I was cautiously optimistic about how much of a difference our improved 3 point shooters would make this season, and, while it is still early days, it appears to be making a huge difference. Last season we had nobody who shot over .370 from 3 point land. Yet we were still a team which attempted a large number of 3 pointers. As a team, we were below the league average (of .360) from downtown, and yet led the league in 3 pointers attempted. [we ranked 2nd in overall points per game] This season, there are bright signs. It is too early to tell, but based on past performances, it is certainly not unreasonable to suggest that we will not only have multiple players beating the mark of .370, we will have multiple players beating .400 from 3 point land. One might reasonably expect Ariza to make the most of all his open looks, and once again beat the .400 clip. Papanikolaou has shot .500 from (Euro) 3 over a season, it isn't beyond the realms of possibility to see him at least beating league average (and hopefully the .370 mark) Jason Terry is old, but the body knows how to shoot. Lock him in for at least .370 Isaiah Canaan is a shooter. Twice in college he beat the .450 mark - and while the NBA is further, we can probably expect to see him tickling the twine to the tune of .370+ I haven't even mentioned Troy Daniels. A volume chucked who has always been just below that 40% mark, wherever he has played. Ok, so his numbers currently are odorous (14%) - but I have little doubt that, given the playing time, he will once again shoot in the .390 range. Obviously the team has started on a hot streak from downtown, and this won't last forever, but a reversion to the mean will ensure that our offence is far better spaced than last year, far more consistent from deep, and therefore far more potent. Since we barely tried on D last season, we could safely give ourselves a couple of extra Ws based SOLELY on improved offence. The fact we brought in an elite defensive wing might just give us reason to expect a 55+ win season from this squad. Dissect.
yes, I had the same thoughts. Last season was frustrating, because we were getting excellent looks with tons of time to get set, but the results were mediocre. I believe we were at around league average percentage-wise, but in my book we were a bad 3pt shooting team given how much defensive attention Howard and Harden were being given. J Lin had improvement, but he is just a bad shooter. Parsons, Garsia and Casspi were streaky and could go on long droughts. D-Mo and Harden (even T.Jones) took threes that they shouldn't have... It is still very early, but the likes of Ariza, Canaan, Daniels and Terry are just better shooters than what we had on the team last year and given the open looks, they should be (well) above league average. Harden D-Mo and TJones have shown better discipline than last year, which should also bring our percentage up.
OP You can add in pat bev into the potenital .400 clip club. His shot has improved so much, he's much more balanced now compared to last year. I'll just go out on a limb and say Ariza-.419 Pat bev- .402 Terry - .380 Canaan -.374 Harden - .373 Daniels- .370 Papa- .346 tjones -.316
safe to say this was observed from upstairs and seen to be an area that could pay big dividends if we corrected it? lets keep it rolling. lets keep it rolling.
This optimism is making me really dread the imminent pessimism that's to follow our difficult 3 game stretch. Our offense and defense have not been stress tested yet. We have just done what we're supposed to do - put away these 4 terrible teams. In many ways I was ecstatic to see us starting with an easy schedule, essentially giving our team some extra time to gel and get into a groove. These numbers are not going to hold up. That's not to say they will all go down. That means they will all randomly shoot up, down or stay the same. They are completely meaningless. Ariza might end up shooting 30%. Daniels may end up hitting just 35%. Harden may hit 40%. T Jones might hit 40%. Anything is impossible. Another thing is - it's wrong to say we took a lot of 3's in spite of our average percentages last season. Given how this organization makes decisions, it's 100% obvious that they are aiming to take as many 3pters as humanly possible without dropping below the 35% mark as a team. We will do the same this year. Everyone knows shooting more brings the % down. So we will shoot and shoot and shoot until we hit something like 35% as a team and that's the amount of 3pt shooting we'll be comfortable with. All our guys last season would have hit a higher % if they were take a regular number of shots. Personally I think Papa, Canaan, Jones, D-Mo, Harden and Beverley will not eclipse 36%. Ariza, Terry and Daniels will hit just below 40%. As a team we will not be among the best 3pt shooting teams, but we will continue to take a huge number of shots from 3pt range.
