Marcus Smart's historical shooting ranking

[Csfan1984]

I really feel Marcus would be fine if he played more PG and had shooters around him. He is better the less offense you ask of him. But at SG he has to take shots and a lot have to be outside. IT is the PG so Billups .... I mean Marcus will have to wait for his shot.

[hwangjini_1]

My expectations for Smart now are just that he'll continue to improve and grow within the role of a bench agitator / defender / hustle guy / ball-handler-as-needed.

The Celts can definitely use a guy like that.  He'll help the team win, whether it's 10, 15, 20, or 25 minutes a night.

He's not the future lead guard of this squad, but that's alright.  He's not a bust, and he'll help the team win games for the foreseeable future.  More than you could say of Randle or Lavine or Vonleh.

Man, though.  I wish the Celts had gotten to draft Aaron Gordon.

yes, gordon was tempting and i thought the celtics might get him.

but what made me smile in your statement is that for his 2 year career gordon is shooting 29.8% from three point land to smart's 30.1%.

the fg% is night and day since gordon is a pf, of course.

[TheTruth]

Phosita,

I don't see it happening this year but in a couple of years it could. Just saying it could be a problem if his shot gets just good enough that he ends up trying to take over games as a 40 percent shooter.

[straightouttabahstun]

I can't wait to see the thread in a few years that says "Smarts historical shooting turnaround". He's going to start stringing together these high point games eventually on a much more consistent basis. He's just doing it slower than we all expected due to his draft selection. He's had more 15-20 point types of games this season and he's got a triple double to boot. If Marcus were drafted at 12 or 13 this would look awesome. I predict he starts doing this on a more consistent basis when he has a full summer of being healthy and being able to train/practice from the get go rather than dealing with injuries like that finger injury during Summer League. I seriously think that messed with him more than we think. He couldn't even practice again until September. Danny and Brad both believe in him. We as fans should too.

[TheTruth]

StraightBos,

I hope you are right. Just posting what I have heard and making observations that seem obvious such as Smart being pretty bad at taking it to the hoop.

[PhoSita]

My expectations for Smart now are just that he'll continue to improve and grow within the role of a bench agitator / defender / hustle guy / ball-handler-as-needed.

The Celts can definitely use a guy like that.  He'll help the team win, whether it's 10, 15, 20, or 25 minutes a night.

He's not the future lead guard of this squad, but that's alright.  He's not a bust, and he'll help the team win games for the foreseeable future.  More than you could say of Randle or Lavine or Vonleh.

Man, though.  I wish the Celts had gotten to draft Aaron Gordon.

yes, gordon was tempting and i thought the celtics might get him.

but what made me smile in your statement is that for his 2 year career gordon is shooting 29.8% from three point land to smart's 30.1%.

the fg% is night and day since gordon is a pf, of course.

Yeah, I mean, it's not like Gordon's been amazing offensively or anything, but Gordon's only 20, he's shooting 47% from the floor on 7 attempts a game, and he's got that "6'9 aggressive rebounder who can probably cover 3-4 positions" profile that is just so tantalizing.

Point being, the path to "two way impact player who can give you as many minutes a night as you want" is much clearer with Gordon than with Smart.  I remember being surprised that the Magic took him at #3, but it seems he might have actually been a steal there, given that Jabari has yet to develop an outside jumper or defend particularly well.

[straightouttabahstun]

StraightBos,

I hope you are right. Just posting what I have heard and making observations that seem obvious such as Smart being pretty bad at taking it to the hoop.

Oh no worries dude. It is a good observation. I have been frustrated with Smart too and I still get nervous when he launches threes,, but I am also still very high on him and believe he can be something special if he is given a better role on the team. That's not his fault though. I think Danny knew a guy like Brad was a good coach, but to be able to get what he can get out of his guys every night, be able to trade for Isaiah for literally nothing and start winning at this rate, I don't think that was expected. It's literally the one slightly bad side affect of speeding up the rebuild.

