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This is a slightly modified version of a post I made off hand in the Barnes thread, but I think it's still a solid point of discussion as something greatly impacting the team this year.

So, Siakams 3p shooting woes are widely known, but I think what a lot of people don't understand is just HOW bad it actually is. So, let's break it down.

Siakam is currently shooting 19.8% on 4.1 attempts a game. That breaks down to 16 made 3 pointers, on 81 attempts.

As per Statmuse, the current 5 worst 3 point shooting seasons in NBA history on 4+ attempts a game are :

• Mookie Blaylock - 97-98 26.9% on 4.8 attempts a game
• Latrell Sprewell - 94-95 27.6% on 4.7 attempts a game
• Marcus Smart - 16-17 28.3% on 4.2 attempts a game
• Kobe Bryant - 15-16 28.5% on 7.1 attempts a game
• Monta Ellis - 12-13 28.7% on 4 attempts a game

20 games into the season Siakam has attempted 81 3's, assuming Siakam plays all 82 games this season, and continues to put up 4 attempts a game, that leaves 248 more, for a total of 329 3p attempts. Siakam is currently a 32.1% career 3 point shooter, which is bad, but not historically so.

So how does this all break down for the rest of the season?

If he shoots 36% for the rest of the year, he would end the year averaging 31.9%, just about his career average. Siakams career best was 36.9% in 2018-19 when we had Kawhi, followed by his second best year in 2019-20 at 35.9%. Safe to say, this is pretty unlikely to happen, so we're already off to a bad start.

If he shoots his career average (32%) the rest of the season he would end up at 28.7%, which would be tied for 5th worst 3 point shooter in NBA history on 4 attempts or more.

If he shoots 30% the rest of the season he would end up at 27.3%, which would rank 2nd worst in NBA history.

And lastly, if he shoots 29% the rest of the season?

He officially becomes the worst single season 3 point shooter in NBA history with 26.7%.

The difference between him shooting 32% and 29%? 7 total 3 pointers made, it isn't just possible he ends up bottom 5 in NBA history, but at this point it's entirely likely.

Aside from shooting better, another way he can lessen the chances of making that list, is to just shoot less overall. That doesn't solve the problem but makes it less evident.

There is nothing I have seen to indicate that his mechanics have changed, or how/when he takes the shots, so my only assumption is that it's something mental. Which was somewhat confirmed when he hit a shot a game or two ago, and he was laughing running down the court saying "Thank god".

Ultimately, I don't think Siakam is this bad, but with how deep of a hole he has dug this year, it's pretty likely this season goes down as one of the worst in NBA history on any significant attempts.

The only real caveat here is that this is based on his current shot diet/rate, so naturally any major changes to that will throw this all out of whack.

Just a **** awful year. He only takes open and wide open threes, almost all are catch and shoot, and he's missing all of them.

https://www.nba.com/stats/player/1627783/shots-dash?PerMode=Totals

He's never had a mechanically sound outside jumper, particularly his knees/lower legs. He seems right on track to land on this bottom 5 list you posted.

His 3 just looks totally broken this year, it's beyond bizarre. He wasn't ever good but it wasn't this bad.

It really sucks because so much of our success was dependent on both him and Scottie stretching the floor. Scottie is doing his part...

Duffman100 wrote:His 3 just looks totally broken this year, it's beyond bizarre. He wasn't ever good but it wasn't this bad.

It really sucks because so much of our success was dependent on both him and Scottie stretching the floor. Scottie is doing his part...

Yeah and that's why I think it's gotta be something mental, I'm not seeing anything wildly different from years past, granted I havent poured over years of video of him shooting, but nothing stands out at first glance.

His first 5 games he shot 38%, and then since then, is shooting 9.6%, so I'm not sure what mentally could be impacting it. It would make more sense if he just started awful and kept digging a deeper hole, but that seemingly isn't the case.

maybe the pressure of Free Agency is impacting him mentally

Duffman100 wrote:His 3 just looks totally broken this year, it's beyond bizarre. He wasn't ever good but it wasn't this bad.

It really sucks because so much of our success was dependent on both him and Scottie stretching the floor. Scottie is doing his part...

Problem exasperated by a starting c who doesn't shoot 3s, and a bench of bad shooters... it's not all on Pascal. He still shoots close to 50 percent from the field, and led the starters last year...

Never seen a player's touch alternate between good and bad as it does with Siakam. He goes through stretches where he's banking in shots from all angles and splashing stepback 3s. And then he completely loses confidence for stretches where he misses point blank layups, his bank shots turn into missiles that careen off the glass and miss the rim, he can't buy a jumpshot, and his free throws become shaky.

