They trade Michael Carter-Williams because he can't shoot and trade for Marcus Smart? That's only a marginal upgrade. (And it's an upgrade, meaning Philly won't do it.)
Marcus Smart
can shoot. He shot 33.5% from three last season which (for a rookie guard who was supposed to not be able to shoot) is pretty good - especially given the large sample size (he took over 4 attempts per game).
By comparison look at some other guards who have come in to the NBA with the expectation of not being able to shoot, and see how they shot from three in their rookie years:
* Dennis Schroeder shot 23.8%
* Phil Pressey shot 24.6%
* Dante Exum shot 31.4%
* Elfrid Payton shot 26.2%
* Michael Carter Williams shot 26.4%
Dante Exum is the only guy in that group of 5 who came even close to shooting a respectable percentage, and I'd say he was seen as being a similar caliber shooter to Smart at draft time (not a BAD shooter, just inconsistent with his shooting form). But even then Exum took half as many attempts as Smart and still shot a significantly lower percentage.
Past history tells me that if Marcus Smart has shot 33.5% form three in his rookie year on over 4 attempts per game, then he's going to become a pretty good shooter. I expect Smart to eventually be at least a 35% - 36% shooter from three which is not a far stretch given how much most players improve their shooting percentages after their rookie years.
In fact right now, three point shooting is the LAST thing I'm worried about with Smart. My bigger concern is his ability to score in other ways - on drives to the basket, from midrange, floaters, etc. Last season 57% of all shots came from three, with the next most (17.6%) coming from inside 3 feet where he actually shot a pretty respectable (for a rookie guard) 56%. He also had a pretty respectable free throw rate of 26.6% - not incredibly high but again, promising for a rookie guard.
But Avery Bradley is seen by many people here as a 3+D guy, and he shot higher percentages than Smart inside 3 feet (61.2% vs 56%), from 3-10 feet (39.2% vs 25.6%), from 16 feet ot 3 point (43.1% vs 29.5%) and from three (35.2% vs 33.5%).
The only area on the court where Smart shot better was from 12-16 feet (35.6% for Bradley,
38.2% for Smart).
Also only 34.8% of Bradley's FGA were threes (his previous high was 26.4%, so that was easilly a high for him) while a whopping 57.0% of Smart's FGA were threes.
This gives me some feat that Smart may not develop into anything more than a pure 3+D player (a Derek Fisher 2.0) role player. Hopefully he can prove me wrong ad add more to his game than that.
Topic: David Aldridge on C's (trade idea, thoughts) (Read 9443 times)