Atlantic division analytics profiles are up

[PhoSita]

I have no doubt that strong three-point shooting is a weapon. On the other hand, asking (or allowing, same thing really) two sub-300 shooters to take such a massive amount of three pointers is simply bad coaching.

I think it's player development.

You look at the skillset and physical profile of Sullinger and Smart and I think it's reasonable to conclude that both guys need a reliable three point shot to make it as starting caliber players in the NBA long term.  Smart is never going to have the explosive first step to get to the rim 10 times a game, and these days only truly elite post-up bigs get a lot of touches in the post, and Sully doesn't have the height or skill to be an elite post-up guy.

So if you're hoping to develop them into starting roles as the two most talented prospects currently on the team, you give them the green light to shoot the three and see if they can put together enough games where they shoot a respectable percentage from distance to make you think they could do that over a full season.

To this point, Smart looks like he probably could -- reference the names I posted / linked to above -- while Sullinger has had less encouraging results.


I think if the team were interested in developing Smart and Sullinger as reserves, they'd tell Smart to just manage the offense and cut to the basket for easy buckets, and they'd tell Sullinger to hang out near the basket for offensive boards and put-backs and only throw the ball his way when he was being defended by a smaller guy or he had a wide open mid-range shot (i.e. the role he played his rookie year).

The team obviously hopes to get more out of them than that.  Personally, I believe Smart will make it and Sullinger will be on another team a year from now.

[littleteapot]

I think it's a mistake to force players into a mold. Smart or Sullinger could easily learn the 3 (though as with everything Sullinger it probably involves "if he gets in shape"). If they don't, I don't want to kill what else they could do.

Kyle Lowry is an OK 3 pt shooter, maybe the % goes down because he has the ball all the time. He is a very good offensive player in terms of how he runs that offense and creates shots for the other guys. I don't know if Smart can be that, but I don't want to kill his development in that department because we want him to stand behind the three point line and never dribble.

It seems like the Celtics overall strategy is to draft and sign athletic guards who can't shoot, and then try to turn them into shooters. If you do this, you at some point have to accept that some of them won't learn to shoot and move on to something else.

Sullinger I have less of a problem with, but if we want to give him some trade value, it's going to be tough if we go through another season of showcasing to the league that he can't stay healthy, and can't do the one thing we trust him to do offensively (shoot the 3).

[kozlodoev]

Kyle Lowry is an OK 3 pt shooter, maybe the % goes down because he has the ball all the time.

Kyle Lowry has shot .370 or better in 3 of his last 5 years. Calling him an "ok three point shooter" is the understatement of the year (hey, the basketball year is still young ).

[littleteapot]

Kyle Lowry is an OK 3 pt shooter, maybe the % goes down because he has the ball all the time.

Kyle Lowry has shot .370 or better in 3 of his last 5 years. Calling him an "ok three point shooter" is the understatement of the year (hey, the basketball year is still young ).

Overall he's .366 in the past 5 years.

[kozlodoev]

Kyle Lowry is an OK 3 pt shooter, maybe the % goes down because he has the ball all the time.

Kyle Lowry has shot .370 or better in 3 of his last 5 years. Calling him an "ok three point shooter" is the understatement of the year (hey, the basketball year is still young ).

Overall he's .366 in the past 5 years.

Yes, mostly a function of a seemingly abnormal 2014-5

[BballTim]

Kyle Lowry is an OK 3 pt shooter, maybe the % goes down because he has the ball all the time.

Kyle Lowry has shot .370 or better in 3 of his last 5 years. Calling him an "ok three point shooter" is the understatement of the year (hey, the basketball year is still young ).

  League average is probably around .360, and Lowry's at .366 over the last 5 years. Ok seems to be extremely apt.

[PhoSita]

Lowry would probably shoot a higher percentage if he weren't quite so aggressive from deep and he didn't take so many pull-up threes.

That tendency is what makes him a good comp for Marcus Smart, though.

Question with Smart is if he'll ever be able to get to the rim like Lowry can, or shoot a league-average percentage from deep while continuing to be so aggressive from range.

[D.o.s.]

Kyle Lowry is an OK 3 pt shooter, maybe the % goes down because he has the ball all the time.

Kyle Lowry has shot .370 or better in 3 of his last 5 years. Calling him an "ok three point shooter" is the understatement of the year (hey, the basketball year is still young ).

  League average is probably around .360, and Lowry's at .366 over the last 5 years. Ok seems to be extremely apt.

League average last season was 35%
http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_stats.html

However, even in a down year for Lowry (33%), he was still only one of twenty players to hit that percentage while shooting as many threes as he did:
http://bkref.com/tiny/eGexA

So "ok" would only seem to be apt if you're willing to settle for cursory research.

[littleteapot]

Kyle Lowry is an OK 3 pt shooter, maybe the % goes down because he has the ball all the time.

Kyle Lowry has shot .370 or better in 3 of his last 5 years. Calling him an "ok three point shooter" is the understatement of the year (hey, the basketball year is still young ).

  League average is probably around .360, and Lowry's at .366 over the last 5 years. Ok seems to be extremely apt.

League average last season was 35%
http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_stats.html

However, even in a down year for Lowry (33%), he was still only one of twenty players to hit that percentage while shooting as many threes as he did:
http://bkref.com/tiny/eGexA

So "ok" would only seem to be apt if you're willing to settle for cursory research.

