Commanding the Foul Shot: A New Ensemble of Free Throw Metrics
Jake McGrath, Amanda Glazer, Vanna Bushong, Michelle Nguyen, Kirk Goldsberry

TL;DR
This paper introduces a novel ensemble of free throw metrics, especially 'command', derived from high-resolution 3D tracking data, to better evaluate and predict NBA free throw success.
Contribution
It presents a new metric 'command' for assessing free throw quality, based on high-resolution tracking data, and links shot consistency to player skill and development.
Findings
Command predicts late-season success better than traditional metrics.
Players with consistent launch dynamics have higher command scores.
A physics model identifies robust launch conditions for successful free throws.
Abstract
With the NBA's adoption of in-game limb tracking in 2023, Sony's Hawk-Eye system now captures high-resolution, 3D poses of players and the ball 60 times per second. Linking these data to key events opens a new era in NBA analytics. Here, we leverage a large dataset of 21,964 shot attempts from 72 NBA players to introduce a novel ensemble of metrics for evaluating free-throw shooting. Inspired by baseball analytics, we introduce command, which quantifies the quality of a free throw by measuring a shooter's accuracy and precision near the basket's bullseye. This metric recognizes that some makes (or misses) are better than others and captures a player's ability to execute quality attempts consistently. We demonstrate that command captures underlying skill more effectively than traditional make-or-miss statistics; early-season command predicts late-season success more reliably than…
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