Originally Posted by
Pelicanidae
Actually some players do shoot 10+ attempts per game. Harden has done it the last two seasons, Curry has done it 3 times in the last 4 years, Paul George shot 9.8 per game this year, and a couple of other people came pretty close too (Lillard shot 8 point something, I think, this year). But leaving that aside, because I did point out that the numbers were exaggerated for ease of calculation (10 being easier to work with than, say, 6.4), I think it's pretty arrogant to assume that I haven't actually checked Morant's numbers in the first place.
Morant sucked to start the season from deep: you admit it yourself. The first 11 games he was absolutely beyond woeful. He was Lonzo Ball levels of bad; Russell Westbrook levels of bad.
You then point out that of the 22 games coming after the new year, he shot 33.3% or higher 14 times. Why 33.3%? That's still bad. That's under league average. Why not pick a number like 37%, which would actually be a good threshold to meet? Well, maybe you chose 33.3% because it's relatively low, and therefore easy to hit: if you do pick an actually impressive number like 37%, you find that he only shot that number or higher in 10 games. By contrast, he shot below 30% from deep in eight games: pretty close to the same number of times he shot well, 8 in comparison to 10.
If someone shoots pretty well in 10 games, and then shoots like awful trash in 8 games, is it fair to call them a good shooter overall? Or are they actually an inconsistent shooter who has some good games here and there (shot 7 of 8 from three in his final two games), but who is equally capable of putting up some awful, awful games (like the three games in late January, early February where he shot 4 for 18 from deep)?
If you think that Ja Morant is a good shooter overall, then fine, but it's clear that we have absolutely differing definitions of what a good shooter is. For me, a good shooter is someone who shoots the ball well on a consistent basis, and is much more likely to have an efficient game from behind the arc than an inefficient one. That's why, to take the obvious example, Steph Curry is a great shooter: not because he never has bad games, he definitely does, but because on any random night he is much more likely to have a good shooting performance than a poor one. Morant is a coinflip: heads he has a decent night, tails he shoots sub-30%. For someone to be that inconsistent and still gun up 5 attempts a game? There are those out there who would call that a chucker.
Edit: I'd also ask if, by your expectations, we should be calling Zion an excellent shooter too? He also started off the season shooting very poorly, only 17% in his first 12 games, but then he shot 39.6% from deep for his final 20 games. If we're expected to accept that Morant is some kind of marksman because he shot 39.8% on his final 108 threes, are we going to champion Zion as a dead-eye sniper for shooting 39.6% from January onwards?