I wanna talk about de-emphasizing the importance of 3pt shooting %'s in this thread. Time and time again, year after year, draft watchers are consistently getting fooled by two things; cold streaks and small sample sizes.
Last year, Tyler Herro starts off cold and people act like he's not lottery grade, or not even top-20, and they didnt even know about his short arms at that point....
Even better example Jordan Poole goes on a prolonged cold streak to end the season and he falls to the bottom of the 2nd rd from most prognosticators... Warriors take him in the first round..
In the past few years no example is better than Lonzo Ball, and the Lakers have paid dearly for that error. Lonzo is a historically bad FT shooter, yet at UCLA he had people fooled into thinking his shot was fixed. (lookin at you Cy)
All 3pt attempts are not created equal. We all know about the halfcourt heaves that some players chuck up or some players eat to save %'s. There's all different levels of deterrence involved with every 3pt shot. Shooting a 3pointer over Mitchell Robinson or Rudy is not like shooting one over Isaiah Thomas.
Things like this are why I say you've really got to watch the games, build an eye test, trust your eyes, and adjust accordingly. Some of this data lacks nuance, it's all different variables clumped together with the illusion of uniformity.
It also doesnt take into account change, evolution, mutability, which of course is key when moving to higher levels of competition (in any arena).. To look at these %'s and to use them as gospel is making a fatal error, that should be common knowledge, to do that with the percentages means you're treating these players as players... their not, their amatuers, and more importantly their PROJECTS -- which is how teams view them (other than in extreme cases like Tim Duncan)..
In the mechanics of shooting, and lots of mechanics in life, subtle changes can make enormous differences, to just look at this cold data and take it at face value isn't good enough. thats not the way this works. Surely some NBA teams scouts are looking at the shooting motions of these players ----- like baseball scouts look at the mechanics of pitchers, and see wasted, destabilizing motions that can be streamlined and strengthened, so I say lets act like it.
Now playing shot doctor has been and always will be a slippery slope, but so is taking some of these percentages at face value.
4 things i look for always is just how a player squares up to the basket, how they set their feet, and also their eyes -- are they focused? or are they just hoping they get it close often the eyes reveal this. the third is how quick the release is, in the NBA this is huge, and will continue to be til the end of days. A super quick release makes fora much better floor spacer. The forth is just how well do they repeat their mechanics? Someone like Pascal Siakam, his mid-range J passed this test with flying colors back at NMSU. Someone like T-Furg, who had a horrid rookie szn shooting the 3 but a spectacular 2nd year is really good at this too.
In closing; focus on process, not results.
anyone in the business of hiring will tell you that people who say their "results oriented" in interviews, it's a red-flag.. their the ones who will be blaming outside factors (co-workers) and throwing tantrums once the results dont go their way.. This happens all too often with fan-bases and their rookies, it shouldnt be that way.
