Sunday, March 29, 2009

Are the Magic bad at free throws?

So I was listening to Colin Cowherd's radio show (not usually a huge fan) on ESPN Radio and he brought up an interesting argument. A team that shoots poorly from the foul line can be a good team, but a team that is dead last in the league in free throw shooting cannot win the title.

That is where the Magic sit right now. And they did not exactly help themselves last night against Milwaukee.

Generally, you can say Orlando's poor free throw shooting can be blamed on Dwight Howard. Sorry, big guy but your 60 percent free throw shooting is not exactly stellar. Plus he takes 38 percent (as of Friday's game) of the Magic's free throw attempts in leading the league in attempts.

So is Orlando really that bad from the foul stripe? It seems like every game Hedo Turkoglu is missing free throws or Jameer Nelson is clanking them for no reason. Those guys should be good free throws.

Take out Dwight's 449-out-747 shooting (through Wednesday's game) and Orlando is a whopping: 964 out of 1208. That is a sterling 79.8 percent shooting.

Where does that put the Magic in the league? Try eighth.

Howard is a pretty clear outlier (fancy stat word for odd number that drags down the average). But it still seems like the team misses far more free throws than they should.

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