We Can't Shoot for Sh*t

[johanliebert]

Defence and rebounding wins chips. Not saying this team is a contender but you can’t say 3pt shooting trumps those two categories.

[Tha Cynic]

What I feel we should be talking about is why has this been a persistent issue for many years?

Certainly talent is part of the issue, but it seems like there is also something systemic within the organization where our players see their shooting regress here.

I feel like we were one of the first to adopt analytics, but now that everyone is using analytics other teams have gone ahead in terms of understanding how to use the data and execute.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Siakam went to Indiana and suddenly he’s consistently a better shooter from 3 and is just way more confident taking them. If he shot like that here we would have most likely kept him. Steal someone from Indiana or something. Our organization has failed to teach shooting.

[lobosloboslobos]

You guys are over-indexing this way too much. If you watch the games, you can clearly see that our players flat out miss wide open shots and can’t burn defenders when they go under screens. This team is very bad at shooting and having one player back isn’t changing that.

At this stage I’m questioning our development staff and how they’re teaching shooting. Everyone is using the same tools/system but the message and execution is different. Raptors are bottom of the league. Something needs to be revamped completely here.

Yeah I agree that there is something systemically wrong. Not sure what it is, but everyone knows shooting is a lot about confidence and I wonder about guys like Ochai and Battle and Dick who have clearly shown they can shoot but are shooting like crap this year. Is the coaching staff hurting their confidence instead of increasing it? I don't know but I think it's worth asking...it's not just that they are being defended better since they are all missing a lot of open shots that in the past they have hit...

[TravisScott55]

A proper center creates more space for shooters

[MEDIC]

Battle is averaging significantly less 3 point attempts per game this season than last season:

2024: 4.4 three point attempts per game
2025: 1.3 three point attempts per game

You can't expect a shooting specialist to he impactful taking such low volume. It's crazy that he is shooting the % that he is.

lol that's because he made 10 threes in a row at one point and has only taken 41 on the year

His volume is lower because teams are taking away his catch and shoot 3's and he's not really a movement shooter. Done a better job with cutting and finishing at the rim this season though.

That's a good thing that teams are taking those away. It means he is doing his job & spacing the floor. This allows RJ, Scottie, BI & CMB to feast a little more.

When the defense is sagging off your shooters, it becomes problematic.

We need more guys like Battle that will punish you if you double.or sag off.

Gradey isn't punising anyone. Neither is Ochai.

[PushDaRock]

It was just a hot shooting streak tbh.

Scottie and Mamu were shooting like 50% from the 3 on decent volume. The regression to the mean is hitting now. Reality is our team is just a very bad 3 point shooting team lol.

Our 5 best players can’t shoot the 3 efficiently.

RJ, BI, Scottie, Poeltl and CMB.

Mamu was never really that hot from 3, his hottest month was October at 45.5% but that was over 6 games and 5 for 11 shooting. He was 39% in November on 1.1 make per game, nothing really crazy.

Scottie's did have a hot shooting month in October making 50% of his 3's, but again it was 6 games on 12 for 24 shooting. He was 37% in November on 1.1 make per game, really good for him but not much volume there.

So yeah, there's some regression to the mean but both are on such low volume that it doesn't alone explain 2 less made 3's per game and a 5.7% drop in 3 PT% for the team when RJ doesn't play.

Shooting variance is measured over a lot more time than the data we had with RJ.

I think regardless of RJ is there or not, we’re a poor 3 point shooting team.

Maybe that will be the case, but the data is the data so far.

[MEDIC]

And Gradey is still shooting better than him over their careers and the larger sample size

That's fine, but he still hasn't been performing when he's gotten those small opportunities lately is all I'm saying.

So your solution for improving the 3 point shooting is to keep trotting Gradey & Ochai out there to shoot bricks?

No, I'm saying there are no easy solutions. If you want to say Battle should play 15 mins a game or something, I'm not going to argue against it, but it's likely not moving the needle that much. Battle isn't getting much 3 point shooting volume this season because teams aren't just letting him catch and shoot anymore.

Lol. Its not that simple.

For one.......he is averaging less than half of the minutes that he got laat season.

It's hard to get in a rhythm as a shooter playing 8 min a game......and some of those minutes are garbage time with gleague players.

[PushDaRock]

You guys are over-indexing this way too much. If you watch the games, you can clearly see that our players flat out miss wide open shots and can’t burn defenders when they go under screens. This team is very bad at shooting and having one player back isn’t changing that.