Worth noting this is a pretty small sample. In all likelihood he just reverts to his mean.

Like, if you look for bad 20 game stretches of shooting, using each season back to his 2018-19 season when he first started really taking threes, you can find several such stretches and his shooting always comes up into the low 30's at least and often into the mid-thirties.

2018-19: 26% over 20 games, 37% on the year
2019-20: 32% over 20 games, 36% on the year
2020-21: 23% over 20 games, 30% on the year
2021-22: 28% over 20 games, 34% on the year
2022-23: 27% over 20 games, 32% on the year

The 20% thus far is concerning, for sure, but even if this is going to be a bad year for him, expect it to normalize out to about 30%, not maintain this pace. The current pace just stands out more because it's right at the start of the season. There will likely be a hot streak at some point that will wash this streak out a bit.

In terms of the shots he's getting, I would definitely like to see him take more of his threes from the corner. He hasn't been shooting well from there either (on a tiny sample), but historically he's been a better corner shooter, it's more his range. 64 above the break threes and only 17 from the corner is not what you want to see. And a lot more above the break stuff made some sense when he was dribbling into pull up threes, but no reason for Pascal to be up there in this offence, where he can be a threat to cut into the post along the baseline from the corner while Scottie is creating in the middle of the floor.

Good post Scase. I hope he just drops his attempts.

How do you talk to an NBA champion to improve from 3pt range?

They should try getting him into situations where he's completely open and he can take his time forming the shot, and only take those shots to begin with. I've seen him try to force the situation and take ill-advised 3s for several games now. We all know he can dominate down low. Whether you want him gone or not you only stand to benefit from him finding his mojo again behind the arc.

Trade him for Klay and moody and call it a day

Not good at all. Doesn't help that Yak doesn't stretch the floor either so that paint is gonna remain super clogged regardless. Running some archaic lineups out there right now.

Thankfully Scottie has been hitting his 3s or this offense would be that much more brutal.

Hopefully Pascal turns it around, if only for his trade value.

Just move the mismatch pieces and build around Scottie.

FFS.

dhackett1565 wrote:Worth noting this is a pretty small sample. In all likelihood he just reverts to his mean.

Like, if you look for bad 20 game stretches of shooting, using each season back to his 2018-19 season when he first started really taking threes, you can find several such stretches and his shooting always comes up into the low 30's at least and often into the mid-thirties.

2018-19: 26% over 20 games, 37% on the year
2019-20: 32% over 20 games, 36% on the year
2020-21: 23% over 20 games, 30% on the year
2021-22: 28% over 20 games, 34% on the year
2022-23: 27% over 20 games, 32% on the year

The 20% thus far is concerning, for sure, but even if this is going to be a bad year for him, expect it to normalize out to about 30%, not maintain this pace. The current pace just stands out more because it's right at the start of the season. There will likely be a hot streak at some point that will wash this streak out a bit.

In terms of the shots he's getting, I would definitely like to see him take more of his threes from the corner. He hasn't been shooting well from there either (on a tiny sample), but historically he's been a better corner shooter, it's more his range. 64 above the break threes and only 17 from the corner is not what you want to see. And a lot more above the break stuff made some sense when he was dribbling into pull up threes, but no reason for Pascal to be up there in this offence, where he can be a threat to cut into the post along the baseline from the corner while Scottie is creating in the middle of the floor.

As I lined out though, even if he makes his way back to his career averages, he still ends up 5th worst in NBA history. He needs to shoot 36% for the remaining 62 games just to hit his career average.

And you can't find a stretch this bad, like at all. He's shooting 9.6% his last 15 games.



I'm not exaggerating here, this is historically bad.

TorontoBarneys wrote:They should try getting him into situations where he's completely open and he can take his time forming the shot, and only take those shots to begin with. I've seen him try to force the situation and take ill-advised 3s for several games now. We all know he can dominate down low. Whether you want him gone or not you only stand to benefit from him finding his mojo again behind the arc.

That's actually not the case, as per Fairviews post earlier in the thread, he's doing this with 96% of his shots categorized as open (31.6% of the total attempts), or wide open (64.5% of the total attempts).

He's missing tons of shots, and they are good looks. And they aren't rushed either, 62% of his attempts are between 18-7 seconds on the shot clock.

Fred did the same to start last year, he got 44m per. I doubt it effects his market tbh.

The teams that would want him, still probably want him.

Harcore Fenton Mun wrote:Fred did the same to start last year, he got 44m per. I doubt it effects his market tbh.

The teams that would want him, still probably want him.

Fred shot 32.7% in the first 20 games last season, Siakam isn't even close.

I'm dead serious about this, it is historically bad.