> an 11% increase in 2pt fg% from one season to the next, especially
> for a player taking as many as 16 shots a game, is rare. offhand
> can't think of another player - at least a starter taking at least
> 16 FGA/g in consecutive seasons - that has done this in the past
> 25 years of nba basketball, especially taking that many shots per
> game and not some player taking just 3 or 4 fga/g.

Okay, let's look at this one a little bit. FGA/G, while appropriate
here, still isn't a particularly common measure, so I stuck with
points per game: 15.0 in consecutive games, minimum 40 games. Here
are the top improvements in two-point percentage:

.143 Wilt Chamberlin, 1966-67
.095 Bob McAdoo, 1973-74
.082 Ed Sadowski, 1948-49
.077 Larry Foust, 1954-55
.076 Artis Gilmore, 1980-81

Chamberlin's is interesting - he went from shooting 53.9% to 68.2%.
At the same time, his shots decreased dramatically and his scoring
went down from 34.0 points per 48 minutes to 25.5.

But Chamberlin did it at age 30, in his eighth year. That's not
really comparable. So let's cut it down to four years or less and
also increase the minimum two-point percentage in year two to 55.0%,
so these guys shoot as well as Amare has this season:

.067 Adrian Dantley, 1979-80
.059 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 1970-71
.053 Rolando Blackman, 1983-84
.050 Penny Hardaway, 1994-95
.049 Patrick Ewing, 1987-88

So I don't think there's been a comparable improvement to what Amare
is doing so far.