Stephen Curry Has the Highest NBA Career Free-Throw Percentage
Stephen Curry leads NBA career FT% at 91.19%; José Calderón holds the season record at 98.05%. Compare the leaders, attempts and qualifying minimums.
Stephen Curry has the highest qualified NBA career free-throw percentage: 91.19%, with 4,236 makes in 4,645 attempts through the 2025–26 regular season. The single-season record belongs to José Calderón, who made 151 of 154 attempts for Toronto in 2008–09—98.05%, usually displayed as 98.1%. (NBA career statistics, Calderón’s season totals, single-season records)
Free-throw percentage measures accuracy at the line:
FT% = free throws made ÷ free throws attempted × 100
The distinction between career, season and game matters. A player can shoot 100% in a game, or across a handful of career attempts, without displacing either qualified record holder. The records below cover NBA regular-season play, not playoffs or other leagues.
Highest NBA career free-throw percentages
The NBA’s published career qualification minimum is 1,200 free throws made—not 1,200 attempts. Applying that threshold produces this top 10. (NBA statistical minimums)
| Rank | Player | Free throws made | Attempts | Career FT% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stephen Curry | 4,236 | 4,645 | 91.19% |
| 2 | Steve Nash | 3,060 | 3,384 | 90.43% |
| 3 | Mark Price | 2,135 | 2,362 | 90.39% |
| 4 | Rick Barry | 3,818 | 4,243 | 89.98% |
| 5 | Damian Lillard | 5,262 | 5,853 | 89.90% |
| 6 | Peja Stojaković | 2,237 | 2,500 | 89.48% |
| 7 | Chauncey Billups | 4,496 | 5,029 | 89.40% |
| 8 | Ray Allen | 4,398 | 4,920 | 89.39% |
| 9 | JJ Redick | 2,060 | 2,310 | 89.18% |
| 10 | Calvin Murphy | 3,445 | 3,864 | 89.16% |
Source: NBA all-time statistics, filtered to at least 1,200 makes, through the 2025–26 regular season and checked October 6, 2026. Percentages calculated from the listed totals and rounded to two decimal places; rankings use the unrounded ratios. ABA statistics are excluded.
Curry, Nash and Price are the only players on this qualified list above 90%. Extra decimal places explain two otherwise misleading comparisons: Nash narrowly leads Price even though both display as 90.4% on the NBA table, while Barry’s displayed 90.0% is actually just below 90%.
Career FT% is not an average of season percentages. It pools every make and attempt, so a 400-attempt season carries four times the weight of a 100-attempt season.
Highest single-season percentage: José Calderón
Calderón missed only three free throws in his record-setting 2008–09 season. His calculation is:
151 ÷ 154 × 100 = 98.0519…%
Those totals are recorded in his NBA season statistics. That explains why 98.05% and 98.1% describe the same performance. He remains first on Basketball-Reference’s NBA single-season leaderboard, ahead of Calvin Murphy’s 95.81% in 1980–81 and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf’s 95.63% in 1993–94.
The NBA’s published full-season minimum is 125 free throws made for an 82-game schedule. Calderón’s 151 makes cleared it. A hypothetical player who goes 20-for-20 shoots 100%, but does not meet that qualification standard. (NBA statistical minimums)
Why attempts belong beside the percentage
Without a minimum, the highest possible FT% is simply 100%, shared by anyone who takes free throws and never misses. The NBA’s unfiltered career table includes players with totals as small as 1-for-1. Those are valid percentages, but not comparable evidence of sustained accuracy. (Unfiltered NBA leaderboard)
Volume also separates accuracy from scoring production. Lillard has made more career free throws than Curry, but Curry has converted a larger share of his opportunities. Pace, minutes and offensive role can affect how many attempts a player gets; FT% itself does not measure how often he reaches the line.
For scale, holding attempts equal at 100, a 90% shooter makes 10 more free throws—and scores 10 more points—than an 80% shooter. For everyday performance rather than records, see what counts as a good free-throw percentage.