Originally Posted by
Pelicanidae
I was just looking things up to compare, now that there's a slightly larger sample of games:
If you look at our first month of games (October 22nd until November 22nd) you find that only 33% of our shots were at the rim, and 42% were from behind the arc. 25% of our shots came from midrange.
Shooting at the rim, we generated 1.26 points per shot. At the arc, 1.15. In the midrange, 0.74.
It's clear that the most valuable shots this team can generate, in terms of creating-points-per-attempt, at at rim attempts. Followed by threes, followed by the midrange in the last place. So how come we're taking more shots from 3 than at the rim? What sense does that make, strategically? It's a simple calculation to find out that the best shots in terms of creating value are at-rim attempts, so why are we prioritising threes which are less valuable? Why 33% at rim and 42% from 3, and not the other way around?
And then, get this: since November 22nd until today, the shots we're creating are even worse!
At-rim attempts over the last 10 days or so are down to only 26% of our shot profile, despite us having become more effective at scoring on those attempts: the points per at-rim attempt has gone up to 1.31. Meanwhile, our mid-range shooting has dropped off from 0.74 points per shot to a truly disgusting 0.66 points per shot, yet our volume of midrange shots has crept up to being 31% of our offense. That's right, we are now taking more mid-rangers than shots at the rim, despite having gotten even less efficient at them. Our 3pt shooting has stayed fairly stable in terms of volume at 43% of our attempts, though our efficiency has fallen a little to 1.09pps.
And get this: In the 4th quarter, despite our efficiency soaring to 1.5 points per shot on these attempts, at-rim shots have dropped off even further to only 18% of our offense during this time period. Midrangers stay the same, roughly, in terms of volume (31% still) but our efficiency continues dropping off: we have been generating only 0.52 points per shot on midrangers during this stretch.
The real change is the volume of three pointers: others have pointed out how many aimless threes we've been shooting off isolation plays or bone-headed fastbreak choices, and that shows up: since the 22nd, 51% of our shot attempts in the 4th quarter have been 3 pointers, and our efficiency has dropped off to only 0.8 points per shot on these attempts. This is largely because they're bad shots, rushed shots, isolated shots, etc etc.
So why, when 3 pointers are working less for us, and midrangers are working less for us, do we continue to keep taking those shots at such high frequencies, while ignoring the fact that we're actually generating extremely efficient offense at the rim? Why do this? Does Gentry not check these numbers? Does nobody on the staff check these numbers? Does nobody look at our efficiency from various spots on the floor and ask, hey why don't we take the shots that we're creating lots of points on, and fewer of the terrible shots that don't give us anything?
This is a legitimate problem with our scheming. Obviously Zion returning will bump up the volume of paint attempts, as will Favors, but there's still no excuse for taking only 18% of your shots at the rim in 4th quarters. That's unforgivable.