MCW's Shooting

[Captnhowdy]

I suppose it depends on how you define it. When a discussion comes up about great NBA shooters most people tend to bring up three point shooters (or guys that shot it from deep prior to the three point line). You usually hear names like Reggie Miller or Ray Allen, guys that were known to score a higher percantage of their points from threes than most. Guys like Melo or Jordan are/were great scorers and I would say good shooters but not great shooters. I don't mean this to sound like an insult, Jordan is my all time favorite player. Melo gets a lot of points by going to the basket and from the free throw line, which is something other guys don't do nearly as well. I just don't think a career 33% from 3 and 45% from the field equal a great shooter.

Ya, if you are to limit the definition to long range(3 pt) shooters then ya 'Melo isn't one of the greatest. Maybe around the top 5 or 10% percentile in that.

 

[moqui]

I started keeping track of MCW's shooting percentages starting with the Notre Dame game because I thought that was the game where it seemed like it finally started to click for him. Anyways, in those last 19 games of the year, MCW shot 44% from the field, 33.3% from 3, and 66% from the FT line. Those percentages still aren't great by any means, but the FG% and 3PT% are at least passable IMO, so that when he gets to the NBA, he'll be able to keep defenses semi-honest so that they can't just leave him unguarded the entire time like some teams did to Rondo early in his career.

interesting . . . I computed his TS% over the same stretch and it comes out to .520 (vs. .483 prior to that).

this means nothing because college #s do not convert to NBA #s, but just for sake of comparison: if he had gotten a TS% of .520 in the NBA this season, he would be ahead of point guards such as Jameer Nelson (.498), Ray Felton (.505), Brandon Jennings (.510) and Rajon Rondo (.516) among others, and just behind John Wall (.521). As a rookie he would rank in the top 20 overall and 5th among rookie point guards (third if you discount rookies-in-name-only Pablo Prigoni and Nando de Colo). Dion Waiters' TS% this year was .492, btw.

 

[strumpfasaurus]

props to Igor for his outstanding foresight of Melo's success at the next level after his subpar freshman year at college left many people doubting whether or not he had what it took.