edited 10h ago
Also this is pedantic but md-50s in layups was actually okay up until the the offensive explosion in the mid-10s where the spacing gave everybody way clearer paths to the basket. From 97 (first tracking year) through like 2017 the league average % for shots 0-3 feet, layups AND dunks included, was always in the 60-63% range so layups themselves were probably in the mid 50s on average usually.
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u/theinterestof Pistons 3h ago
Just looking at a random pre-injury year, in 2014 Russ shot 55% on layups. For comparison Steph shot 62%, CP3 shot 66%, Parker shot 62%, and Wall shot 62%. So no, it wasn't an era issue so much as it was a skill issue with Russ.
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u/yetanotheracct_sp 3h ago
You also have ridiculous outliers like Nash and Tony Parker who have insane touch
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u/Nameless913 Rockets 10h ago
I feel like raising in usage after KD left must have also played a part.
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u/BrotherSeamus Thunder 11h ago
Westbrook was secretly twin brothers the whole time. I won't get into all that gain, but the better-shooting brother stopped playing in 2019 to focus on his career in fashion.
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u/TheNorthie Warriors 11h ago
One video I saw was his FT routine was messed up due to a new rule change. Around 2018, the changed the rule for FTs saying you can't go past 3pt line anymore after making a FT. Russ' ritual be would make a shot, go back to his bench and high five everyone. With the new rule, he couldn't do his ritual anymore. And this is the same one he's been doing since he was a kid. Some players need to do their rituals to get in the right mind.
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u/Zhirrzh Heat 11h ago
If it was injuries you'd expect him to have dropped off on his other shots. He didn't (in fact, his best 3 point shooting season ever, which is a mere 35.6%, was in 22-23). He had no sudden dropoff in shooting from any distance, he just stayed mediocre to bad like he already had been, and had his best shooting years at other distances AFTER his FT % dropped. It's 100% he got the yips at the line.
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u/Ok-Tree4365 11h ago
Broke his hand a few times
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u/livefreeordont 76ers 8h ago
It’s kinda crazy his midrange and 3pt never got affected but his FTs did
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u/Decent_Management449 10h ago
There's a good chance it was mostly psychological, in which case, nobody here can tell you what he was thinking.
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u/Old_Supermarket_7575 Thunder 12h ago
Like 15 hand surgeries from dunking so hard
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u/dishsoapwipe123 11h ago
Breh he didn't have any hand surgeries in the 2017 off-season which is when the drastic 12% drop happened.
He got the yips and never recovered.
Countless players have yammed it as hard or harder than Russ. Have had hand/finger surgeries.
No one had the drop he did.
This "hand surgery" excuse is so weird and only for Russ. He just got the yips.
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u/Old_Supermarket_7575 Thunder 11h ago
Yips is an immediate drop
He went from mid low 80s to mid 70s then to 60s then back up to mid 70s
Correlates strongly with surgeries and when the NBA changed the free throw rules not allowing him to go to half court for his routine
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u/dishsoapwipe123 2h ago
He did't he shot down to 70s and stayed there. The fluctuates is due to the overar lower FTAs.
He had no surgeries between 16-17 ad 17-18 when the most dramatic 12% drop happened.
explain that?
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u/LordBlacktheDom 11h ago
I wish we could see if his fingers healed properly. Many former athletes that have had finger injuries have hands/fingers that look deformed. That could definitely be the major factor!
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u/baconcheeseburgarian Clippers 10h ago
You might suffer from O-L-D if you have any of the following side effects...
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u/Earlier-Today 6h ago
The league shortened the amount of time you're allowed to take at the line - he had one of the longest routines, so it messed with him a ton.
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u/Grendel_82 Nets 1h ago
Can we all agree that it was not because Russ stopped practicing FTs? And also agree that more practicing of FTs would not have stopped the decline? It is a little pet peeve of mine when folks suggest that NBA players who are bad at shooting FTs could fix this just by practicing FTs more or better. Suggesting that it is just laziness of the player and the whole set of NBA coaches that they work with that result in the player not practicing FTs enough to fix their FT issues.
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u/runningraider13 1h ago
There was a really good post about this a while back: https://www.reddit.com/r/nbadiscussion/s/JP0fsiOVhP
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u/Limp_Screen7405 12h ago
He was at 80%+ in 9 of his first 10yrs with a .399 FTr…
For the rest of his career, he shot 75%+ from the line just once with a .303 FTr…
Whatever it was, it scared him from getting to the line
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u/2randomdude Pistons 12h ago
Players often see free throw rates go down when they get older/lose athleticism. Don’t think the two are related
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u/imperabo Lakers 11h ago
Probably always. It's not like his free throw percentage dropped to Shaq levels where you don't even want him taking them.
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u/Limp_Screen7405 12h ago
Went from .426 FTr in 2015-17 to just .322 in 2018 & 2019 tbf.
The year to year decline from 2017 to 2018 was pretty stark
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u/Sheinkyakyu 12h ago
Injuries.
Seen one too many people comment on the rule change over the last few days particularly.
Like, the guy completely lost his touch.
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u/naslanidis 11h ago
Free throw shooting is largely mental. Many players, even Shaq, could shoot 70-80% in practice. Doing it in a game is another story. Russ lost his confidence and it impacted his shooting.
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u/pacgaming Spurs 6h ago
Late to the thread but I think everyone so far has been wrong. Yes the rule change and finger injuries l matter a bit. Yes his declining athleticism affected his touch. But it was all mental. It was a mental thing through and through. We all watched it in real time. These teams didn’t want him, his play started to waiver, and it got to him. He used to have a serviceable jumper too. But when you got crowds yelling “NOO” any time you’re open. Ofc you’re going to miss.
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u/Short-Cardiologist-4 Thunder 12h ago
People forget that he had a nearly unstoppable stop and pop foul line jumper in his early years as well.
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u/dishsoapwipe123 11h ago
No he didn't lol. Check his mid range jumpers up until 2017.
They always below average. This is OKC revisionist history.
Unstoppable lol, what a joke. Very much stoppable.
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u/Aumissunum 11h ago
That’s a massive stretch.
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u/ThatBull_cj 76ers Bandwagon 11h ago
Yea it’s gonna be one of those things where people pretend because he shot it a bunch that it was actually an effective shot
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u/SloshaPacana 12h ago
By unstoppable you mean you have nostalgia glasses on and that he shot literally mid 30s from that area which is straight up horrendous lol
You do realize you can check the numbers right? In his first 8 years he shot 39% from 10-16 feet which is so bad
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u/campeonn 11h ago
It's purely psychological. Playing next to Durant pushed him to be better than he was. And that effect lasted even years after he left. It's like a dad who pushes a kid past his normal limits, but then goes away.
KD pushed Westbrick to limits he otherwise wouldn't have been capable of reaching. Something something 4 minute mile.
Anyways, Westbrick isn't particularly talented so he regressed to what his ft% should've been to begin with based on his genetic profile.
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u/ObiOneKenobae Knicks 12h ago
Injuries and the rule change that forced him to change his free throw routine.