Shai Gilgeous-Alexander knows the label.<\/p>\n
\u201cFoul merchant\u201d has become one of the NBA\u2019s most common terms in the 2020s. It is used to describe a player who generates a high number of free throws, especially in ways that draw the ire of fans.<\/p>\n
But getting to the free-throw line has long been the lifeblood of great scorers. The top-10 scorers in NBA history \u2014 LeBron James, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Michael Jordan, Dirk Nowitzki, Wilt Chamberlain, James Harden and Shaquille O\u2019Neal \u2014 collectively averaged just under 8.0 free-throw attempts per game over the course of their NBA careers. It\u2019s rare for a championship team not to have a player who gets at least 5.0 free-throw attempts per game.<\/p>\n
Gilgeous-Alexander is in that club. The Oklahoma City Thunder star is one of 45 players in NBA history to have a season of at least 10 free-throw attempts per game (10.9 in 2022-23). This season, Gilgeous-Alexander, who averaged 31.1 points per game, attempted 9.0 free throws per game, fourth in the league behind league-leading scorer Luka Don\u010di\u0107 of the Los Angeles Lakers (10.1), Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks (9.9) and Deni Avdija of the Portland Trail Blazers (9.2).<\/p>\n
Gilgeous-Alexander hears the noise about his game. But it\u2019s not going to change the way the reigning NBA MVP plays.<\/p>\n
\ud83d\udcac \u201cWhatever it takes to be the best, is whatever I am trying to go out there and do. Free throws is part of the game. And if I get fouled, I get fouled. If I don\u2019t get fouled, try and make the shot. That\u2019s how you play basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shai Gilgeous-Alexander knows the label. \u201cFoul merchant\u201d has become one of the NBA\u2019s most common terms in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-654887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}