I feel more than the 3s, the most surprising thing is that we've stopped running. The Rockets have turned into much more of a half court team.
Apart from Ariza, we were pretty bad in the preseason from deep but ever since the second half of that SAS game, we've been on fire since! It's nice to have legitimate 3 point threats out there. No more Casspi or Lin spotting up. Now we have Ariza, Terry, Canaan, and Pap! I think Harden can average 7apg this season with all these threats from deep.
I had this thought last night. Try not to get too excited but yes, we appear a much better 3 point team. In addition, having Terry & Canaan but moreso the steady and wise vet Terry as a second guard off the bench handling the rock instead of Lin with his head scratchers is also helping. Terry is really impressing me. Now about dmo....
Beverley shot 36% last year. Harden shot nearly 37% last year. Canaan shot over 37% last year in the d-league. What makes you think all of them will shoot less than 36% this year?
I agree. Take it for what it is worth, but they are currently 17th in pace. They also seem to be rebounding the ball better, statistically. Not giving up as many offensive rebounds as last year, given the small sample size and weak competition. Turnovers are still a mess, though.
I was watching the game last night and on the verge of laughing out loud at how well we were shooting the 3. It was like NBA 2k. I kept thinking to myself there is no way in hell we continue to shoot this well over the course of the season. Then I thought, a lot of these threes are wide open, uncovered, but @ss naked threes. I think with our rebounding, defense, transition, and Harden's penetration, we will continue to get those looks. The ball movement was crisp. A few plays in that 4th quarter last night we looked like the bootleg version of the Spurs the way the ball was moving to the wide open shooter. Checked on some stats. We are first by far in attempts per game at 31. We are 2nd in percentage at 43.5% only to the Hawks who attempt 10 fewer threes per game. The Clippers in contrast are shooting themselves out of games at 32% on 29 attempts. That all translates to us leading the league at 13.5 threes per game, and 3.5 higher than the only other two teams even in double digits. I'm cautiously optimistic. I know it's bad teams we've played, but not many will stay in front of harden and guard him 1on1. Not many will out-rebound Howard and Jones. And some teams will rotate to our shooters better but like Magic said about the Spurs last year: "You can't outrun the basketball".
There are a fair number of fails in your post. 1. Of the top 15 'most 3 point attempt' teams, we shot the 3rd worst percentage. Worst was Philly, and I'm not sure they count... so you could argue we were 2nd worst. Volume shooting does not necessarily = poor percentage. [it's not like we attempted 10 3s per game more than anyone else, we were 5 per game above league average, and the top 5 teams were all very close to our volume] Volume shooting by poor shooters DOES = poor percentage. Upgrading from Lin to Canaan, and Parsons to Ariza will significantly lift our overall %. 2. Past performance is the best indicator of future performance. If a player can do a lot in a little time, he might be able to do a lot in a large amount of time. If a player can shoot the ball, he will (most likely) continue to be able to shoot the ball. There are very few 'Nick Andersons' out there [who choked 4 FTs to begin the glorious sweep, and then regressed to a .404 FT shooter ] If a player can shoot, then they continue to be able to shoot. There is little reason to think Terry, Ariza, Canaan, Papanikolaou and Daniels will suddenly forget how to shoot the basketball, and shoot low 30s %. Highly unlikely that most of them continue to shoot over 50% - but that's very very far from the point I was making. 3. Optimism/ Pessimism. Not everyone is an emotional 3 year old. I was suggesting improved 3pt shooting would [most likely] yield an extra win or 2 over last season. And then suggested that improving a large part of our offence, while at the same time strengthening the D, ought to give us hope of eclipsing last seasons 54 wins. I didn't see any '82-0 baby' type posts...
Nice observations - thanks! Clippers were actually a terrible 3pt% team last season. 10th last in the league, and out of playoff teams, only the Bulls shot worse. They are still really relying on Reddick and Hedo to carry that load for them.
