With nothing to lose or gain last season in the NBA Draft lottery, the Brooklyn Nets took their assemblage of established veterans and young question marks and underwent a dramatic reworking of their offensive approach. The Nets averaged 31.6 3-points attempts per game, third in the league behind the Celtics, Rockets, and Cavaliers — up from 18.4 the season before when they finished 27th in the league.
Jeremy Lin missed 46 games and there wasn’t much else in the way of individual shot creation on the roster. Pushing the pace and hoisting up 3-pointers was a compensation strategy, a way of complementing the talents of Brook Lopez and trying to make use of role players who were sometimes playing much larger roles than was ideal.
Despite all those 3-point attempts, the Nets still finished 28th in offensive efficiency. The problem was that they were prolific but not very accurate — they made just 33.8 percent of 3-pointers last season, 26th in the league.
This accuracy wasn’t necessarily an issue of shot quality. Their uptempo focus and well-spaced floor actually created a fair number of open shots. According to the NBA’s player-tracking statistics, 85.1 percent of Brooklyn’s 3-pointers were either open or wide-open (no defender within four feet, and six feet, respectively), the fifth-highest mark in the league. They made just 34.6 percent of those open and wide-open 3s, 26th in the league.
The graph below plots each team by the number of open and wide-open 3s they attempted per game, and their 3-point percentage on those shots.
The fact that the Nets were able to create so many open looks is a good sign moving forward, the issue is making sure they are actually converting those opportunities at something closer to a league-average rate.
The Nets had plenty of willing shooters last season, they just didn’t have many with an established track record as outside threats. Ten different players attempted at least 100 3-pointers for the team last season, just three — Jeremy Lin, Joe Harris, Spencer Dinwiddie — hit above the league average of 35.8 percent.
Of the other seven players to attempt at least 100 3s, two were rookies (Isaiah Whitehead and Caris LeVert) and two were established veterans with established track records as outside shooters who just had down years (Bojan Bogdanovic and Randy Foye). The other three — Brook Lopez, Justin Hamilton and Sean Kilpatrick — were a mixed bag. Lopez had never really been a 3-point shooter before and his averages were actually encouraging, considering it was a new range for him. Hamilton had made a total of 13-of-40 (32.5 percent) 3-pointers in his two previous seasons. Kilpatrick was at 33.9 percent on 127 career attempts before last year.
The good news is that some outside shooting help may be on the way. Although Lopez and Bogdanovic are no longer on the roster, the Nets added Allen Crabbe, DeMarre Carroll and D’Angelo Russell this offseason. Carroll had a down year shooting last season, but hit 38.1 percent of his 690 3-point attempts the three previous seasons. Russell has made 35.1 percent of his career 754 3-point attempts and seems likely to improve as he continues developing his shot selection. Crabbe has made 41.1 percent of his 3s over four seasons with the Trail Blazers.
Next: Five big questions for the NBA's rookie class
The Brooklyn Nets still don’t have their draft pick this season and the focus will be on internal growth and building a competitive structure around their young players. It seems like they’ve made progress on designing a system that works for their talent. The next step is to start knocking down some of those open 3-pointers and breathe some more life into their offensive game plan.