Or, do you think that when he gets inside the arc he’s being fouled far more often, thus skewing the percentages of shots taken?

It will even out with a higher sample. He is known to be one of the streakiest players and has had these swings from shooting 20% to shooting 45% for a month from 3.

Also, one of the things that nobody takes into account is that Luka gets fouled on some of his 3 point attempts, which raises his effective percentage by quite a lot. If he shoots 10 shots with 35% and then gets fouled on 1 out of the 10 and scores 80% of the free throws the math would be (0.35*10) +(0.80*1)= 4.³⁄₁₁. This is already 39%. Of course, these are not real numbers, just food for thought because I really do believe that it is the case. And his 3 point threat opens up everything else.

My guess is he’s trying to pace himself and only taking the layups when they’re easy

Also missed layups are worse than other missed shots (they more often lead to fast breaks)

Luka dominates getting into short range, gets double, makes some 3pts, gets confident because he made some 3pts, spams the 3 like crazy missing most of them, starts assisting his teammates. I feel I’ve watched that Luka game a million times.

Those 0-3 stats likely means he’s only getting those on fast break layups and dunks which is why the first number is so low and the second so high, so it’s unlikely he can just add volume to that and continue to be super successful.

Race thing more of a factor in internet spaces like this. But irl ppl prefer Luka over Shai the same way they like Kobe over Duncan or Nash. Not to do with race but more highlights and marketability. Mainly I see SGA talked about here in a positive way bc of obscure stats that most ppl don’t care about, irl people just call him the foul merchant

I don’t think it’s racism. There are certainly other factors that I would say far outweigh any assumed racism. For one, Shai makes funny faces and does at times exaggerate contact. These moments and plays get clipped and make the rounds and become the reality of Shai to some people despite what the totality of his play/fouls are.

Think of it like this: Fox News markets inflammatory headlines as the reality of the world. Say there’s a violent crime in Portland. Fox News will have whole segments, not just about the event, but about how Portland is hell and this is one of many such crimes happening in the area all the time. Inflating a clip or story into a narrative that can only mean that Portland and places like Portland are cesspools of violence, when stats show that crime is actually down in a lot of areas. But when you bring that up to your regular Fox and Friends consumer, they SAW the clip and that’s all they needed to see to come to a definitive conclusion. It’s proof of the narrative so why the hell would I listen?

This is more or less what I think is happening with Shai (although, of course, conflated in a dumb way with things that actually matter). Now, are these events happening? Yes, there are. Are they happening near the frequency that some say? No, they really aren’t. But Shai did flop that one time against Deni Avdija, so who’s to say whether or not he did that the other 5 times he was fouled that led to FT’s? I mean, stats may say otherwise, but I SAW that play where he made the funny face! We just live in a highlight/headline focused consumer market, and those exaggeration of contact plays tend to get lots of attention. They ain’t going nowhere.

Jesus can your fanbase get any more pathetic

Yea Luka needs to average more FTs because he doesn’t have an elite defense to help him destroy his opponents

Luka shot more FTs than SGA(8.9 vs 8.8) last year as well, but SGA took 3.7 fewer 2pt FGs(10.4 vs 16.1), yet people were calling war crimes on SGA because he was an MVP candidate. Lets see if Jokic stans give the same treatment to Luka, or if that’s friendly fire for the Balkans. So far the Luka FT merchant talk is mild, but it’s only early December, still time for things to heat up and become toxic.

Players grifted for free throws when you were a kid too. Manu for example was the OG version of Harden who in turn lead to many of the modern free throw grifters. It’s all a evolution.

If you want 2000s basketball, you should love the Thunder lol

Prefer Luka by far. It’s not on this site where he gets most slack tho. Luka get a lot of critique here. But can say from personal experience Luka get a lot of fan hype irl, way more than Shai by far. Any folks I talk to irl mainly talk about SGA the foul merchant, with Luka it’s always about the lakers and his highlight plays. Ppl think Reddit like Luka more than SGA but if anything I think Reddit lean SGA more than rl do bc of nerd stats and stuff. Irl you see how big the gap in reception is, Luka damn near worshipped. Like Kobe and Duncan, Duncan more of an internet nerd favorite while Kobe the irl fav

good news! that’s the type of defense the thunder play. but people complain about that too somehow

Yea it does get skewed a bit. Sga right now fourth per fta/100 possessions.

Giannis =16.2

Luka = 15.8

Zion = 15.4

Sga = 14.4

Paulo = 13.4

Harden and AR = 12.4

Source : https://www.nbarapm.com/datasets/nba (this site has a bunch of other fun stats too actually)

Based on the same link you posted, Luka only gets 3.3 of his 12.4 FTA per game on drives. He drives a lot, but that’s not where his FTs come from. https://www.nba.com/stats/players/drives

If you took away every free throw attempt from his drives he’d still be top 5 in FTA, that’s kinda crazy lol

Every SGA one will blow up tho 😭

I think a lot of people consume games via clips they see on Twitter and reddit. There’s a weird hyper focus on SGAs foul baiting relative to other players in the league who do the same. Look at how often anything ref related with OKC gets posted and mass upvoted here. That leads to more people looking for it when they do actually watch games, which naturally leads to them noticing it more often than if they were just watching a game without an agenda in mind. This cycle constantly perpetuates itself until we reach the point where people are saying sga is “only good because of his foul baiting”, that OKC play a bad brand of basketball, that they’re making the product unwatchable, etc. It’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever come to witness in NBA discourse

Just give me ONE screenshot of Luka making an O while doing a ragdoll impression and I’m sold.