Devonte Graham has shot more 3s than 3 Hornets teams. Inside Charlotte’s hunt for rims and 3s
Point guard Devonte Graham took more 3-point shots the first 47 games of this season than three of the first four Hornets teams ever took.
“Really?!” Graham replied wide-eyed when he found out.
Really. Graham’s 451 3s are already more than entire Hornets rosters took in the 1988-89, 1990-91 and ’91-92 seasons. Graham has the fourth-most 3-point attempts in the NBA this season, but he’s no gunner: His 38-percent average from outside the arc has his coaches constantly reminding him what a good shot that is.
This is the direction the NBA. The “new math” of shot value has been a consideration to some degree for 20 years. Now it’s gospel. The Hornets coaching staff raised this as a priority this season, constantly reminding players a “good shot” is not just one they are most comfortable taking.
It’s basic analytics: Since a team gets an extra point for a basket made outside the 3-point line, you can shoot a lower percentage and still be efficient. Conversely, since a shot taken at the rim typically is a high-percentage shot, and has a good chance of drawing a shooting foul, it’s an efficient shot.
That makes the mid-range shot — anything taken between close range and the 3-point line — undesirable.
Whatever else is flawed about the 16-32 Hornets this season, they have absorbed the shot-value gospel: They’ve taken 74.8 percent of their shots either within the restricted area (the four-foot semicircle around the rim) or from 3-point range. That ranks them seventh among 30 NBA teams in choosing high-value shots.
Former Hornets coach Steve Clifford gave center Cody Zeller a simple way to appreciate shot value: If a player takes 10 shots from 3-point range, he only needs to make 33% to end up with as many points as taking 10 shots from mid-range shooting 50 percent.
So why not either step out to 3 or drive to the rim, where either shot is more valuable?
Consider Zeller, a center, among the converted. He has taken more 3s this year (67 entering Thursday) than in his prior six NBA seasons combined (38), though he’s only shooting 25 percent from 3.
Appealing?
Traditionalists look warily at how this affects basketball’s appeal. Back in the late 1990s, when he coached the Hornets, Hall of Famer Dave Cowens said it was like the NBA was digging moats on basketball courts between the 3-point line and the rim. There wasn’t nearly the focus on 3s then that there is now.
Hornets TV analyst Dell Curry recently watched an old game on NBA TV matching Dominique Wilkins and the Atlanta Hawks against Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. Curry said that game looked almost like a different sport.
“That entire game was played inside the 3-point area,” Curry said. “It was like nobody could step outside the line; like you were out-of-bounds out there. So different than today’s game that I was taken aback.”
Curry was a prolific 3-point shooter for his time, taking 3,098 attempts outside the arc between 1986 and 2002. One of his sons, two-time NBA MVP Stephen Curry, has nearly twice as many 3-point attempts already, and his other son, Seth, is on a pace to pass his dad by the time he’s done playing.
Curry can’t imagine basketball ever swinging back to how it was played.
“Nobody wants to take a 2. You see guys open in the mid-range, and they’ll continue to dribble” rather than shoot, Curry said.
Coaxing
There are times, though, when that 2 from mid-range is acceptable even if not desirable. It’s a matter of time — how much is left before the shot-clock expires — and Borrego describes it as a formula constantly repeated to the players.
“We want them to hunt down the exact shots we want the first 18 seconds of the shot clock. Then, there comes a point where you’ve just got to get the best shot available,” Borrego said. “I think we’ve done that pretty well.”
Instances in Thursday’s Hornets loss at Washington illustrate the point. In the first half the Hornets successfully attacked the rim, scoring 44 of 60 points in the lane.
When the Wizards defense improved second half, the Hornets were down to five seconds left on the shot clock. Marvin Williams took a 10-foot jump shot that missed. That wasn’t an ideal shot, but it was acceptable in time-and-situation.
“The thing that has remained constant is (getting to the rim) — you always wanted as many shots at the rim as possible, and to limit opponent shots at the rim. Get to the rim, get to the free-throw line,” said Williams. “What’s changed is (level of emphasis) on the 3-point line.”
Retraining players’ definition of a “good shot” was a big part of the preseason. The Hornets would hold scrimmages where players received no points for making a mid-range shot, just as a reminder.
“We’ve had to be very consistent in holding guys accountable for that. We drill it every day,” Borrego said. “It’s always in the film we show, and they get the numbers (for shot-value) every halftime.”
Coaching at the pro level is about making players more efficient without extinguishing what made them great. Mike Budenholzer, who has coached the Milwaukee Bucks to the top record in the NBA, said shot-value is coaxing players to discern, and not just default to what’s comfortable or familiar.
“You have to be incredibly special — not just good — if you’re going to live with those (low-value) shots,” Budenholzer said.
Mindful
When All-Star point guard Kemba Walker announced he was leaving the Hornets for the Boston Celtics last July, the coaching staff took Graham aside to explain the ramifications: Not only how this would expand his role, but how he had to change his game.
Most of that — a summer full of drilling — was beyond the 3-point arc after Graham shot just 28 percent from 3 as a rookie.
“Every day: Make 100 3s off the bounce, make another 100 off the catch-and-shoot, 50 deep balls,” Graham described. “A lot of 3s when Kemba left.”
The improvement was so dramatic that opposing defenses now try to chase Graham off the 3-point line, forcing him to come up with solutions between the arc and the rim. His shooting dropped to just 25 percent this season 3-to-16 feet from the basket, so he still has much work to do next summer and beyond.
But as far as grasping shot-value, he understands and executes.
“Stay away from mid-range unless you’re wide-open and it’s late in the shot clock,” Graham repeated, like a mantra. “Either get to the rim and get fouled, or chase that open 3.”
This story was originally published January 31, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