At this stage I’m questioning our development staff and how they’re teaching shooting. Everyone is using the same tools/system but the message and execution is different. Raptors are bottom of the league. Something needs to be revamped completely here.

Data is showing otherwise so far that one player has been that big of a difference. Do I think he actually makes as big of a difference as the numbers say? No, but it's very likely that he still does matter a lot for us.

[PushDaRock]

Battle is averaging significantly less 3 point attempts per game this season than last season:

2024: 4.4 three point attempts per game
2025: 1.3 three point attempts per game

You can't expect a shooting specialist to he impactful taking such low volume. It's crazy that he is shooting the % that he is.

lol that's because he made 10 threes in a row at one point and has only taken 41 on the year

His volume is lower because teams are taking away his catch and shoot 3's and he's not really a movement shooter. Done a better job with cutting and finishing at the rim this season though.

That's a good thing that teams are taking those away. It means he is doing his job & spacing the floor. This allows RJ, Scottie, BI & CMB to feast a little more.

When the defense is sagging off your shooters, it becomes problematic.

We need more guys like Battle that will punish you if you double.or sag off.

Gradey isn't punising anyone. Neither is Ochai.

Battle has good metrics this season, I'm not arguing otherwise. I am only saying there's only so much of a difference if you're swapping out 15 min rotation players.

[PushDaRock]

So your solution for improving the 3 point shooting is to keep trotting Gradey & Ochai out there to shoot bricks?

No, I'm saying there are no easy solutions. If you want to say Battle should play 15 mins a game or something, I'm not going to argue against it, but it's likely not moving the needle that much. Battle isn't getting much 3 point shooting volume this season because teams aren't just letting him catch and shoot anymore.

Lol. Its not that simple.

For one.......he is averaging less than half of the minutes that he got laat season.

It's hard to get in a rhythm as a shooter playing 8 min a game......and some of those minutes are garbage time with gleague players.

I think both things can be true here, he isn't given the same space he was last year because there is scouting that exists and we need a larger sample size for it to normalize.

[Tha Cynic]

You guys are over-indexing this way too much. If you watch the games, you can clearly see that our players flat out miss wide open shots and can’t burn defenders when they go under screens. This team is very bad at shooting and having one player back isn’t changing that.

At this stage I’m questioning our development staff and how they’re teaching shooting. Everyone is using the same tools/system but the message and execution is different. Raptors are bottom of the league. Something needs to be revamped completely here.

Data is showing otherwise so far that one player has been that big of a difference. Do I think he actually makes as big of a difference as the numbers say? No, but it's very likely that he still does matter a lot for us.

No, the data is just showing that we are shooting poorly lately compared to earlier in the season. You could very easily say they’re tired too. You’re interpreting this has to do with RJ on very limited data. That data in itself gives us nothing other than coincidence if just used like that. You’re going to need a lot more like how do they do on open shots. Are we good on open looks and not on others compared to the league? If we are a good shooting team on open looks is RJ Barrett generating more open looks than what they’re getting? There are so many different data points that need to go into this.

If they suck on open shots too then how is having RJ going to change that for the rest of the team? I think people have posted over the week that we are generating open looks and just not hitting them. That talks more about individual players not shooting well in general.

[ItsDanger]

Team was terrible 3 years ago too with same discussion. This is a management issue as much as a talent issue.

[Indeed]

You guys are over-indexing this way too much. If you watch the games, you can clearly see that our players flat out miss wide open shots and can’t burn defenders when they go under screens. This team is very bad at shooting and having one player back isn’t changing that.

At this stage I’m questioning our development staff and how they’re teaching shooting. Everyone is using the same tools/system but the message and execution is different. Raptors are bottom of the league. Something needs to be revamped completely here.

Data is showing otherwise so far that one player has been that big of a difference. Do I think he actually makes as big of a difference as the numbers say? No, but it's very likely that he still does matter a lot for us.

No, the data is just showing that we are shooting poorly lately compared to earlier in the season. You could very easily say they’re tired too. You’re interpreting this has to do with RJ on very limited data. That data in itself gives us nothing other than coincidence if just used like that. You’re going to need a lot more like how do they do on open shots. Are we good on open looks and not on others compared to the league? If we are a good shooting team on open looks is RJ Barrett generating more open looks than what they’re getting? There are so many different data points that need to go into this.

