Some of the worst free throw shooters in NBA history (Part1)
From the best players in the free throwing business, now we come to some of the worst. Many of the players in the list are among some of the most successful men in the history of NBA but still fail when it comes to free throws.
Without further ado, the tenth place in the list of worst free throw shooters is occupied by Bill Russell. One of the greatest winners in the NBA, Bill was a very unsuccessful free throw shooter. The stand out ability in his game was defence. Though this
splendid player was never a great offensive player, the statistics of 56.1% successful free throws is by no means an accurate reflection of his career.
Bill made 5,614 free throw attempts out of which 3,148 were successful. This effectively puts him in the list of special players according to many of being the most unsuccessful free throw shooter who was a great player. With almost 2,500 free throw misses
this player still managed to become one of the great basketball players in the NBA. Bill managed to win many titles and reached individual milestones when it comes to the Most Valued Player (MVP) in the NBA.
Olden Polynice comes in next with a career free throw success percentage of 53.5%. This player is popularly known for a trade deal that brought him to the Super Sonics. You would be guessing why? Well the answer to that is that this player was known for
as the trade that saw, one of the Hall of Famers, Scottie Pippen go to the Bulls. This means that it was one of the biggest mistakes made by the Super Sonics made by letting go of a future star for a player who wasn’t as successful.
Not only this, this player was no way near Scottie Pippen at that time. Critics say that one of the things that people forget due to this is his poor free throwing abilities. Olden makes his way into the top ten players to have failed in the department of
free throw shooting.
Olden made a lot of free throw attempts with 2141 attempts from the line but was able to be successful only 1146 times. Though some reports say that he was one of the top 5 worst free throwers. But since the article is based on the fact that these players
are listed according to statistics therefore he is placed in the 9th spot.
The eighth position in this regard is occupied by Larry Smith. Larry was one of the greatest rebounders in the NBA. With a lot of strength this player could knock down any player while going for a rebound. This is the reason why he earned his nickname of
“Mr. Mean”. Though Larry wasn’t as tall as some of the other offensive players at the time standing at 6’8 but still he managed to become one of the best offensive players in the sport.
But with diversity in the game along with the fact that he has a lot of talent, he was often slotted in the centre position. What makes experts say that he is among the best is that he also was good at the position more often than not. But the flaw in his
game was that of free throws. This extravagant player has a successful career free throwing percentage of 53.1%. This player didn’t get many free throws which were only 1630 if we talk numerically, and out of these he only managed to bag 866. This was one
of the things that often frustrated him during a game and led to him being fouled out or resulting in weak performances.
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