Wilt Chamberlain is the second leading scorer of all time. Right behind Michael Jordan. But, he couldn't shoot free throws. He once missed 22 straight free throws. That seems worth investigating. First what are the chances? He made 51.1% of his free-throws during his career. In other words he has a 48.9% chance of missing. So to miss two straight would be .489 x .489 = .239121 or a 23.9% chance. Twenty-two in a row? That would be .489 to the 22nd power. That comes out to 0.000000146.
Just for fun, I took the reciprocal. That is almost seven million. He shot over eleven thousand free throws in his career. I thought missing 22 in a row might be somewhat likely. But no, it isn't. There is a lot of math here a person could play with. Wilt wasn't the worst ever. Andre Drummond makes 38.6% of his free throws. You could figure the probability for him missing 22 in a row.
Could a typical player do this? Lets suppose we want to find out, what percent would you normally have to shoot to have a 50% probability of of missing 22 in a row. The equation would be x^22 = .50. Using the log and inverse log on your calculator, you come up with 96.9%. That is the chance you miss a shot. So, that means your free throw success rate would be 3.1%. Not good.
