Immanuel Quickley was an absolute steal for the Knicks in the first round of the 2020 NBA Draft, and the young shooting guard is already starting to set records.
This time, it’s his historic free-throw shooting that’s catching some eyes.
Quickley has now hit 94 of his first 100 free throws that rate, 94%, has never before been done in a player’s first 100 free throws. That’s a mightily impress percentage for a rookie, and one that should hold up for quite a while.
That stat was given to us by Elias Sports who the Knicks cited on Twitter.
Making history rather quickly. (via @EliasSports) pic.twitter.com/lMzQPQPSJ5
— NEW YORK KNICKS (@nyknicks) March 1, 2021
Quickley averages 3.2 free throws per game and makes 3.0 of them.
In the four games in which the rookie has shot his most free throw attempts, he’s yet to miss going 33-for-33 from the line and an insane 12-for-12 against the Sacramento Kings in a 19-point victory.
We knew that Quickley was capable of this type of efficient shooting though as he hit over 92 percent of his attempts at the collegiate level. At Kentucky, Quickley was 144-for-156 from the free throw line.
Just to put his terrific shooting into perspective, let’s just look at Stephen Curry, who is one of the best free throw shooters in league history and was at just over 87 percent through his first 50 games in the NBA.
The Knicks are 18-17, and it’s, in part, because they’ve had solid effort from their second unit. Quickley has been an important aspect of how their bench has scored, and it’s been able to win the Knicks some games.