Orlwillbeback wrote:doct3r dr3 wrote:tiderulz wrote:i dont believe that Drew has developed any reputation as a 3 pt shooter and defense do not respect him. he was been a low 30% 3pt shooter all year. maybe he can get better, maybe he can learn from Frye. still needs to be consistent in other areas of the court to get more playing time.
In the absence of the SportVU data on contested jumpers, the best I can do is point you to the video of Nicholson's 3-point attempts (via NBA.com).
I'd say the Clippers were respecting his shot a bit in game 5 (11/6/13), but the league at large started respecting his shot in earnest around game 13 vs. Phoenix (11/24/13). After that, teams pretty much always tried to at least close out late on his catches. Again, the fact that he spotted up from the corners rather than the wings made it easier for defenders to cheat off of him a bit and help on the post.
it is one thing to say teams are respecting his shot and another to say he is transformative floor spacing presence that is single handedly responsible for his fellow players increased effectiveness when he is on the court. That's what i dont believe.
My original post doesn't say that Nicholson's presence alone created the observed effects. In fact, I specifically identify a possible source of noise in the data:
Nicholson played as a backup, so his lineups faced the defense of backup units more often than a starter's would. Now, it's not as though Nicholson didn't play with the starters at all: 60% of his minutes came with Oladipo, 44% came with Afflalo, 41% came with Harkless, and 39% came with Nelson. But without controlling for the level of opponent it's impossible to say how much of this observed effect is attributable to these sort of opponent lineup effects.
But the similarity in the details (increases in unassisted shots at the rim, big uptick in 3P%) between the observed Nicholson effect and the Frye effect on Dragic, suggests that something similar is going on with both players.
