The dog days of the NBA have led to fans getting their hoops fill with Spain's recent World Cup win, the Ball family struggling to keep their reality show relevant, and another salty James Harden interview.
ESPN writer Kirk Goldsberry, for his part, came through with an interesting offseason feature that came with a set of infographics about the league's best and worst shooters per zone over the past decade. The likes of Stephen Curry and Russell Westbrook immediately come to mind on the subject of the game's most polarizing shot makers (albeit for different reasons), but a handful of names came as a suprise.
A closer look at Goldsberry's work reveals the game-changing impact of the shooting innovation, and explains why certain players thrived or took a nosedive in this new-age basketball.
Least Efficient Shooters of the Decades by Zone
Ramon Sessions — well, that's a name.
The journeyman point guard wasn't exactly undersized at 6'3" and a bad decision-maker (2.4 career assist to turnover ratio), so it's rather surprising that he was the decade's worst finisher around the rim. Despite exceeding expectations as a second-round pick (56th overall), Sessions can only do so much with his scoring flaws and without a three-point shot (31.6 percent).
Josh Smith and Luol Deng are a pair of athletic, two-way forwards who were better when they were nearer the hoop. At least Deng made the All-Star team twice and developed a three; Smith basically chucked himself out of league in his early 30s. Save for Smith's defense, Andrew Wiggins seems to be following the blueprint of declining mid-range game and field goal percentage (career-low 41 percent last season) since his sophomore year.
The only problem with Wiggins is that he's just 24 years old.
We weren't the only ones who expected Russell Westbrook and Kobe Bryant to be here. Both are Hall of Fame scorers and shot creators, at the same time notorious volume shooters and below league average three-pointers. Russ is 31 percent from deep over 11 seasons, while Kobe wasn't any better at 33 percent for his two-decade career. The two have only their poor shot selection from those spots to blame.
Leading Scorers of the Decades by Zone
Goldsberry's next infographic is very telling of a player's ability to stay in the league and adapt to the modern game.
Granted that Carmelo Anthony (24 ppg) is giving up three inches to LaMarcus Aldridge (19.6 ppg), the former is still more known as a go-to scorer than his fellow power forward. However, the San Antonio Spur is revealed to have the more reliable fadeaway and overall offensive arsenal from the perimeter. Efficiency is the main reason why LMA is still on an NBA roster and Melo isn't.
Both Al Jefferson and Brook Lopez started out as elite post operators and became 20-point scorers without a trey to their names in the first six seasons. Big Al is already retired at 34 years old, while Brook, 31, recently signed a contract extension with the Milwaukee Bucks. More than the age, the latter's reinvention as the Splash Mountain (2.3 threes per game at 37 percent last season) — something Jefferson didn't embrace — was the key to his renewed value.
Goldsberry called LeBron James "the Steph Curry of close-range buckets," and for a good reason. Knock his average jumpshot all you want, but when it comes to scoring at the rim, the leading point-getter of the 2010s is king. As a point of comparison, Dwight Howard was a force inside the paint in the first half of the decade, making 3,796 field goals within eight feet of the basket.
Bron had 4,434 shots for a league-leading 69.2 field goal percentage (at least 1,000 conversions).
Most Efficient Shooters of the Decade by Zone
Many attribute Steve Nash and Chris Paul's ascension to Point God status to superior court generalship, as the orchestrators of the "Seven Seconds or Less" Phoenix Suns and "Lob City" Los Angeles Clippers, respectively. Often overlooked when recognizing the greatness of the two floor leaders is their insane mid-range accuracy, which is testament to how complete their respective games were.
Kyle Korver is the reason JJ Redick, Danny Green, and an army of sharp-shooting role players were highly sought-after this past summer.
While he doesn't boast the same stopping power as his 3-and-D counterparts, the 38-year-old marksman is as good as anyone in terms of pure shooting. Two hundred NBA players attempted at least a thousand threes in the 2010s, and Ashton Kutcher's doppelganger drained 44.5 percent of his shots — good for the top rung and even better than the "absolute best shooter of the decade."
Give Korver a time machine (specifically, go back seven years), unfair handles, ungodly precision, unlimited range, unguardable shot creation, three championships, and the mentality of a baby-faced assassin. What you get is the poster boy for the three-point revolution that warped the basketball format, Stephen Curry.
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