Knicks1969 wrote:For what Jordan can do, I am not willing to pay max money for. If he were a good freethrow shooter, I would be more then happy to have him. He is a true liability and not worth the money he is seeking
I was once wondering about this but statistically his FT has a negligible impact on the game. The average NBA possession yields about 1.025 points. He averages 3 trips and 2.4 points whereas average scoring would yield closer to 3.1 points per 3 possessions. So his FT shooting costs his team about 0.7 points a game. His 5 offensive rebounds a game and 71% FG shooting more than makes up for this - not by a little but by a lot.
Note that if we want to know whether his FT shooting is hurting his team we can't compare his FT shooting to the average FT shooter but rather to the average NBA possession. (An instance where he goes to the line would not necessarily have meant some other 75% shooter was going to get fouled instead but rather we have to assume instead the team would have an average possession.)
This may even be exaggerating the impact of Jordan's FT shooting - I read once before that a player has to shoot only 47% from the line to break even. My calculations suggest closer to 51% but it may be less. Either way, it's outweighed by everything else he does.
