How efficient is Marcus Smart?

[DefenseWinsChamps]

This post will not attempt to say that Smart is a good shooter. The stats don't back that up. His form is not consistent, and his shooting has not been consistent.

However, I want to put some stats out there that indicate he is not as inefficient of a shooter as many people think.

TS%: True Shooting Percentage - what a player's shooting percentage would be if we accounted for free throws and 3-pointers. True Shooting Percentage = Total points / [(FGA + (0.44 x FTA)]

In Smart's rookie season, Smart (49%) was the 59th point guard in the NBA. Which is terrible, but he wasn't the worst in the NBA.

Sessions, Mack, Walker, Cole, Rivers, Fredette, MCW, Exum, Payton, Burke, Price, Pressey, Rubio, Rondo, Robinsion, and Ish Smith were all worse than Smart, ranging from 43-49%.

There are several names on that list that are fringe NBA players, others who are elite prospects, others who are role players, others who are starters and potential all-stars. But that list at the very least indicates that Smart can contribute to a team offensively at his rookie efficiency.

What about this year?

Smart is 70th out of 73 point guards this year at an abysmal 45%. He struggled for a stretch after his injury, but it seems like he is starting to come into form now. I hope that by the end of the season he will be higher than this, or at least get back to his efficiency as a rookie.

The three below him are Grant, Cole, and Mudiay (who is on pace for historic inefficiency at 40%). If Smart can get back to his below average level from last season (49%), he would be ahead of Lawson, Rubio, Napier, Payton, Nelson, Vasquez, Ish Smith, Rose, and Huertas.

From 49-50% are players like Irving, Schoeder, Prigioni, Rondo, Udrih, Neto, Rivers, Russell, MCW, and Stuckey.

Conley, Wall, Knight, and Clarkson are all in the 51-52% range.

As far as efficiency goes, he is not in terrible company. If he can start making his layups (comon Smart!!!) and shoot 30-33% from three, he could easily get into the 50-55% range, which is good company.

Again, not saying that he is a good shooter. Just trying to bring some nuance to the conversation.

[LarBrd33]

TP for referencing his TS% while acknowledging it's one of the worst in the entire league.    I see people use it in defense of players bad shooting all the time without giving context.   His TS% is atrocious. 

That said, he's showing progress this month.  He's had a few games within the last couple weeks that have been encouraging.  He seems to be trending up.  He's still super young.  He still has more potential than anyone on our team.   

Marcus Smart isn't efficient at all.  He's been a really bad offensive player.  But long-term, I have hope he'll get it together.  We're seeing some signs.

[DefenseWinsChamps]

TP for referencing his TS% while acknowledging it's one of the worst in the entire league.    I see people use it in defense of players bad shooting all the time without giving context.   His TS% is atrocious. 

That said, he's showing progress this month.  He's had a few games within the last couple weeks that have been encouraging.  He seems to be trending up.  He's still super young.  He still has more potential than anyone on our team.   

Marcus Smart isn't efficient at all.  He's been a really bad offensive player.  But long-term, I have hope he'll get it together.  We're seeing some signs.

Agreed.

Eye test tells me that he is setting his own pace on pick-and-rolls much better this season. His little 12-18 feet jumper on the pick and roll has been pretty good. Also, he is finally driving decisively (I think Crowder's example has been great for Smart). He is also exploring his ability in the post a bit too.

Overall, I don't think he will be a 20 PPG scorer, but the primary reason for this is that he wants to be more of a distributor. He likes passing. He likes setting up his teammates. I don't think he wants to score a lot.

21 years old. 4-5 years of development under CBS until he hits his prime.

[straightouttabahstun]

I still think he's a keeper. I like looking at players Belichick style-not too reliant on stats. I don't think Marcus is by any means a super star or anything, but man he has improved. And he's done a good job at improving coming off a couple unfortunate injuries. He's getting more comfortable, he's relaxing and setting himself when he shoots, stellar defense, showing off this post game that we never really saw last year. Great work ethic. And he makes his teammates better too.

[The Oracle]

This post will not attempt to say that Smart is a good shooter. The stats don't back that up. His form is not consistent, and his shooting has not been consistent.

However, I want to put some stats out there that indicate he is not as inefficient of a shooter as many people think.

TS%: True Shooting Percentage - what a player's shooting percentage would be if we accounted for free throws and 3-pointers. True Shooting Percentage = Total points / [(FGA + (0.44 x FTA)]

In Smart's rookie season, Smart (49%) was the 59th point guard in the NBA. Which is terrible, but he wasn't the worst in the NBA.

Sessions, Mack, Walker, Cole, Rivers, Fredette, MCW, Exum, Payton, Burke, Price, Pressey, Rubio, Rondo, Robinsion, and Ish Smith were all worse than Smart, ranging from 43-49%.

There are several names on that list that are fringe NBA players, others who are elite prospects, others who are role players, others who are starters and potential all-stars. But that list at the very least indicates that Smart can contribute to a team offensively at his rookie efficiency.

What about this year?

Smart is 70th out of 73 point guards this year at an abysmal 45%. He struggled for a stretch after his injury, but it seems like he is starting to come into form now. I hope that by the end of the season he will be higher than this, or at least get back to his efficiency as a rookie.

