Elena Delle Donne won this season's WNBA MVP Award. She averaged 23.4 points, 8.4 rebounds and 2.0 blocks in her third professional season.
The Chicago Sky star also beat every NBA player from the 2014-15 season in one category.
"That's impossible, Jeffrey!" Please hold on one second. I promise you she did.
Delle Donne made 207 of 218 free throws this season. That is good for 95 percent.. As The Wall Street Journal's Tom Perrotta points out, only three NBA players -- Calvin Murphy, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf and Ray Allen -- have ever shot 95 percent from the foul line on more than 200 attempts in one season. Jose Calderon has the NBA single-season record at 98.1 percent in 2008-09, but he only had 154 attempts that season.
There is no defense on foul shots. Think about it. A free throw is a free throw is a free throw. Elena Delle Donne shoots the same foul shot as LeBron James. In the past 365 days, a woman was the best free throw shooter in the world who plays professional basketball.
"I actually just tell myself, 'It's going in.'" she says. "Every single time."
Sure, there are probably better free throw shooters out there. WSJ interviewed 80-year-old Ted St. Martin who made 5,221 consecutive free throws in seven-plus hours of shooting in 1996. But among professionals, Delle Donne is the monarch.
Her father, Ernie, connects her success with a careful childhood training campaign. She worked her way up basketball hoops as she grew up.
"When you look at most kids who are 6, 7, at the YMCA, they are on a 10-foot rim way too early," Ernie says.
At 12, Delle Donne made two free throws with 0.1 seconds left to tie a game in the national Amateur Athletic Union basketball championships. Her team went on to win the national girls title.
"In my mind nothing will be as bad as that," she says.
Keep in mind Delle Donne's success is not just a 2015 thing. She is a 93.9 percent free throw shooter in her WNBA career (448-477). In the NBA, the highest free throw percentage for a player with more than 400 times in a season is 92.7 percent, recorded by Peja Stojakovic in 2003-04.
For the record, the WNBA basketball is an inch smaller in diameter, but it is also livelier, as the smaller radius of curvature provides less give when bouncing off the rim. So, it is pretty even.
Delle Donne says of the NBA basketball, "A little bit more knee bend and a little bit more ankle pop to get it there."
Whatever ball she uses, Delle Donne's numbers are remarkable. She is not about to post NBA stars up, but if she takes them to the free throw line for a contest, no one is better right now.
