The Whiteboard: Isaac Okoro's 3PT shooting, Pistons' historic losing

The Cavaliers spent a lot of money this offseason trying to upgrade their outside shooting. It's mostly been a disaster — Max Strus, Georges Niang and Caris LeVert are shooting 35.2 percent, 34.1 percent and 32.2 percent from beyond the arc, respectively.

To the degree that there's been any improvement in their outside shooting this season, it's come from much-maligned wing Isaac Okoro, who has hit 39.1 percent of his 3s this year after hitting just 33.0 percent across his first three seasons.

To Okoro's credit, he's made some real improvement. He hit just 29.0 percent as a rookie and his percentage has increased every season he's been in the league. He's become a legitimate catch-and-shoot threat but it hasn't really made much of a difference, for two key reasons.

Defenses still don't respect Isaac Okoro from beyond the arc

The first reason is that he doesn't attempt all that many — just 3.3 per 36 minutes this season. All that means that the bump in efficiency isn't actually providing the Cavaliers with that many extra points. Hitting 39.1 percent of his 46 attempts this season has only earned him about nine extra points across 20 games than if he had only hit 33.3 percent.

But the other, bigger issue, is that defenses still don't treat him like someone hitting near 40 percent from beyond the arc. Just watch how much space he's given on this attempt.

Gary Harris doesn't even think twice about leaving Okoro alone in the corner to help on Georges Niang's drive. And Franz Wagner shows precious little urgency in closing out on the attempt. Okoro misses but the most glaring takeaway is how little gravity he exerts on the defense. He's a 39.1 percent shooter stationed in the corner and the Magic are still eagerly crashing three defenders into the paint to stop a drive by a player who has made just 11 unassisted 2-pointers all season.

Okoro has been left open as often as any perimeter player this season — 43 of his 46 3-point attempts this season have been classified as wide-open by the NBA's player tracking system, meaning no defender was within six feet of him at the time of the shot. To his credit, he's making them. But the Cavs need him to make enough of them that it affects the defense and creates space for everyone else.

Even if it drags down his percentage a bit, it would probably be helpful to have a quicker trigger and actually attempt shots like this, rather than driving into traffic.

Okoro is a good finisher and a solid passer off the drive. But, in the long run, it may be more beneficial to the entire offense if he becomes more willing to let it fly.

Again, to his credit, he's improving. He's an excellent perimeter defender and has been more effective as a complementary creator than at any other point in his career. And making such a high percentage of his 3s is not nothing. But until he's willing to attempt a lot more of them, it may not matter all that much for the Cavs.

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QUICK HITTER: The Pistons are bad but not this bad

After the Pistons' 25th-straight loss, rapidly approaching the NBA record of 27, Cade Cunningham offered a particularly astute assessment of his team: "We're not 2-26 bad -- no way are we that bad."

And he's right! The Pistons have been disorganized. They make a ton of obvious mistakes. They face a talent deficit against a lot of teams, a deficit that can be exacerbated by shaky rotations from Monty Williams. They get outworked. They get in their own heads. They miss open shots.

But bad luck is also a significant factor in their record being historically terrible instead of just generically terrible. Based on Pythagorean Expectation, we would project a team with their point differential (minus-11.8) to have won about five of their first 28 games. No other team in the league has currently underperformed their Pythagorean Expectation by a wider margin.

Part of that is they have been mind-blowingly bad in clutch situations. They've played 30 minutes so far this season that came within the final five minutes of a game (or in overtime) when the score was within five points. In those minutes, they've shot 8-of-36 inside the arc and 3-of-19 beyond it.

It's not entirely surprising that the Pistons are struggling to score in close games, since they're struggling to score across the board. But that performance is enough of an outlier that some bad luck almost has to be a factor and as the season goes along it will shift to some degree. Progression to the mean isn't going to put the Pistons in the playoffs but it might be enough to prove Cade Cunningham's point that they aren't quite as bad as their current record would indicate.

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