NBA 2K14: Free Throw Ratings - iTofu's Blog

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NBA 2K14: Free Throw Ratings

Posted on July 13, 2014 at 01:09 PM.

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This is a post in a series of blog posts describing the process of player modifications, ratings changes or signature skill changes that went into my PS4 NBA 2K14 Offseason Update Roster.

I will be honest and say I didn't spend any time graphing out Free Throw. 2K simply uses the free throw percentage directly as the rating. For instance, LeBron James shot 75.3% in 2012-13 and 75.0% in 2013-14, thus his rating is 75.

2K appears to have followed this formula to a fault, even in extenuating circumstances such as small sample sizes, such as Chris Duhon has a free throw of 46 because he went 6/13 in 2012-13, despite being 78.4% free throw shooter lifetime over 754 free throws.

Perhaps the funniest free throw rating of all is Darius Miller. Darius was an 81.4% free throw shooter in college. In his rookie year, 2012-13, he was 8 for 8 from the line, thus in NBA 2K14 his free throw rating was 99! In 2013-14 his free throw rating came back down to earth, shooting 29 of 36 for 80.6% percent, however Darius Miller's free throw rating was left at 99 without update.

Similar to my other ratings changes, I generally used 2 parts 2013-14 and 1 part 2012-13, then took that percentage and directly made it into the free throw rating. I felt that was a good way to temper the results if this season or last season was an outlying year without weighting 2012-13 too much. In addition, if a player performs better in the playoffs, I added the playoff statistics. I say, generally, because I did make exceptions for players with unique situations, such as the previously mentioned Darius Miller. In those cases, I would use larger sample sizes in terms of years or even dip into previous experience in college or Euro League.

Note: I did make one error, upon further inspection it appears 2K does not round up at .5 (i.e. 75.5% is 75 not 76) and I did. Given that it's not a serious error, I've decided to leave it for the time being, I may go back and change it if I update another attribute, such as passing, in the future.