The three below him are Grant, Cole, and Mudiay (who is on pace for historic inefficiency at 40%). If Smart can get back to his below average level from last season (49%), he would be ahead of Lawson, Rubio, Napier, Payton, Nelson, Vasquez, Ish Smith, Rose, and Huertas.

From 49-50% are players like Irving, Schoeder, Prigioni, Rondo, Udrih, Neto, Rivers, Russell, MCW, and Stuckey.

Conley, Wall, Knight, and Clarkson are all in the 51-52% range.

As far as efficiency goes, he is not in terrible company. If he can start making his layups (comon Smart!!!) and shoot 30-33% from three, he could easily get into the 50-55% range, which is good company.

Again, not saying that he is a good shooter. Just trying to bring some nuance to the conversation.

You can't compare Smart to Pg's when he is in fact playing much more of a shooting guard role both last year and this year.  How many PG's did the C's have last year?  He was always playing with a ball dominant PG for the most part.  If you want to compare him to something it would have to be shooting guards.  Smart both this year and last year touches the ball some 40-70% less than traditional PG's do.  Expecting non ball dominant rookie SG's to produce high TS% is nonsensical.  Avery Bradley posted a TS% of 50.7% last year and Evan Turner posted 48.2, Smart 49.1.  You will find many other veteran SG's who posted worse than ROOKIE Marcus Smart.  As for this year he has battled 3 injuries, one of which a major shooting hand injury.  It's beyond unfair to judge his early shooting troubles because of this.

[Snakehead]

Good first post.  I think you can be really good as a guard and less efficient than some think (even though IT proves his often). 

The thing a lot of people ignore because it isn't necessarily leading to assists is his passing and ball handling.  If you think his passing/ball handling isn't WAY better than it was last year I think you're missing that aspect of his game.  He can run the pick and roll when he gets the chance and he has a good feel for the floor.  I'm hoping as his shooting improves he can pass into more shots and we see his assists go up.  Also he is competing with Turner to get the chance to run pick and roll right now so his chances are limited that way.

I also like the post game he has shown even though he hasn't gotten to do it a ton.

His shooting was bad no defending that but I am hoping he is going to keep improving.

[Evantime34]

Smart has been efficient recently with a true shooting percentage of 55.2 in the last 7 games. During that span he shot 43.9% from the floor and 34.5% from 3.

When Smart is supplementing his jump shots with post ups and drives to the hoop he shows the avenue by which he can be an efficient scorer.

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Oracle,

Smart has been playing point guard a bit this year, though, and he still compares to them this year, even though he has struggled with some injuries.

Him not handling the point guard responsibilities is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it's hard to compare players who are ball-dominant and their shooting efficiency, like you said.

On the other, he might not have been as comfortable playing off-ball, mostly being asked to play off other players instead of creating his own offense. That was best for the team, but maybe not best for his efficiency numbers. If he got reps over the first half of the season, maybe he would have been more comfortable and started scoring with better efficiency.

There's also no way to quantify how much the other players on that list played with the ball or off ball. For instance, although Payton handled the ball a bit last year, so did Oladipo, and they played together a lot. Exum, Mack, Cole, Rivers, and Burke all played off-ball a bit too.

Luckily, Usage Rate helps a little.

Among players that were worst than Smart, only a few had lower Usage Rates, most notably Dante Exum. If we are going to keep calling Smart "Marcus Banks 2.0" because of his poor efficiency, then you have to do that with a player like Exum too. I'm pretty sure most basketball minds think Exum will be a starter and possibly a star in 3-4 years.

Again, not saying he is a good shooter, but I don't think you can completely throw out these stats because no player plays exactly like another. In one sense, every player comparison is apples to oranges.

This is not the only way to look at his shooting efficiency, but I think it adds to the conversation.

[TheFlex]

Including Irving in the 49-50% tier is a bit misleading. He's just come back from injury and has struggled shooting thus far. Before this year his TS% average over the first few years of his career was something like top 5 in recent NBA history.

Otherwise, good post.

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Including Irving in the 49-50% tier is a bit misleading. He's just come back from injury and has struggled shooting thus far. Before this year his TS% average over the first few years of his career was something like top 5 in recent NBA history.

Otherwise, good post.

Just listing, not interpreting his numbers. He was one that was in that range, so I listed him. Smart's numbers are impacted by injuries too, as noted above by The Oracle.

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Smart has been efficient recently with a true shooting percentage of 55.2 in the last 7 games. During that span he shot 43.9% from the floor and 34.5% from 3.

When Smart is supplementing his jump shots with post ups and drives to the hoop he shows the avenue by which he can be an efficient scorer.

TP. Good stats.

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Smart has officially passed Jared Sullinger in TS%, 46.7 to 46.2.

Is Jared's shot going to come back or not?

[SHAQATTACK]

He is gonna get lots of practice with Jae out .

[Celtics4ever]

Smart has officially passed Jared Sullinger in TS%, 46.7 to 46.2.

Not hard to do

Is Jared's shot going to come back or not?

It never was anything to write home about.  He is playing better D this year but how his shot got worse with that effort is just one more reason, to part ways.

[guava_wrench]

Some people are mentioning injuries to excuse numbers but, if we are going there, we should consider the injuries for all the players considered.