Random Stat: Clutch Free Throw Shooting

Q: Although sporting an atrocious freethrow percentage otherwise, Shaq has always said that he, "makes them when they count." I'd like to see the stats of, not only Shaq, but other NBA players free throw percentage differences in the clutch versus during the other minutes of the game. Thanks.
-- Brett Garofalo

A: This has been another popular suggestion, and is a nice complement to the Game Winning Shots random stat look. Once again though, the key becomes how do you want to define clutch. For our normal updated daily player stat pages we use "last five minutes, neither team ahead by more than five" but we'll make it a little more stringent here:

Clutch Free Throw = under two minutes left in the game, neither team is ahead by more than three points.

Why use this definition?

1. With only two minutes you are reaching the "tight" stage of the game
2. With a maximum margin of three points, it's a one possession game

Data sample
2003-04 Regular Season games
2003-04 Playoff games
2004-05 Regular Season games
2004-05 Playoff games
2005-06 Regular Season games (to April 5th)

Leading "Clutch Free Throw Shooting" Players (Minimum: 30 Clutch FTA) Player Non-Clutch FT% Clutch FTM Clutch FTA Clutch FT% FT% Diff.  League Wide .751 4099 5440 .753 +.003  Sam Cassell .863 42 44 .955 +.092  Steve Francis .794 66 76 .868 +.074  Cuttino Mobley .818 31 35 .886 +.068  Corey Maggette .848 53 58 .914 +.066  Desmond Mason .765 33 40 .825 +.060  Zydrunas Ilgauskas .791 26 31 .839 +.048  Ricky Davis .777 37 45 .822 +.045  Vince Carter .803 53 63 .841 +.038  Carlos Boozer .726 29 38 .763 +.037  Larry Hughes .784 32 39 .821 +.037  Michael Redd .864 54 60 .900 +.036  Shaquille O'Neal .468 20 40 .500 +.032  Tim Duncan .639 30 45 .667 +.028  Chris Webber .751 34 44 .773 +.022  James Posey .831 29 34 .853 +.022  Richard Hamilton .851 27 31 .871 +.020  Mike Bibby .815 30 36 .833 +.018  Carmelo Anthony .795 34 42 .810 +.015  Al Harrington .688 26 37 .703 +.015  Steve Nash .910 48 52 .923 +.013  Allen Iverson .804 39 48 .813 +.009  Kevin Garnett .801 38 47 .809 +.008  Rashard Lewis .794 27 34 .794 +.000  Peja Stojakovic .921 33 36 .917 -.004  Dwyane Wade .771 48 63 .762 -.009  Dirk Nowitzki .877 58 67 .866 -.011  Andre Miller .799 26 33 .788 -.011  Gilbert Arenas .805 45 57 .789 -.016  Pau Gasol .718 30 43 .698 -.020  Chauncey Billups .894 68 78 .872 -.022  Jason Richardson .683 32 49 .653 -.030  Manu Ginobili .796 47 62 .758 -.038  Kobe Bryant .839 60 75 .800 -.039  David Wesley .802 25 33 .758 -.044  Tracy McGrady .778 30 41 .732 -.046  Mike James .805 25 33 .758 -.047  Zach Randolph .764 34 48 .708 -.056  Brad Miller .799 25 34 .735 -.064  Gary Payton .752 22 32 .688 -.064  Jason Kidd .796 40 55 .727 -.069  Jalen Rose .820 24 32 .750 -.070  Stephon Marbury .809 42 57 .737 -.072  LeBron James .750 42 63 .667 -.083  Ray Allen .898 26 32 .813 -.085  Eddie Jones .811 31 43 .721 -.090  Andrei Kirilenko .754 27 41 .659 -.095  Richard Jefferson .792 24 35 .686 -.106  Michael Finley .848 23 31 .742 -.106  Jamal Crawford .841 30 41 .732 -.109  Bobby Simmons .843 22 30 .733 -.110  Kirk Hinrich .810 27 39 .692 -.118  Paul Pierce .813 89 129 .690 -.123  Tyronn Lue .833 21 30 .700 -.133  Yao Ming .812 31 46 .674 -.138  Jason Terry .836 30 43 .698 -.138  Lamar Odom .717 20 35 .571 -.146  Jermaine O'Neal .743 18 33 .545 -.198

On the surface it would appear that the league as a whole shoots better in the clutch, but there's a catch! The better shooters take more free throws in the last two minutes as teams keep the ball out of the hands of their charity stripe brick layers... By comparing the attempts for each player to their non-clutch FT percentage, we can calculate how many clutch free throws they should have made, and by this measure the league should have shot .776 instead of the .753 so in actuality players shoot -2.3% worse in clutch circumstances. Of course that's the league average, and Sam Cassell stands out as a shining example of a player who has been absolute "money" in these moments from the line, with a sensational .955 As for Shaq, the good news is yes he does shoot better in the clutch, the bad news is not by much and he has only raised his accuracy to .500 -- make them when it counts indeed! Ironically Chris Webber who is remembered for some perceived "choking" in that crucial series of Kings-Lakers shows up as improving under pressure, but of course we're only looking at 03-04 on so omitting some important prior history! This of course speaks to the fact that even with the more liberal two minute filter, sample size is very much an issue. The worst shooter under pressure in terms of a drop-off from regular non-clutch shooting is Jermaine O'Neal. Maybe the 05-06 post-season will be a different story. Indeed, clutch playoff shooting shows some extra drama -- doing the same exercise of calculating how many clutch FT's each player should have made based on their non-clutch playoff shooting, it turns out the league should have shot .776 but hit only .642!! That's a huge -13.6% change under pressure! Gut checks in the playoffs are real. Another random look we should do is the home/away Clutch FT shooting to see if "extra measures" taken by the fans to rattle visitors are paying off!

Now of course, using a 'delta' (difference between non-clutch and clutch shooting) means players who shoot extremely well in the regular parts of games have little chance to improve in the super meaningful moments, and if you prefer a straight FT% then your leaderboard looks like this (relaxed to 20 Clutch FTA minimum) --

.955 Cassell
.955 Okur
.952 P.J. Brown
.923 Nash
.917 Stojakovic
.914 Maggette
.900 Redd
.886 Mobley
.880 Fisher
.872 Billups
...
...
.571 Odom
.571 Sprewell
.545 Jermaine O'Neal
.522 Ben Wallace
.500 Shaquille O'Neal

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