22
Jun
By the Numbers
Norman Taylor still owns the NBL's best shooting career
Illawarra Hawks star Norman Taylor was an elite finisher between 1989 and 1991. Photo: NBL.com.au
Dean Uthoff remains the only NBL player to shoot 60% on more than 500 field goals in league history
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Norman Taylor is the most accurate shooter in NBL history, and it is not close.
Across three seasons with the Illawarra Hawks between 1989 and 1991, Taylor made 746 of his 1,144 field goal attempts. That is 65.2 per cent, and it puts him 2.3 percentage points clear of the next player on the list.
What makes it hold up is the volume. Taylor took 17.1 shots a game, more than anyone else in the top 15. This is not a specialist finishing at a high rate on four attempts a night. He is the most accurate player in the list and the most heavily tested one at the same time.
Dean Uthoff ranks sixth on 60.3 per cent, and the raw numbers underneath him are the biggest here by a distance. He made 1,596 field goals from 2,645 attempts across 260 games between 1983 and 1996, and nobody else in the top 15 has taken as many shots or made as many.
The surprise is how modern the rest of the list is. Eight of the fifteen began their NBL careers in 2015 or later, led by Marcus Lee in second on 62.9 per cent, Matthew Hodgson third on 61.3 and Tyrell Harrison fourth on 60.9. Isaac Humphries is seventh and Xavier Cooks fifteenth.
Andrew Bogut is 10th on 57.8 per cent, from 61 games across 2018-19 and 2019-20. It is the shortest career in the top 15 and it still clears the bar.
At the other end, Warrick Giddey played 421 games, more than six times Taylor's total, and finished eleventh on the same 57.8 per cent. He did it on 2.6 attempts a game, which is the other way to build a shooting percentage and the reason the volume column is published beside it.
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