“I would say that the shot spectrum has veered off a little bit from what we normally talk about and I’ll be honest with you, it’s probably a little further away from what I would maybe textbook or philosophically want, but I also know we were also in a transition period of, ‘How are we gonna generate shots, period?’” Nurse said. Meanwhile, the Raptors shot 35.2 percent of their shots in the mid-range, ranked sixth in the league, which is significantly more mid-range shots than we are used to seeing from Nurse’s teams. Could you imagine what they could do with some shooting?įor one, added shooting would allow them to get closer to Nurse’s optimal shot spectrum of primarily threes and rim attempts. That they still won the fifth seed in the East due to defence, transition, and offensive rebounds says a lot about how good they were in those areas. and were consistently stifled by zone defences. In large part due to their lack of shooting, the Raptors had the fifth-worst half-court offence in the league. Their lack of jump shooting also showed up inside the arc, where the Raptors shot the ball at the 28th-worst mark in the league from two-point range (50.3 percent) and 23rd-worst from the free-throw line (75.9 percent). In fact, only three players shot above 36 percent on semi-high volume, and in the playoffs, those numbers went down for all three of Anunoby, Fred VanVleet, and Gary Trent Jr. The Raptors shot just 34.2 three-point attempts per game, the 19th most in the league, and they converted on 34.9 percent of them, the 20th-best mark in the league. They couldn’t, but were competitive nonetheless, which only goes to show that the team could be really dangerous with decent three-point shooting. Between Malachi Flynn, Svi Mykhailiuk, Yuta Watanabe, Precious Achiuwa, Chris Boucher, Dalano Banton, Justin Champagnie, Barnes, and even choosing Isaac Bonga over Sam Dekker, the Raptors hoped they could squeeze enough shooting out of a team made up primarily of non-shooters in order to be competitive. To some extent, the Raptors made that same bet this past season, filling out the roster with athletic, defence-first players and hoping that enough of them would make a leap on the offensive end in order to be real contributors. “It’s the one skill in the game that nearly anyone can get better at.” If you’re already a good shooter, become a better one,” Raptors head coach and certified shooting coach Nick Nurse wrote in his book Rapture. “If you want to stay in basketball, devote yourself to shooting.
Even Barnes shot the ball better in his rookie season in the NBA than he did in college. And while Siakam is still inconsistent from behind the arc - shooting 34.4 percent last season - he has taken big strides since college and just had his best mid-range shooting season of his career. So did Norman Powell, another Raptors draft pick who didn’t shoot well in college and became successful as a member of the Raptors. Since becoming Raptors, Anunoby turned himself into a prolific three-point shooter, up to 37.2 percent on his career.
And Scottie Barnes shot 27.5 percent on just 40 three-point attempts at Florida State. Pascal Siakam only attempted 17 total threes in two seasons at New Mexico State. OG Anunoby shot 36.5 percent from three on a really low volume (74 three in 134 games) in two seasons at Indiana while shooting just 52.2 percent from the free-throw line.
In fact, when you look at three of their four current best players on the team (who happen to be three of their most recent first-round picks), none of them had reliable jump shots coming out of college, and all could be considered “reaches” at the time of the draft in large part due to their lack of shooting. And one look at said roster, which is filled with defence-first wings ranging from 6-foot-7 to 6-foot-9, says all you need to know about how little shooting is prioritized. The Toronto Raptors fundamentally believe that shooting is a skill that can be developed.įor the first time in Masai Ujiri and Bobby Webster’s tenure, the roster is truly their own, built completely through their own draft picks, acquisitions, and trades, representing their own basketball beliefs.
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