The Best and Worst Shooters in the League

Categorized as: Author: Patrick, Fantasy Basketball, Fantasy Basketball Strategy
Posted on: September 18th, 2009

The percentage categories – they’re like the redheaded step child of the fantasy stat cats – it’s pretty obvious they’re not like everyone else, but you still have to pretend to love them anyway. Or not. Maybe you straight out despise them giving all your attention the other, better, 6 or 7 categories.

The tough part about percentages is that they are made up of two components: 1) the number of shots made divided by 2) the number of shots taken (yes, I did go to school for this). So, a player will only contribute to a fantasy team’s percentages in proportion to the number of shots he takes. What the fuck does this all mean? Well, first everyone pretty much just looks at a guy’s actual percentage when talking about whether or not he’s good for fantasy purposes. Jose Calderon led the league by going 98% from the line last season. But was he the best free throw shooter in the league for fantasy? No. On a per game basis, it was actually Kevin Martin, he of the measly 87% free throw percentage, simply because the dude was second in the league with an insane 10.3 attempts per game.

Second, it’s impossible to keep track of all of this in your head during a draft. The counting stats can be easy – your team needs blocks? Scan the list of players and take the guy who is going to average a lot of blocks. You can kind of do that with percentages, but scanning the FT% list is going to tell you Martin was the 19th best free throw shooter in the league when he was really the best.

So, let’s take a look at who really are the best shooters in the league by position. I’m combining both free throw and field goal percentages into a single score* for each player. Why together? Again, it simplifies things. My goal is to get a list of go to players in your head who you will know can help out percentage-wise during a live draft or auction. I’ll provide my numbers in a spreadsheet as soon as possible if you’d like to take a closer look at these percentages or look at them separately from each other. But for now here are the best straight-up shooters in the fantasy world.

Point Guards

The Good

It’s not too surprising Chris Paul had the best fantasy-based percentages out of all the guards in the league. Last season, he shot 50% from the field (averaging 16.1 attempts per game) and 87% from the line at 6.7 attempts per game. His percentages might not be as gaudy as someone like Jose Calderon, but Paul takes about twice as many free throws as the average point guard.

Of course, unless you have the first or second pick in the draft you’ll have no opportunity to draft Paul. Deron Williams will likely also be gone by the end of the first round. So, point guards with ridiculous percentages you’ll be able to target in the second and third rounds include Steve Nash, Calderon, and Nelson. All these guys have better raw percentages than CP3 (Calderon famously made about a million free throws in a row last season) but take a lot less shots than Paul does.

Mid-round guys to target for their percentages include Tony Parker and Mo Williams. Late-round point guards simply don’t take enough shots or score enough to warrant drafting them based on their percentages.

The Bad

Raymond Felton, Allen Iverson, Rafer Alston and Baron Davis are the usual suspects who are known for their horrible FG% as well as below league average FT%. Now that Davis’ scoring and defensive numbers are slipping (and his percentages aren’t getting any better), he’s a guy who will still kill your team’s percentages without bringing much in return. He’s a clear stay away guy for fantasy purposes at this point in his career.

With Jordan Farmar making grumblings about wanting to start at point for the Lakers, the question is what exactly does he do well? He obviously can’t shoot, his defense stinks, he’s not athletic and his game doesn’t fit the triangle offense at all. I guess on the plus side he’s still only 23 years old. Although I was 23 at one time too and it didn’t help out my NBA game.

Shooting Guards

The Good

Zach at CelticsHub took a look at shooting guards similar to Ray Allen to see how they aged past their mid-30s. The results? Not pretty for Ray, unless you think Allen is more Reggie Miller than Glen Rice or Vernon Maxwell (which he certainly could be). But for this season at least, there’s no reason not to draft the 34-year old Allen – he’s in the last year of his contact and will be looking to grab one more big pay day before he retires.

The Bad

There aren’t too many horrible shooting guards currently in the league, which makes sense because their job is, to you know, shoot. Larry Hughes has a rep for being a horrible shooter and Sasha Pavlovic actually had a better shooting year in 2008-09 than in 2007-08 (when he was a laughable 36% from the field). But the guy you really have to watch out for is Tracy McGrady. At this point in his career, the only thing worse than McGrady’s knees is his shooting touch. In fact, his field goal percentage dropped under 40% last season for the first time in his career. It could bounce back to a more respectable 42-43% (his career average) this season, but considering he’ll be out for an undetermined length of time after having surgery on his knee, there is not much upside to taking that risk.

Small Forwards

The Good

Need a reason to draft Kevin Durant third overall this year? In just his second season, Durant was the league’s best shooting small forward for fantasy purposes. His 48% shooting from the field is even more amazing considering he took 3.1 threes a game, making 42% of those. His percentages are already off the charts compared to the other small forwards and there is the chance (nay – certain possibility) that he improves again this season.