If they suck on open shots too then how is having RJ going to change that for the rest of the team? I think people have posted over the week that we are generating open looks and just not hitting them. That talks more about individual players not shooting well in general.

As provided above (including link), we were much better with Barrett with the shot clock between 15 - 7 seconds left, clearly that is the half court offense. The number of 3 point attempts in the half court was league lowest with Barrett, that clearly showed the impact of his rim pressure and ability to provide another efficient scoring option that allows our 3 point shooting to be situational (15 - 7 seconds left on shot clock, our 2FG% were top in the league with Barrett).

I won't dismiss the early season and opponent level, but again, half of this would be Barrett. The other half is our PF spot has not able to space the floor. Looking at LeBron and Hachimura, those were the ones who made the 3s in the 4th and took the lead last night.

[dandaman]

Drive, kick out, swing swing, wide open 3....i watch teams do it every night on league pass, hell I just saw g-league clippers do it on us all game.... it's got to do with type of shot we generate

[MEDIC]

I have found that since 1995, this franchise has always struggled to find big men and reliable 3 point shooting role players. They figured it out during the championship run, but everything outside of that has been spotty.

[ConSarnit]

1) Our 3 point shooting was pretty good with Barrett, even he is not an elite 3 point shooter, that may answer half of the problem
2) Best player isn't a 3 point shooter nor playing at C, so it will always be 1/4 lower than other teams.

12.3 makes on 36.3% in games RJ plays
10.4 makes on 30.6% in games RJ doesn't play

Regression.

Barnes and Shead each shot 45% from 3 over the first 10 games of the season.

Here is what they've shot over the last 30+ games:

Barnes: 26%

Shead: 29%

2 of our top 4 3pt shooters (in terms of volume) are Scottie and Shead.

Dick and Agbaji are a definitely a problem but what other team gets such anemic shooting from 2 of their top 4 shooters?

No team gives as many 3pa to worse shooters than us.

[Jeremy Lin 7]

Defence and rebounding wins chips. Not saying this team is a contender but you can’t say 3pt shooting trumps those two categories.

Being ranked 30TH in 3PT% in the NBA certainly does trump defence and rebounding. We have no respectable shooters on this team. Pathetic

This team can't be taken seriously in the playoffs until this changes

[whitehops]

You guys are over-indexing this way too much. If you watch the games, you can clearly see that our players flat out miss wide open shots and can’t burn defenders when they go under screens. This team is very bad at shooting and having one player back isn’t changing that.

At this stage I’m questioning our development staff and how they’re teaching shooting. Everyone is using the same tools/system but the message and execution is different. Raptors are bottom of the league. Something needs to be revamped completely here.

it's tough. there's very little variety in the 3 point shooting mainly because of the personnel. quickley is the closest thing to a movement shooter or a pull-up shooter and he's not particularly great at either. that means that the majority of looks from 3 are wide open, catch and shoot 3s that have to be generated by someone else in the offense. when you add that it's usually someone who is not a confident shooter taking that shot it's not going to lead to pretty results.

the raps take the third least pullup 3s in the league and hit them at the 3rd worst % (28.5).
the raps take near the least contested (defender within 4 feet) 3s and hit them at a 25% clip. for reference, the knicks shoot about 4 times more and hit them at 34%.
63% of the raps 3s are considered "wide open" (defender 6+ feet away) which is 7th most and they hit them at a 34.6% clip, second worst in the league.

pretty sure it's a big reason from day 1 darko wanted the team to push the ball in transition as much as possible, half court offense with bad shooting can be a huge challenge.

[ConSarnit]

Drive, kick out, swing swing, wide open 3....i watch teams do it every night on league pass, hell I just saw g-league clippers do it on us all game.... it's got to do with type of shot we generate

Per game, we generate the 7th most "wide-open" 3's in the league. One problem is we don't really generate corner 3's.

[YogurtProducer]

Defence and rebounding wins chips. Not saying this team is a contender but you can’t say 3pt shooting trumps those two categories.

Being ranked 30TH in 3PT% in the NBA certainly does trump defence and rebounding. We have no respectable shooters on this team. Pathetic

This team can't be taken seriously in the playoffs until this changes

Especially considering we are 5th in DRTG and 15th in rebounding.

Our issues right now are we cant hit the broad side of a barn.