Shai Gilgeous-Alexander earns a lot of free throws. That's by design, and he's not sorry

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander knows the label.“Foul merchant” has become one of the NBA’s 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.But getting to the free-throw line has long been the lifeblood of great scorers. The top-10 scorers in NBA history — LeBron James, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Michael Jordan, Dirk Nowitzki, Wilt Chamberlain, James Harden and Shaquille O’Neal — collectively averaged just under 8.0 free-throw attempts per game over the course of their NBA careers. It’s rare for a championship team not to have a player who gets at least 5.0 free-throw attempts per game.Advertisement