Thunder Top 10 in Free Throw Percentage, Carried by SGA's Jump

Oklahoma City is shooting free throws at the ninth best clip in the league, but outside of SGA the attempts are limited.

Oklahoma City has found themselves in the top-10 in the league of multiple statistical categories.

Perhaps one of the more important is from the free throw line. Oklahoma City continues to show they can hang with the best teams in the league. This season the Thunder have posted a 79.4% mark from the stripe.

The mark is up nearly 4% from 2021, showing yet another offensive improvement the team has made over the course of the year.

Like in most offensive categories, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander leads the Thunder in free throw percentage this season. SGA has always been a consistent free throw shooter in his career, posting around 80% each season of his career.

This year he’s not the same. He’s broken the mold. He’s increased his free throw shooting 10.6% from a year ago and is currently shooting 90.6% from the charity stripe. He is also getting to the free throw line at the fastest rate on the team with more than 10 attempts per game.

The Thunder may be in the top 10 of overall free throw shooting, but is heavily carried by SGA with the second most attempts coming from Lu Dort with 3.4 per game at a 76.1% clip. Only three total OKC players are attempting two or more free throws per game on average.

OKC has shown clear improvement over the course of the season, and ranks highly from the line, but is heavily carried from the success of SGA. OKC’s offense continues to improve outside of just free throws, but with more chances at the line could help propel the team in close games and take pressure off of the shoulders of SGA. 

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