Josh Smith: 53%, D. Howard: 44%, Rondo 64.5%

[badshar]

I play basketball on a team (as I am sure others here do too) and yes, it does work that way. There is no invisible wall holding anyone back from being a good shooter. Its about knowing the basic fundamentals of shooting and then practicing, a lot.

As for miracle, you obviously didn't follow Derrick Rose's shooting. Rondo was making far more jump-shots last year before he got injured than he was the year before.

Derrick Rose has always shot free throws at league average or better rate. Maybe you're a little young? These are grown men. Rondo has never shot better than 64.7% of his free throws. That's not good enough for an elite point guard.

http://www.nba.com/playerfile/rajon_rondo/career_stats.html

Your free throws affect your field goals and vice versa. Rose dramatically improved his jump shot over the off-season, which has helped him in his free throws too.

Rondo showed signs of improvement last year and its not right to judge his progress based on the games he played, which were less than half the season.

How does "little young" have anything to do with discussion. No, I am not talking about simple recball, I am talking about school teams and I am in college. Pierce shot his career best FG% 1 or 2 years ago, but according to your logic, that isn't possible because he shot a certain number for most of his career and then elevated it one season.

Its about how much work Rondo puts in his shooting, not some miracle.

[BballTim]

All the Howard/Smith threaders too scared to post ITT. It's true. They can't play together.

44.4% for Howard! "Howard with the bucket and, well, at least everyone can stop jogging for a second."

  They could play together and they'd be pretty successful. Unfortunately it's not going to happen.

Amazing counterpoint. What analysis!

  Based on your original post I didn't want to overwhelm you.

LOL at having literally no response but some dumb attack.

  Respond to what? You listed the free throw percentages for 3 players. That was probably correct. You stated they can't play together, that was wrong.

[byennie]

Clearly that team would have some free throw issues, but it's worth at least noting:

Smith is 65% for his career, Howard is 58%. They may not improve, but there is certainly precedent for returning to your career average. Those numbers aren't good, but they aren't awful for two big men.  Getting the opponent in foul trouble consistently helps, too. There's a reason why Shaq's career wasn't derailed by FT shooting. Those guys more than make up for missing 10% more free throws on the defensive end.

This is not to say I particularly want to pay the max for either of them, but I think we would manage the free throw issue. We could easily have 3 or 4 guys in the rotation shooting 80%+ from the line and reap the other benefits of our big man talent.

[BballTim]

I am too scared to post in this thread...oh wait, I just posted.

Almost everyone who wants Dwight/Josh/Rondo together agrees that we would need a lot of good shooters on the team (which there are many of).

So calm down.

By the way, nobody is scared and that is an awful pitch line to get someone's interest.

I'm sure those "shooters" will be so helpful when literally three of the five players on the floor can be fouled at will to screw up the possession. I'm sure it will be really helpful at the end of games when 70% of your salary cap is on the bench with the game on the line.

  Why can the three players be fouled to screw up the possession? Rondo and Smith are both better than 60% career free throw shooters. No team in the history of the league has scored that efficiently when they were shooting from the field and not from the line.

  It's like all of the posts that I've seen talking about Rondo's free throw shooting being a huge liability because teams will just employ a hack-a-Rondo game plan, even though we've never really seen it in his career. It's because, if you understand the math, it's more effective to let the team shoot.