Is Big Mitch finally making progress on his biggest weakness?
No basketball player is perfect.
Every player has an inherent weakness. Some are physical, some are mental, and some are simply in their play.
Even some of the greatest to ever play the game weren’t without their flaws.
Michael Jordan wasn’t a great 3-point shooter, shooting just 32.7% for his career (albeit in an era that didn’t require much of it).
Stephen Curry isn’t a good defender as a small point guard who’s always been an offensive-focused dynamo.
LeBron James has had 10 different coaches in his 22 seasons, with his influence and prestige often transcending the team. Where do you think “LeGM” came from?
Wilt Chamberlain was literally unstoppable in his era… unless you put him at the free-throw line.
We’re well aware of the shortcomings of the guys on our own roster. Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns are mediocre at best on defense, OG Anunoby can’t create his own shot consistently, and Josh Hart is extremely inconsistent from 3.
Mitchell Robinson is a player that has a lot of perceived flaws. He can’t shoot, he isn’t a playmaker, he can’t stay healthy.
However, some of his flaws are ignored because they just aren’t relevant.
Mitchell Robinson hasn’t attempted a shot outside of ten feet in 27 months. He’s the only player to play more than 7,000 minutes over the past 15 years without a single three-point attempt. Nobody cares that he can’t shoot.
Centers are rarely asked to distribute in general, and health is out of his control.
However, there is one flaw in Robinson’s game that is eternally relevant and has haunted him his entire career. In that regard, he’s similar to one of the greatest to ever play the game.
Like Wilt, he can’t make free throws.
As a rookie, a 20-year-old Robinson got to the line more than he does now. Despite playing just 20 minutes a game due to erratic foul trouble, his per-36 FTA was as high as it ever got. That year, he shot an even 60% from the line.
That’s not very good. Out of 199 players with at least 100 attempts, he was 192nd. The jarring thing is, that remains his career high from the stripe.
In 2019-20, Robinson set an NBA record by shooting 74.2% from the field on a diet of layups and dunks, but his FT% dipped to a paltry 56.8%.
As the years have progressed, it has slowly collapsed. Somehow, someway, his FT% has gone down every year. It dipped below 50% in 2020-21 and cratered to an impossibly low 40.9% last season.
Only eleven players have shot as badly with as many attempts in a season over the past 10 years. A group of Bismack Biyombo, Andre Drummond, DeAndre Jordan, and… Rajon Rondo(?) are in that group. This is not good company.
What the hell happened?
I can’t find a clip from Robinson’s rookie year, but I found clips starting in October 2019. It has a lot to do with the arc.
All three of the free throws in this clip have a much higher arc than he has right now, which we’ll get to later. Remember, he shot 56.8% that season.
Slowly but surely, the arc starts to drop on his shots.
As of January 2021, Robinson still had a solid arc on his shot. Despite that, his FT% dipped over seven percentage points.
By the start of the following season, it continues to get lower.
The issue with a lower-arched shot is that the margin for error is extremely slim. A higher arc shot can still go in if you’re a bit off. Being slightly off on a lower-arched shot can lead to shots like this:
A clank off the front rim not only has zero chance of going in, but a near-zero chance of getting an offensive rebound. It is quite literally the worst outcome.
His woes at the line got so bad that teams started to negate his late-game defense by simply forcing him out of the game, taking a page out of early 2000s teams trying to stop Shaquille O’Neal by performing the Hack-A-Robinson.
Fortunately, it appears he locks in when slighted, as he’s visibly better from the line when teams intentionally foul him.
In one of Robinson’s first games back this season, the tanking San Antonio Spurs removed Robinson from the game by forcing him to the line repeatedly once they hit the bonus. This allowed them to exploit the mediocre defense of Karl-Anthony Towns to feed the red-hot Sandro Mamukelashvili and quell the Knicks’ comeback.
However, it looks like Big Mitch might finally be turning a corner.
In his second start of the season on Tuesday against the Sixers, Robinson went 4-for-4 from the line. It’s just the sixth time in his career he’s shot four or more FTs in a game and made all of them, and the first one since March 8, 2020.
I’m not gonna go into the mechanics, but Robinson appears to be beginning to make this work. After his best free-throw shooting night in five years, Robinson is up to 73.3% from the line (11-for-15) on the season.
It’s the first time he’s shot that well from the line in any 15-shot stretch since December 2022.
It’s the cruelest irony in basketball. Despite their shot diet drawing the most contact, centers are historically mediocre from the line. I’m not asking him to be Courtney Lee out there, but if he can shoot 65%, it removes the Hack-A-Robinson from late-game scenarios.
If the Knicks have any chance of making noise in the playoffs, they’ll need Robinson’s defense late in games.
If he can’t make free throws, he won’t be playing in the fourth quarter. Fortunately, it does seem a corner is being turned:
Mitchell Robinson on X: pic.twitter.com/IHobodIL0m
— New York Basketball (@NBA_NewYork) April 2, 2025
Although we’ve only seen the pair record 40 minutes together, I truly believe the best Knicks lineup contains both Robinson and Towns. With Robinson clearly ready for 20+ minutes, we should see that lineup increasingly more.
The only way that we can successfully unlock this come playoff time is by removing the Hack-A-Robinson.
Let’s hope this is the beginning of a new era for Big Mitch.