The 6th Congress of Exercise and Sport Sciences

A Five-Decade Analysis (1969-2019) of Free-Throw Shots in the NBA – Observations and Trends

Ronnie Lidor 1 Elia Morgulev 1,2,3 Ron Kenett 4 Michal Arnon 1 David Ben-Sira 1
1The Academic College at Wingate, Netanya, Israel
2Kaye Academic College of Education, Be'er-Sheva, Israel
3Department of Business Administration, Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Be'er-Sheva, Israel
4The Samuel Neaman Institute, Technion, Haifa, Israel

Describing, understanding, and predicting improvement of athletic performance are pivotal aspects of sport sciences. Longitudinal trends of achievements of elite performers, mainly in endurance (e.g., cycling, running, skiing, swimming) and explosive power sports (e.g., jumping, throwing, weightlifting), were examined in a series of studies. One of the observations of these studies was the significant improvement in performance in the above-mentioned sports, mainly during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. In addition, a number of task-enhancement exogenous interventions that can account for the observed trends were discussed, among them the use of performance enhancing drugs. The current study contributes to this line of research by examining the rate of improvement in free throw (FT) shots performed by National Basketball Association (NBA) players in a four-decade period – 1969-2019. As opposed to analyzed power and endurance sporting events, the FT shot is a fine, closed, and self-paced motor task performed under a stable and predictable environment. Based on an analysis of more than 2.7 million FT shots performed by NBA players, we found that from 1969 to 2019, the FT shooting accuracy fluctuated around 75%, but did not show any steady trend of improvement. We discuss this finding from a skill acquisition perspective.

Ronnie Lidor
Ronnie Lidor
President of the Academic College at Wingate
The Academic College at Wingate, Israel








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