I recently went down a Wikipedia rabbit hole that led me to Chris Dudley. I won’t bore you with the details about how I got to that point, but I was reminded about Dudley’s unique career and thought it might make for an interesting post.
Dudley was a journeyman center who put together a 16-season, 886-game career playing for five franchises: Cleveland Cavaliers, New Jersey Nets, Portland Trail Blazers, New York Knicks, and Phoenix Suns. An all-defense/no-offense type of player, Dudley owns the lowest career scoring average in NBA history among players with at least 800 games played (3.9 PPG).
As some of you may already know, Dudley was a notoriously poor free throw shooter. There are numerous examples of this, but two games in particular stand out:
On January 29, 1989, Dudley missed five consecutive free throws on one trip to the line thanks to three lane violations by the Washington Bullets (it only counted as two misses, officially).
On April 14, 1990 versus the Indiana Pacers, Dudley set an NBA record by missing 13 consecutive free throws. He went 1-18 (5.6%) from the charity stripe for the game, the worst single-game free throw percentage in NBA history among players with at least 15 attempts.
In 1989-90, Dudley recorded a free throw percentage of just 31.9%, the lowest single-season free throw percentage in NBA history among players with at least 125 attempts:
31.9% — Chris Dudley, 1989-90
33.6% — Ben Wallace, 2000-01
35.5% — Andre Drummond, 2015-16
35.6% — Wallace, 1998-99
36.2% — Brendan Haywood, 2010-11
For his career, Dudley shot 45.8% from the free throw line, the second-worst rate in NBA history among players with at least 1,000 attempts:
41.4% — Ben Wallace
45.8% — Chris Dudley
47.5% — Andre Drummond
47.5% — DeAndre Jordan
51.1% — Wilt Chamberlain
Being a terrible free throw shooter is bad enough, but Dudley compounded that by being awful from the field as well. His career effective field goal percentage is 41.2%, a figure that’s poor on its own but even more atrocious when you consider he was a 6-foot-11-inch post player who presumably had a lot of scoring opportunities close to the rim.
In fact, since the 3-point shot was introduced in the 1979-80 season, no player with at least 3,000 field goal attempts has a lower career effective field goal percentage:
41.2% — Chris Dudley
41.4% — Brevin Knight
42.1% — Randy Brown
42.2% — Jerry Reynolds
42.3% — Anthony Carter
Putting it all together, Dudley’s career true shooting percentage is just 42.9%, the lowest such figure in the 3-point era among players with at least 400 games played:
42.9% — Chris Dudley
43.3% — Michael Ruffin
44.1% — Manute Bol
44.1% — DeSagana Diop
45.4% — Greg Kite
So how did one of the most inefficient scorers in NBA history manage to put together such a long career? There are two main reasons:
Dudley was an excellent rebounder. His career rebound percentage of 18.8% is the 19th-highest such figure since the NBA began tracking opponent statistics in 1970-71 (minimum 15,000 minutes played). In particular, Dudley was a tremendous offensive rebounder. His career offensive rebound percentage of 15.2% ranks seventh since the NBA began tracking offensive rebounds in 1973-74.
Dudley was an effective shot blocker. He’s one of 103 players to record at least 1,000 career blocks since the NBA began tracking the statistic in 1973-74, and his block percentage (blocks per 100 opponent 2-point attempts) ranks in the top half of that group.
Love this! Thanks.