More On Free Throws: You Kinda Wanna Make Them, Too!

Good, interesting post over at Blog-a-Bull on the Bulls' giant free throw discrepancy.

The always-estimable sbulls makes the scene in the Comments, pointing out that, out of the four main factors of winning, FTs are the least important, behind effective FG%, turnovers, and rebounding (all of which, he notes, the Bulls have also boofed the pooch on thus far this year). In other words, shooting matters most.

There's a way to join these two camps together, however, with the observation that it's not only that the Bulls haven't been able to get to the line very much--or keep their opponent from getting there a shitload---but also that on the rare times they do manage to get there, everyone--with the exception of Gordon (and, less importantly, Joe Smith)--has been shooting like utter shite. Nocioni is shooting .667 from the line, Deng .625, Hinirich only .500 (!!!) and Tyrus, after a decent pre-season, has been with chilling with Wallace at .375. It's important to remember that, oustide of Wallace, the Bulls are really good at making FTs, seventh in FT% league-wide last year if Wallace is excluded. (To get a sense of just how bad Big Ben is, they were 23rd overall when he was included.)

So if you're looking for more reasons to be reassured that what we've seen from the Bulls this year is somewhat anomalous, keep in mind that it's pretty unlikely that Noce will continue to shoot 19 percentage points under his FT% from last year, much less that he'll do so along with Deng shooting 15 percentage points under his, Kirk 33.5 points under his and Tyrus 22 points under his.