I know a guy that’s been working out Russ since he was at UCLA. His theory is also the finger injuries.

I think this also why he bricks a lot of layups nowadays. His touch is gone from all those finger injuries.

Except free throws are largely mental. He probably still shoots 90+ in practice. It’s the routine.

He used to go back across halfcourt between fts or something like that, i believe.

the ten second change and preventing free throw shooters from leaving the circle between shots

to be fair making free throws is also very much dependent on habit so any player would probably drop in percentage in his place

I did something weird to my thumb ~13 years ago when I dunked a basketball. To this day, if I hit my hand on a solid surface and it hits this one part of my thumb just right, it sends some sort of shock through a nerve from the outside of my hand (even though that’s the opposite of my hand from my thumb), up along my forearm, up to my elbow, and then that part of my hand/arm just goes numb for the next 5 minutes or so. It’s very odd

I did and it made me understand why guys would either opt for soft dunks, lay-ins or tip-ins as opposed to dunking everything even if no one else was around.

Guys who dunk a lot at the NBA level probably have built up a tolerance to it, at least to a certain extent

Yep. I used to have welts on my wrists all the time back in the day. Never injured anything, but easy to see how that could happen.

gerald green had half a finger ripped off due to a dunk attempt. still better shooter then russ. no excuses!! maybe a better dunker too? debatable

CMB stresses me tf out because he was dunking so hard with his injured thumb last season and kept re-injuring it. I love the enthusiasm but FFS maybe dunk it softer? Lol

What is this salt lmao

Theres 30k+ screaming fans, flashing lights, cameras going off, announcers in the background, etc etc…

I once gave a speech to 150 people and I felt like passing out at first lol

Why do you think NBA players have a routine?Changing your routine has a huge impact when hitting free throws is so much of a mental game.

Reddit has been using that rule change as an excuse for his free throw shooting for years lol it’s so dumb

If that was the case, his percentages for first fts vs second fts would be all out of whack. And it’s been long enough that he would have adjusted eventually.

I agree.

I’ve heard it before, and it’s laughable. The idea that a grown ass man who’s getting paid tens of millions of dollars to play basketball would suddenly crap the bed on a basic aspect of the sport just because there was a minor rule change that meant he had to alter his routine.

Bros got nothing better to do but argue over Russ’ FT

So every athlete that has a routine isn’t a pro? You sound like someone that never played sports.

He was never that good a finisher on layups.

I think better example is Gene Shue, went from career 82ish% FT shooter to 64ish% FT shooter in last 2 years.

Duncan was always streaky as hell at the line, it’s the one thing he was never consistent at. You look at all his stats on a per game/per 36mins/per 100 poss and they remain consistent throughout his career but his FT% was jumping all over the place.

The stats do not show that he dropped off at midrange and 3 point. In fact he had his best shooting seasons (not that they were great) later in his career after his FT% dropped off.

But it didn’t affect those things, looks at his shooting numbers.

Westbrook has never had a good 3pt shot lol

His pull-up midrange was a thing of beauty and so difficult to stop because him driving all the way to the basket for a dunk was always a threat. Injuries for sure played a part.

But he is wrong. There was a post on his percentage for the first FT (which isn’t affected by the rule) and the rule doesn’t explain the drop.

westbrook the poster child for getting by off athleticism. i mean your teammates with kd and harden. they had to have a crazy shooting practice. didnt seem like westbrook was that dedicated tbh but thats just a guess

His layup fundamentals were horrible, always jumping off the wrong foot and trying to finish through traffic

Also this is pedantic but md-50s in layups was actually okay up until the the offensive explosion in the mid-10s where the spacing gave everybody way clearer paths to the basket. From 97 (first tracking year) through like 2017 the league average % for shots 0-3 feet, layups AND dunks included, was always in the 60-63% range so layups themselves were probably in the mid 50s on average usually.

Yips is an immediate drop

He went from mid low 80s to mid 70s then to 60s then back up to mid 70s

Correlates strongly with surgeries and when the NBA changed the free throw rules not allowing him to go to half court for his routine

Probably always. It’s not like his free throw percentage dropped to Shaq levels where you don’t even want him taking them.

Went from .426 FTr in 2015-17 to just .322 in 2018 & 2019 tbf. 

The year to year decline from 2017 to 2018 was pretty stark

Yea it’s gonna be one of those things where people pretend because he shot it a bunch that it was actually an effective shot

Is that not literally what the post is about? After refs quit calling touch fouls westbrick sank. And then he got the contract and became too lazy to even flop. He just wanted to have “fun”.