Deep Dives: Open Shooters

Amidst yet another interminable pre-preseason “no, YOUR rankings suck” conversation, I mentioned in passing that it was hard to evaluate a player like Draymond Green in that way because his value is so tied to the context in which he plays. Now, to be clear, Green is a fantastic player, and would be a valuable contributor in virtually any conceivable roster situation. However, Golden State’s style does allow for a maximization of Green’s strengths and to some extent hides his weaknesses.  One of those weaknesses is his shooting. It was on full display during the Finals, when Cleveland decided to challenge Green to shoot from long range. And for three-plus games it worked, as Green, his confidence perhaps shaken from shooting 26.4% from three through the Western playoffs, had been rendered largely ineffective.

Part of Green’s ascension to top level player has been the improvement in his shooting. After going only 14 of 67 his rookie year, he’s hovered around the 33-34% mark in the two season since. Which isn’t “good” but still represents a quality look on most possessions. Unfortunately, that shooting is produced by one of the more open mix of threes in the league. Over 56% of Draymond’s 3FGA came with no defender closer than 6 feet, while over 12% came with no defender closer than ten feet. Across the league, those percentages were around 40% “open” and 8% “wide open.”

To put it another way, Green was getting more open shots than most, and was still making them at a rate of just-competent. Which is better than the alternative, but is something that must be considered when evaluating his performance. In fact, the synergy of Golden State’s offense allowed for many open looks from three for supporting players. Harrison Barnes was third among players with at least 100 SportVU tracked attempts[2. Not counting desperation heaves.] with almost 78% of his 3FGA coming open while an astounding 26.2% came “alone in the gym.” Barnes took much better advantage than did Green last years, stroking it at 41% from deep.

All of this is mostly just a preamble to establish, again, that context matters when evaluating shooters, and to provide the following heaping helping of said context. Enjoy!

Data from nyloncalculus.silk.co