Teams playing the most (and least) "ethical basketball"
I wanted to see which teams are relying the most and least on free throws to get their points this season. Using FTM/total points as the metric, I determined what teams are truly playing "ethical basketball":
- Bulls - 12.35% pts from FTs (18.2 FTA/game)
- Warriors - 12.8% (19.9 FTA/game)
- Cavs - 13.46% (21.1 FTA/game)
- Thunder - 13.54% (19.1 FTA/game)
- Pistons - 13.73% (19.9 FTA/game)
Here are the teams getting the highest percentage of their points from the line this season:
- Sixers - 17.53% pts from FTs (23.7 FTA/game)
- Magic - 16.95% (22.9 FTA/game)
- Lakers - 16.45% (23.4 FTA/game)
- Jazz - 16.09% (22.7 FTA/game)
- Heat - 15.82% (22.3 FTA/game)
Also noteworthy is that the Grizzlies are getting to the line the most this season (24.4 FTA/game) but since they're also averaging the most points it kind of cancelled out.
One other interesting stat is the Bulls are averaging the least FTA this season, but are still averaging the 4th most PPG (they're tied with the Celtics!).
Here's the link to the full list. The percentages/rankings are in reverse order (Bulls first) since I was looking for the most "ethical" teams.
Source: https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/traditional?PerMode=PerGame&dir=A&sort=PTS