Or should this thread be titled: "Why losing Nolley hurts ... but Nick Claxton will help us forget him?"
Efficient teams take and make a high number of corner 3s. NBA stats and tracking metrics show that corner threes produce 1.15 points per shot attempts. That is the third-most efficient attempt after a trip to the free throw line (1.52) and shots from the restricted lane area (1.21).
Fox's Bulldawgs are a surprisingly efficient bunch given the sad fact that we suck at scoring three point shots. We control the boards and shoot a lot of put-backs and short jumpers in the lane area. If we had outside marksmen like Landers Nolley, we would improve our outside efficiency and overall scoring totals.
That's why we should be delighted to read Brandon Sudge's report that supports what Dawghook and Captain and others have reported informally about young Nic Claxton's abilities as a hot-shooting Stretch-4. I also saw Hammonds hit a number of these corner threes at Norcross.
We shot a painfully poor 31.8% on our threes over last season. Oddly, we improved that in SEC play to 33.9% to rank 7th in conference. Fox should be alarmed that we score only 21% of our scoring on 3-pointers as that ranks an abysmal 340th in the nation. We score instead a whopping 24.3% of our points from the free throw line. (12th highest percentage in the nation.) Our opponents score 31% of their output from 3s, which is slightly above the national average of 30.4%. We do not make it easy to score inside on us.
One reason LeBron James and his teams routinely make it to the finals is that their offense last season efficiently took a league leading 743 corner three-point shot attempts, 147 more than the second-ranked Miami Heat. James set a record for most assists on corner threes last season (162), 66 more than anyone else had in 2016-17.
LeBron is valuable not simply because he scores well, but because he allows his teammates to score well with his high assist numbers. If you are open in the corner, James is going to get you the ball. We need to identify who on our roster takes and hits a high percentage of corner threes and we need to identify who makes a high number of assists on three-point shots.
Yante Mateo made an impressive .488% on his threes last season, so he should hoist more up. Harris as well since he converted on .426%. Crump at .30% and Turtle at .33% should probably stay out of the corners. Diatta and E'Torrion made only .31% and 32% of their long distance heaves, so they should also be discouraged. Parker at (cough) .16% (cough) should be yanked from the court and dope-slapped if he asks for the ball in the corner.
The easiest way to get open corner threes is to push the tempo and also to employ a secondary break that crisply and automatically moves the ball to the other side of the court when a fast break is unsuccessful in getting an open run to the rim. Or when running a high pick and roll by looking to pass out into the corner when defenders collapse into the lane.
In the Land of the Blind, the one-eyed man is King. If Claxton or Hammonds can hit the corner-3, then they should see immediate minutes ahead of Edwards, E'Torrion and Pape. We gotta figure out a way to increase our 3-point production other than by simply telling Crump and Harris to fire away from the top of the key.
Efficient teams take and make a high number of corner 3s. NBA stats and tracking metrics show that corner threes produce 1.15 points per shot attempts. That is the third-most efficient attempt after a trip to the free throw line (1.52) and shots from the restricted lane area (1.21).
Fox's Bulldawgs are a surprisingly efficient bunch given the sad fact that we suck at scoring three point shots. We control the boards and shoot a lot of put-backs and short jumpers in the lane area. If we had outside marksmen like Landers Nolley, we would improve our outside efficiency and overall scoring totals.
That's why we should be delighted to read Brandon Sudge's report that supports what Dawghook and Captain and others have reported informally about young Nic Claxton's abilities as a hot-shooting Stretch-4. I also saw Hammonds hit a number of these corner threes at Norcross.
We shot a painfully poor 31.8% on our threes over last season. Oddly, we improved that in SEC play to 33.9% to rank 7th in conference. Fox should be alarmed that we score only 21% of our scoring on 3-pointers as that ranks an abysmal 340th in the nation. We score instead a whopping 24.3% of our points from the free throw line. (12th highest percentage in the nation.) Our opponents score 31% of their output from 3s, which is slightly above the national average of 30.4%. We do not make it easy to score inside on us.
One reason LeBron James and his teams routinely make it to the finals is that their offense last season efficiently took a league leading 743 corner three-point shot attempts, 147 more than the second-ranked Miami Heat. James set a record for most assists on corner threes last season (162), 66 more than anyone else had in 2016-17.
LeBron is valuable not simply because he scores well, but because he allows his teammates to score well with his high assist numbers. If you are open in the corner, James is going to get you the ball. We need to identify who on our roster takes and hits a high percentage of corner threes and we need to identify who makes a high number of assists on three-point shots.
Yante Mateo made an impressive .488% on his threes last season, so he should hoist more up. Harris as well since he converted on .426%. Crump at .30% and Turtle at .33% should probably stay out of the corners. Diatta and E'Torrion made only .31% and 32% of their long distance heaves, so they should also be discouraged. Parker at (cough) .16% (cough) should be yanked from the court and dope-slapped if he asks for the ball in the corner.
The easiest way to get open corner threes is to push the tempo and also to employ a secondary break that crisply and automatically moves the ball to the other side of the court when a fast break is unsuccessful in getting an open run to the rim. Or when running a high pick and roll by looking to pass out into the corner when defenders collapse into the lane.
In the Land of the Blind, the one-eyed man is King. If Claxton or Hammonds can hit the corner-3, then they should see immediate minutes ahead of Edwards, E'Torrion and Pape. We gotta figure out a way to increase our 3-point production other than by simply telling Crump and Harris to fire away from the top of the key.
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