LeBron James gets a lot of crap for his poor free throw percentage. Well, it’s only poor compared to the rest of his game. 78% is actually around league average, so he’s not going to kill your team’s FT% like he was known for earlier in his career. And there is a lot not to like about drafting Grant Hill and Corey Maggette, but if you’re looking for late round help with your percentages, you’ll get it from them as long as they can stay on the court.

The Bad

Other than Ron Artest, who is truly brutal from the field and below average form the line, small forwards (like shooting guards) tend to be a decent group of shooters. The one benefit of Artest loving to the Lakers this season is that he will probably take less shots in that offense. And maybe he can start re-focusing on that defense we all loved him for.

Interestingly, for all the play Hedo Turkoglu gets as a gunner extraordinaire, he ends being a rather middling percentages guy. Sure, blame it on the fact that 37% of his shots were threes, but 47% of Ray Allen’s shots were threes last season and he seemed to do alright from the field. And my boy Q-Rich… I’m surprised he actually shot so well considering how many 1- or 2-fer nights he put up last season for the Knicks.

Power Forwards

The Good

There are a lot of good shooting power forwards in the league, including the usual suspects like Dirk, Gasol and KG. David Lee’s FT% was actually a little below league average last year, but he’s on the list thanks to a 55% FG% on 11.7 shots a game. If he can bounce back and shoot the 81% he averaged from 2006-2008, then he’d have a shot (awesome pun) at becoming the best shooting fantasy PF in the game (like anyone needed more encouragement to draft the guy). Carl Landry is an interesting super sleeper pick at the end of the draft. You might have heard that a certain center on a certain Houston Rockets team will be missing the entire year after getting surgery on a certain foot, which may open up some minutes for Landry. But the Rocket’s have basically picked up every able bodied man in the Houston over 6 foot 9 to throw in their frontcourt, so Landry will have a good amount competition at the position starting in camp.

The Bad

Hopefully my fellow Four Fingers Draft Guide colleagues are reading this post, because they’ll get a good laugh at who was the worst shooting power forward in 2008-09. Yes, none other than my slightly-too-early mock draft pick, Josh Smith. Actually, Smith’s field goal percentage is solid, it’s the 59% from the line that drags him down to the basement. I think Smith’s poor performance from the line last year is actually one indication that he’s in for a bounce back season. Smith’s career free throw percentage is 68% and he was 71% from the line in 2007-08. Neither of those numbers are any good, but they are significantly better than 59%.

Elton Brand’s percentages are sliding downward just like his career, Lamar Odom has always been brutal from the line, and it’s tough to imagine Yi Jianlian in the league in five years if the 6-11 power forward can’t shoot more than 38% from the field.

Centers

The Good

Yao Ming was actually the best shooting center in the league last season (going 55% from the floor and 87% from the line), but he obviously won’t be repeating that performance this year. So, if you’re looking for a center to anchor your team’s percentages, Amar’e is your guy. Getting 83% from a 6-10 center might not be Yao Ming territory from the line, but its awful close.

Stoudemire will be gone by the mid-first round, so if you don’t get a chance to draft him, Brook Lopez had an amazingly good shooting year for a rookie. He’s likely to get even better this season. Nene seemed to have a career year in more ways than one – his 60% from the field was 6 points higher than his career average – but if you’re a risk taker he still could be on the boards in the mid-rounds. Looking to take your H2H team small? Mehmet Okur is your center.

The Bad

The infamous Dwight Howard and his amazingly bad free throw percentage. Howard’s z-score for free throw percentage last season was -5.4, meaning it was over 5 standard deviations worse than league average when you take into account the number of shots he takes per game (a league leading 10.8 per game in 2008-09). If I remember correctly, Shaq in his prime was about 7 or 8 standard deviations worse than league average, so at least you can say Howard is a slightly better free throw shooter than Shaq (and looks a hell of a lot better in a speedo, not that I’d notice that kind of thing). In the future, we at GMTR may look specifically at Howard to see if you can build a team around him WITHOUT tanking FT%, but the general consensus is that your team will suck at FT% if you draft Howard. And it probably will.

*The totally fictitious Shooting Score is basically a player’s z-score (or standardized score) for their field goal percentage (compared to the league average FG%) added to the z-score for their free throw percentage (again, compared to the league average FT%). A zero would indicate a player has league average percentages. A negative score means they are below average and a positive score would mean they are (you got it) above average. Dwight Howard’s -5.4 FT% score means he has a problem. All stats are from the 2008-09 season. If you were investing they’d tell you that past performance does not guarantee future results.

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Tags: Chris Paul, Dwight Howard, Houston Rockets, Josh Smith, Kevin Durant, Ray Allen