Um there were only 18 players who shot as many 3s as he did last year.

Yes if you isolate Kyle Lowry's good shooting years, he looks like a good shooter! What a surprise.

May main point in bringing up Kyle Lowry is that he's the most compared player to Smart, and he can actually handle the ball, get in the lane and set up easy shots for himself and his teammates. If the C's think Smart has the potential to do that, it seems odd to me that their philosophy for his offensive development is shooter or bust.

[D.o.s.]

So if you're shooting more threes and are still right around league average for three point %, it stands to reason that you would be a better-than-average three point shooter.

If you expand the search out to 350 attempts, you're still looking at a who's who of great three point shooters in the league:
http://bkref.com/tiny/5tsKI

Food for thought: if you're a bad three point shooter, you're not going to be allowed to take that many shots from beyond the arc.

[PhoSita]

If the C's think Smart has the potential to do that, it seems odd to me that their philosophy for his offensive development is shooter or bust.

I think this overstates how things have gone.  You're overlooking the fact that he was a relatively young rookie.

The Celts gave Smart a limited role in the offense, probably for his own good because he was not and probably still is not a great ball-handler or decisionmaker.  They gave him a limited role in the offense and let him focus mostly on doing one thing well -- getting open for, and taking, three pointers. 

That also happened to be an area in which he was fairly weak coming in, an area he'd need to improve significantly in order to open up other areas of his game -- attacking the basket, scoring from mid-range, drive-and-kick -- that perhaps didn't need as much work.

Food for thought: if you're a bad three point shooter, you're not going to be allowed to take that many shots from beyond the arc.

Probably so.  I imagine that in practice, both Smart and Sullinger have looked pretty good from deep.   For Smart, consistency in his form seems to be the biggest problem.  For Sullinger, it's his conditioning -- a lot easier to hit those shots when you're not winded and you haven't been running up and down the court for an hour.

Throw in Avery Bradley, who always looked like he could shoot but didn't start to actually do it consistently until his fourth season.

Smart's actually ahead of Bradley in that regard. 

Typically, players with the kind of shot selection from deep that Smart exhibited in his first season either end up riding the bench a lot or turn into high volume scorers.  The fact that Smart was playing pretty major minutes and starting by the end of his rookie season bodes well for which direction his career will take him.

[littleteapot]

So if you're shooting more threes and are still right around league average for three point %, it stands to reason that you would be a better-than-average three point shooter.

If you expand the search out to 350 attempts, you're still looking at a who's who of great three point shooters in the league:
http://bkref.com/tiny/5tsKI

Food for thought: if you're a bad three point shooter, you're not going to be allowed to take that many shots from beyond the arc.

That's true. Trevor Ariza is clearly one of the elite shooters in the league, and you can tell that because he was one of 5 players whose team trusted him to take 500 threes last year.

[sofutomygaha]

I have a question about league averages: Is that 35% as calculated from 

(a) the percentage of all of the three pointers taken for the season that went in? (i.e. Steph Curry counts 4x more than Jared Sullinger)

or

(b) the 3P% of all players who shot some, averaged? (i.e. Steph Curry counts the same as Jared Sullinger)

[PhoSita]

I have a question about league averages: Is that 35% as calculated from 

(a) the percentage of all of the three pointers taken for the season that went in? (i.e. Steph Curry counts 4x more than Jared Sullinger)

or

(b) the 3P% of all players who shot some, averaged? (i.e. Steph Curry counts the same as Jared Sullinger)

For what it's worth, 125 players attempted at least three shots from deep last year (minimum of 10 minutes per game and 20 games played).

The spots on that list (arranged by 3P%) for players who averaged 35 to 36% from deep are spots 56 through 77.  Looks like the middle to me, and probably roughly the average.


I know it doesn't answer your question scientifically, but it's all I have time for now.  Unscientifically, it looks like a league average three point shooter, among guys who took the three more than once in a while, was around 35-36%.

[littleteapot]

If the C's think Smart has the potential to do that, it seems odd to me that their philosophy for his offensive development is shooter or bust.

I think this overstates how things have gone.  You're overlooking the fact that he was a relatively young rookie.

The Celts gave Smart a limited role in the offense, probably for his own good because he was not and probably still is not a great ball-handler or decisionmaker.  They gave him a limited role in the offense and let him focus mostly on doing one thing well -- getting open for, and taking, three pointers. 

That also happened to be an area in which he was fairly weak coming in, an area he'd need to improve significantly in order to open up other areas of his game -- attacking the basket, scoring from mid-range, drive-and-kick -- that perhaps didn't need as much work.

I love Marcus Smart, but honestly every part of his offensive game needs work. He was terrible at scoring near the basket last year, and if he could at least Rondo it and get in the paint and kick, he wasn't trusted to do it. I might be jumping to conclusions that this entirely due to the C's development plan for him - it's possible it had more to do with Stevens wanting a guy like Turner who's a better ball handler right now. Personally I don't see what big sacrifice we would be making by finding some simple plays to make Smart the lead ball handler, or at least to have him make more cuts and get the ball on the move to help him develop more skills on offense.

I also don't get why the C's feel that players need to shoot 3's in game to get better at shooting 3's. To me driving and cutting against NBA defenses is more relevant as you can't replicate that completely in practice.