[Dino Pitino]

Dino,

You have to add context when using stats. Someone like Carmelo and Demarcus Cousins do not shoot threes. So they don't get a boost from three that Smart would.

I think we all expect Smart to improve. He's gotta to be at rock bottom. But the FG ranking should give everyone some concern. He's second to last in the last 50 years.

Efg doesn't change the fact that he's a historically bad shooter.

The whole point of eFG% is context, man. It doesn't give him a "boost", it considers the actual value of the points. Threes are a reality of the game. Threes are worth more. He is effectively as bad a shooter as Cousins was his first two years. If it were 45 years ago, would you be making this thread about Dave Cowens? If you were a Thunder fan 5 years ago, would you be making this thread about Russell Westbrook? If it were 5 years from now, will you look back on this thread and realize, gee, maybe declaring Smart a historically bad shooter by comparing the raw FG% of a player in his second year to the raw FG% of players who'd had their entire careers to improve wasn't such a smart idea? It's a trivial curiosity that's barely worth a five minute talk radio hot take. Message boards should be better than this.

[TheTruth]

Dino,

Not sure why you are being so abrasive.

Am I making things up? No. He is a historically bad shooter so far.

The boost that Smart gets on his Efg is from the threes he takes. His 30 percent gets boosted to 45 percent but this in no way changes the fact that he was a much worse shooter than someone like Melo, in their first two years. His raw FG percentage is at 35 percent. I would much rather have Smart shooting 41 percent with an Efg of 43 than shooting 35 percent with Efg of 43.

[TheTruth]

Dino,

Westbrook shot 40 and 42 percent his first two years. That is at least workable.

Smart is shooting 35 percent.

Huge drop from Westbrook.

[TheTruth]

Kemba Walker might be a better comparison as someone who turned his poor shooting around.

He came in shooting 37 percent his first year.

[Dino Pitino]

Dino,

Not sure why you are being so abrasive.

Am I making things up? No. He is a historically bad shooter so far.

The boost that Smart gets on his Efg is from the threes he takes. His 30 percent gets boosted to 45 percent but this in no way changes the fact that he was a much worse shooter than someone like Melo, in their first two years. His raw FG percentage is at 35 percent. I would much rather have Smart shooting 41 percent with an Efg of 43 than shooting 35 percent with Efg of 43.

The relevant question is: What's better, Smart having a 40.8 FG% and a 42.1 eFG%, or a 35.5 FG% and a 43.3 eFG%? The latter is better. Because more points are scored per shot. Teams win basketball games by scoring more points.

[TheTruth]

Dino,

No GM is ever going to say give me the guy who shoots 35 percent but has a 43 percent Efg over a guy who has a slightly worse Efg but is shooting 41 percent.

There is a lot more hope with a guy who can at least shoot 41 percent and you can expand his range to add a three point shot to boost that player's Efg. Smart's Efg is already getting that boost.

[rollie mass]

maybe smart should stop playing d,stop guarding porzingis ,george ,westbrook,harden,derozan
cut back the intensity,cut back shooting at end of clock-
next time jerebko or kelly pass up a shot he should just pass it back
maybe he should play d like james young or harden and just focus on hitting good threes and drive and kick  and wait for the refs to feel sorry for him
what was his 3 percentage last year about 33%-be interesting how he plays against the suns-avery and smart should terrorize them -

[PhoSita]

Kemba Walker might be a better comparison as someone who turned his poor shooting around.

He came in shooting 37 percent his first year.

Kemba took a lot more shots closer to the basket, got to the line more, and ran the offense. 

Point being, I think it's easier to look past the crappy shooting if a guy is pressuring the defense and running the show.

Rubio's another example of that.

When it's a guy playing mostly off the ball and laying a lot of bricks, it's harder to look past.

This is part of what people are talking about when they say that keeping Smart off the ball has hindered his value / development.