Fatigue and Free Throw Shooting Ability in the NBA

We attempt to analyze the effect of fatigue on free throw efficiency in the National Basketball Association (NBA) using play-by-play data from regular-season, regulation-length games in the 2016-2017, 2017-2018, and 2018-2019 seasons. Using both regression and tree-based statistical methods, we analyze the relationship between minutes played total and minutes played continuously at the time of free throw attempts on players' odds of making an attempt, while controlling for prior free throw shooting ability, longer-term fatigue, and other game factors. Our results offer strong evidence that short-term activity after periods of inactivity positively affects free throw efficiency, while longer-term fatigue has no effect.