Official Whine, Moan, Complain Thread 19/20-CLOSED "WE CHAMPS!"

...Chamberlain once hired a hypnotist to help him with his free throws. Hypnotist ended up being better at it.

 

Kuzma is a bad shooter. He couldn’t shoot in college, and he can’t shoot in the NBA. At least from three (and mostly from the line).

 

Definitely disagree. What’s your stat line that identifies good shooters from bad shooters?

Kuz shot 45% and 36% from three last season. In my world that is a good shooter. Those numbers are both better than Kobe’s career averages. He is up to 48% overall this year. His three ball is bad so far at 28%, but I expect that to improve to the vicinity of last year’s number.

 

I’ll show you standard deviations when I get to my office.

 

FG%
45% was the median FG% two seasons ago (when I gathered the data)
41% is one Standard Deviation below
49% is one SD above
Below that or above that is 2 SDs.

Kuzma’s FG% has been within one standard deviation of the normal – that’s normal shooting.
He did twice shoot better than 50% in college.
Note: this is the ONLY shooting distance that isn’t controlled by distance. I include Kobe here for comparison.
Kuzma shot 64% on 0-3 foot shots (that might be average; I don’t know; it might be worse). Kobe was 63.4% in his career.
He shot 44% on 3-10 foot shots. Kobe was 44.8%
He shot 36% on 10-16 foot shots. Kobe was 43.9%
He shot 38% on 16 to short of the 3. Kobe was 40.2%

So, where should we rank him? I’ll give him average, but he might be below (based on distance). This is just to say that he takes shots he can hit – that’s good. No one thinks DeAndre Jordan is a good shooter based on his FG% - but he takes shots he can hit.

3pt%
Kuzma shot 36.4%, which is within an SD of the league average (it’s 35%).
But this year he’s shooting 29%, which is two full SDs below average – or terrible.
And in his college career, he shot 32.4%, 25.5%, and 32.1%, for a career mark of 30.2%.
That’s really, really bad. You might choose to go with the 36% mark for one of two reasons – he did it over the course of a season and he was “just a rookie” and you think he might become better. But, he’s taken a significant number in the other four years of basketball and he has shot poorly in all of those years. We can disagree about this number, but you can’t argue that he’s better than average. He’s at best average. I think the indications are that he’s not as good as average and won’t be over his career.

FT%
81% is the mid point.
73 is an SD below.
Kuzma shot 70.7 last year – two SDs below and he’s at 75.8% this year (more than an SD below)
In college, he shot 55.6%, 61.7%, and 66.9%. Maybe he’s improving, but he’s more than an SD below average.
He’s a poor to dreadful FT shooter.

Overall
The area where Kuzma is best is the only area that isn’t controlled for distance. He was only 42.2% FGs in clutch, which is way below his average otherwise. Kobe not only took more high difficulty shots, he outshoots Kuzma at every level except on close to the hoop. (I don’t know why Kobe’s in here, but you brought him up.) Kuzma is at best average and at best below average on 3pts and FTs. He’s at worst dreadful at both 3pts and FTs. Let’s split the difference and say he’s slightly below average. If you’re good with that, cool. If not, we can talk about it more.

I suppose I could have made up these stats to support some “opinion” I have, but full disclosure: Russ is a just below-average shooter on these measures (again, I don’t make much of FG%).

 

Some do improve. Some don’t. And if a player shoots a career high (to that point) in year 1, how often do they continue to shoot at that clip? Empirical questions require data. I don’t have all that.

 

The difference between a 13 and 20 year old is that the 20 year old has so many reps already just more shooting won’t necessarily make a difference. At 13, the body is changing so much. That’s “mostly” done by 20s. So a 13 year old could improve greatly, but that doesn’t mean they’ll become great.