Time for another edition of the NBA mailbag.
Throughout the NBA season, I will be answering your questions about the latest, most interesting topics in basketball. You can tweet your questions using the hashtag #peltonmailbag or email them to peltonmailbag@gmail.com.
This week's edition includes the imagining of Steph Curry as just a spot-up shooter, why the Portland Trail Blazers still can't figure it out on one side of the ball and debating the relevance of a rarely called infraction in the NBA.
I was wondering today, if Steph had a shot profile of like PJ tucker - medium volume on mostly easy and open 3's - what would he shoot from 3? 55%?
— Ben Weiner (@Ben_weiner03) January 26, 2021
If we look at just what NBA Advanced Stats defines as "wide-open" 3-point attempts -- the closest defender at least six feet away based on camera tracking -- Curry has shot 47.7% on these attempts since tracking began in 2013-14. That's good for fifth best among players with at least 500 such attempts.
(Incidentally, Seth Curry is the better brother on wide-open 3-point attempts -- he missed my cutoff with 442 total attempts since 2013-14 -- but his 50% accuracy is best of anyone with at least 40 wide-open 3-point tries in that span.)
Tucker, meanwhile, is basically average in terms of accuracy on wide-open 3s. He has hit them at a 37.9% clip since 2013-14; the NBA as a whole has shot 38.5% on wide-open attempts in that span. As you allude in your question, the difference is wide-open 3s make up a much bigger portion of Tucker's total shot diet. His 1,367 wide-open 3s (seventh most in the NBA since 2013-14) account for 72% of his total 3-point attempts over that period. While Stephen Curry has more total wide-open 3-point attempts (1,607, third most), they represent just 35% of his 3-point attempts.
Second Spectrum's quantified shot quality (qSQ) measure, which accounts for both location and type of shot as well as the distance of nearby defenders, can give us a more complete answer to your question. Since 2013-14, Curry's qSQ of 51.3% on 3-point attempts ranks in the 14th percentile of all players with at least 100 attempts, meaning 86% of players take easier shots. Tucker's qSQ of 56.2% puts him in the 95th percentile of that group.
Since Curry has actually posted an effective field goal percentage of 64.4% on 3-point attempts, he has a quantified shooter impact (qSI) of 13.2 -- effectively the measure of shooting ability. That ranks third among players with more than 250 attempts behind Kyle Korver and Duncan Robinson (both 14.5). If we add Curry's qSI (his shooting ability) to Tucker's qSQ (his shot quality), we'd get an expected effective field goal percentage of 69.3% on 3-point attempts.
Dividing by 1.5 to account for the value of the 3, that would translate into a 3-point percentage of 46.2% as compared to Curry's actual 43% mark since 2013-14.
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Hey Kevin. Do you have an article or pod anywhere that breaks down WHY the Blazers defense is so bad? Is it personnel, effort, or coaching? Thanks!
— Jeff Wilson (@Jeff_Wilson_8) February 2, 2021
When evaluating team performance, I think personnel is the place to start. Much was made last fall of Portland's defensive upgrades with the additions of Robert Covington and Derrick Jones Jr., two moves I liked for the Blazers. Unfortunately, a lot of those upgrades were undone by also re-signing forward Carmelo Anthony and bringing back center Enes Kanter via trade.
Per Cleaning the Glass, Portland's original starting lineup with Covington and Jones joining holdovers Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum and Jusuf Nurkic allowed a 109.1 defensive rating before injuries to Nurkic and McCollum, which was slightly better than league average. That's similar to what the Blazers' starting five with Al-Farouq Aminu and Maurice Harkless at forward did in 2018-19, when they reached the Western Conference finals.
Unfortunately, Portland hasn't been nearly as good defensively with either Anthony on the court (118.8 defensive rating) or Kanter (118.5). Both of those marks are worse than any team has allowed over the course of the season.
When the Blazers were constructing this roster, they surely weren't expecting Anthony and Kanter to play so much. Nurkic's injury thrust Kanter into a starting role, plus Portland anticipated having Zach Collins back as part of the frontcourt rotation by this point before he suffered a recurrence of the stress fracture in his left ankle that required a second surgery.
That being said, personnel isn't the only factor. After all, Kanter started throughout the 2019 playoffs and the Blazers' coaching staff was able to construct a capable defense around his limitations. I think Portland has run into an issue with a trend I discussed on the Lowe Post podcast earlier this week as well as on Twitter -- the renewed importance of preventing 3-point attempts.
Under head coach Terry Stotts, the Blazers have historically put increased emphasis on avoiding opponent 3-point attempts. They ranked in the top 10 in lowest rate of opponent 3 attempts in each of his first seven seasons as head coach, including the lowest mark in both 2013-14 and 2014-15.
For many years, Portland excelled at preventing attempts both in the restricted area around the basket and from 3. Last season's defense accomplished neither goal at an above-average rate, and in the context of a league where preventing attempts at the rim had become more important than preventing 3s. The Blazers responded by installing more aggressive pick-and-roll defenses than their traditional drop coverage.
Specifically, they brought in former Chicago Bulls coach Jim Boylen to consult during the offseason. Boylen's 2019-20 Chicago team defended at an above-average rate using ultra-aggressive blitzing of pick-and-rolls, something the Bulls did far more often than any other team. Portland's blitz rate, 11th in the league per 100 possessions last season according to Second Spectrum tracking, is up to seventh so far in 2020-21.
Unfortunately, it looks like the wrong time to make that change. The Blazers are now allowing 3-pointers at the sixth-highest rate in the league, far and away the most in Stotts' tenure. (They were near league average last season, snapping that seven-year streak.) I suspect we'll see Portland move back toward a more conservative scheme that could prove more effective. Thursday night's win in Philadelphia while allowing just 27 3-point attempts -- the lowest rate of 3 attempts by a Blazers opponent all season -- was a positive sign.
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"Do you think it is time to get rid of the offensive three-second violation? Most offenses play without a post player now, but it would make switching a little on a big significantly more problematic."
-- Coby
There have been occasional arguments to bring back post-up play by shrinking the size of the lane (which, as my ESPN colleague Kirk Goldsberry has noted, grew far larger in response to George Mikan's low-post dominance in the early days of the NBA). Eliminating it as a factor on offense altogether would be the most extreme possible version of that.
As you note, this probably wouldn't result in teams constantly posting up their big men because of the spacing issues a player in the paint creates. The Dallas Mavericks with Kristaps Porzingis playing beyond the 3-point line rather than in the post is a good example of this.
Still, with offensive efficiency at an all-time high, I'm not sure we'd want to make a dramatic rule change that favors the offense. The only way it would be worth considering is if we also eliminated the defensive three-second rule as well, rendering the painted area no longer a factor in normal gameplay. (The size of the paint would still presumably matter during free throws.) That's maybe worth pondering if we see switching defenses become dominant in postseason play and something needs to be done to create more stylistic variation.