Timberwolves have made 66.1% of their free throws and host the 70.9% Bucks on Monday: what a bad first week at the line has meant since 2014-15

The Minnesota Timberwolves have made 113 of 171 free throws through seven games, 66.1%. The league average through Sunday’s 92 games is 77.6%, so Minnesota is 11.5 points below it, by far the lowest mark in the NBA.

On Monday the Timberwolves host the Milwaukee Bucks, who are second-lowest at 70.9%. Indiana is third at 72.5%. At the top, Oklahoma City has made 87.3% and Memphis 84.8%.

Free-throw shooting is one of the steadier numbers in basketball, but seven games is still a small sample, about 170 attempts for a typical team. To see how much a bad start at the line usually lasts, we went through the game logs of all 360 team-seasons from 2014-15 through 2025-26 and compared each team’s first seven games with the rest of its season.

The numbers that stand out

Minnesota’s 11.5-point gap to the league average would rank third-worst after seven games since 2014-15, behind only the 2015-16 Pistons (12.8 below) and the 2018-19 Kings (12.5 below)
At the league’s 77.6%, the Timberwolves would have made about 133 of their 171 free throws, roughly 20 more points over seven games, or 2.8 a game. Two of their three losses were by two and five points
Measured against each player’s own career rate before this season, Minnesota is about 13 points short. Rudy Gobert accounts for about 4 of them and Jonathan Kuminga for about 3
Since 2014-15, the correlation between a team’s free-throw percentage over its first seven games and the rest of its season, both measured against the league average, is 0.48. For three-point percentage over six games it was 0.21
The 29 teams that were seven or more points below the league average after seven games averaged 9.3 points below it. For the rest of those seasons, they averaged 2.9 points below it, and 25 of the 29 stayed below average
Seven of those 29 teams finished last in the league in free-throw percentage, and 12 finished in the bottom three

The best and worst free-throw teams so far

Team	Record	Free throws	Percentage	Vs. league average
Minnesota	4-3	113 of 171	66.1%	11.5 below
Milwaukee	1-5	95 of 134	70.9%	6.6 below
Indiana	2-5	137 of 189	72.5%	5.0 below
Portland	4-1	114 of 156	73.1%	4.5 below
Miami	2-4	110 of 150	73.3%	4.2 below
Washington	3-3	142 of 171	83.0%	5.5 above
Memphis	6-0	117 of 138	84.8%	7.2 above
Oklahoma City	4-2	103 of 118	87.3%	9.8 above

Regular season through Sunday’s games. League average 77.6%.

What seven games at the line have meant

For each team-season, we measured free-throw percentage against that season’s league average, which has risen from 75.0% in 2014-15 to 78.3% last season. Then we compared the first seven games with everything after them. A correlation of 1 would mean the first seven games predicted the rest perfectly; 0 would mean they predicted nothing.

The answer for free throws is 0.48, about the same as for turnovers (0.52) and offensive rebounds, and well above three-point shooting. In plain terms, a team’s start at the line is partly a real skill and partly noise. A simple fit through the 360 seasons suggests a team 11.5 points below the league after seven games should expect to finish the rest of the season about 3 points below it. For Minnesota that would mean roughly 74.6%, which would have ranked second-lowest in the league in each of the last three seasons.

The worst seven-game starts since 2014-15

Team	First seven games	Rest of the season	Final record
2015-16 Pistons	62.9%, 12.8 below the league	67.1%, 8.5 below	44-38
2018-19 Kings	64.2%, 12.5 below	73.5%, 3.2 below	39-43
2015-16 Trail Blazers	64.2%, 11.4 below	76.4%, 0.7 above	44-38
2021-22 Spurs	66.4%, 11.1 below	76.1%, 1.4 below	34-48
2021-22 Nuggets	67.0%, 10.4 below	80.3%, 2.8 above	48-34
2019-20 Knicks	66.8%, 10.4 below	69.8%, 7.5 below	21-45
2014-15 76ers	64.7%, 10.4 below	67.9%, 7.2 below	18-64
2022-23 Grizzlies	68.1%, 10.0 below	73.8%, 4.4 below	51-31

Regular season only. 2019-20 season shortened.

The list splits into two kinds of teams. The 2015-16 Pistons, built around Andre Drummond, the 2014-15 76ers and the 2019-20 Knicks stayed near the bottom all season, because their rotations were full of poor free-throw shooters. The 2015-16 Trail Blazers and 2021-22 Nuggets had good shooters who started cold, and both finished above the league average the rest of the way.

Bad free-throw shooting did not decide those seasons. The 2015-16 Pistons shot 66.8% for the season and still made the playoffs, and the 2022-23 Grizzlies won 51 games.

Minnesota: mostly a cold start

The Timberwolves’ problem looks more like the Blazers and Nuggets than the Pistons. Ten of their players have free-throw history before this season. On their 163 attempts this season, their career rates add up to about 75.1%, close to the league average. They have made 109, or 66.9%.

Player	This season	Career before this season	Points short of career rate
Rudy Gobert	14 of 29, 48.3%	63.3%	4.4
Jonathan Kuminga	11 of 20, 55.0%	69.9%	3.0
Terrence Shannon Jr.	21 of 29, 72.4%	80.2%	2.3
Trey Lyles	6 of 11, 54.5%	74.1%	2.2
LaMelo Ball	11 of 15, 73.3%	84.7%	1.7
Anthony Edwards	15 of 20, 75.0%	80.2%	1.0
Joan Beringer	10 of 14, 71.4%	70.3%	0.2 above
Ayo Dosunmu	9 of 11, 81.8%	80.4%	0.2 above

Career rates from Basketball-Reference, excluding this season. This season’s numbers through Sunday.

Gobert is a career 63.3% free-throw shooter, so some of Minnesota’s gap was always going to be there. But Kuminga, Lyles, Shannon and Ball are all well below their usual rates, and Edwards has played only four of the seven games. Last season the Timberwolves shot 75.2%, and the season before 78.9%.

Even with the misses, Minnesota has outscored opponents by 11.3 points a game, fourth-best in the league. The cost has shown up in close games. The Timberwolves went 14 of 23 at the line in a two-point loss to Cleveland and 19 of 27 in a five-point loss to Golden State. In Saturday’s 121-111 loss in San Antonio they made 22 of 26, their best night of the season.

THROW IT DOWN, JOAN. pic.twitter.com/6KRWn9S8TW
— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) November 1, 2026

Milwaukee and Indiana

The Bucks are a similar case. Tyler Herro, an 87.8% career free-throw shooter before this season, is 15 of 21, and Jaime Jaquez Jr., a 77.9% career shooter, is 16 of 23. At 1-5, Milwaukee cannot afford the misses, but the history says most of them should even out.

At the other end, the 27 teams that were six or more points above the league average after seven games stayed above it in 25 cases, but by 2.3 points on average rather than 7.8. Oklahoma City at 87.3% is likely to come back toward the pack too, though the Thunder have finished in the top six at the line in each of the last four seasons.

What’s next

Milwaukee plays at Minnesota on Monday at 8 p.m. ET, 3 a.m. Tuesday in Cairo, the two lowest free-throw percentages in the league on the same floor. Atlanta plays at Indiana at 7:30 p.m. ET, and Oklahoma City plays at Cleveland at 7 p.m. ET, 2 a.m. Tuesday in Cairo.