Season Wrap-Up: Spurs starters shooting the basketball
How did the San Antonio Spurs' starters shoot the basketball this season compared to last season?
As we continue the Season Wrap-Up series, let’s look at how the starters for the San Antonio Spurs shot the basketball this season compared to last season.
For this exercise, I won’t be diving into Victor Wembanyama’s shooting this season for two reasons: 1) I recently wrote about how Wemby shot the basketball in his rookie season and 2) Wemby just finished his first season in the league, so he didn’t have any prior NBA experience to use in comparison.
Devin Vassell
Just look at Vassell’s shot chart this season. He shot over a point per shot (PPS) from every area of the floor except mid-range, though shooting over 40% from mid-range is still slightly above league average for his position per CleaningTheGlass.com.
One of the areas where Vassell had an increase in his shots this season was the paint. He saw a 5% increase in his paint shots and to do that, he took 4% of his mid-range looks out of his shot diet, while his 3-point % of shots also saw a slight decrease.
In some games this season, when Vassell’s shot wasn’t falling from outside or the defense was limiting his jump shot attempts, he took it upon himself to get more looks at the rim, whether putting up layup/dunks, or getting to the free throw line. This was most evident in the month of January and February, when over 20% of Vassell’s shot attempts were in the dunk/layup range.
While he got to the paint more often this season, Vassell’s finishing inside improved compared to last season, as he was efficient from dunk/layup range and floater range.
Shooting over a point per shot from the floater range is remarkable, considering it’s one of the least efficient shots out on the court alongside mid-range.
Vassell was one of those players the defense absolutely didn’t want to leave open on their scouting report. Only 25% of Vassell’s three-point looks were attempted wide open. Lastly, 36% of Vassell’s 3PT attempts came on pull-up threes, where he almost scored over a point per shot on those looks.
Jeremy Sochan
While Sochan isn’t yet an efficient shooter from three, he made progress from the corners and on his wide open looks this season. He raised his corners threes from 0.42 PPS to 0.96 PPS on a larger volume of attempts this season.
While defenses still leave Sochan wide open from three, he also raised his wide open three accuracy this past season from 0.76 PPS to 0.97 PPS.
Sochan’s paint attempts were pretty similar to last season, while he took 3% less mid-range jumpers.
Going into the offseason, improving his 3PT accuracy will have to continue to be an area of focus for Sochan. This past season, defenses would leave him wide open on 79% of his 3PT attempts, and that led to the defense being able to clog the paint for Wembanyama to create. Defenses won’t change their scouting report on Sochan’s 3PT shot until they see him make outside looks at an efficient percentage.
Tre Jones
As I wrote recently, Jones’ 3PT shooting started to pick up from January onward. He was efficient this season shooting the corner three and if he can come out of the gates shooting 41% on wide open 3s to begin next season, defenses may not leave him wide open on their scouting report like they did this season, where 73% of his attempts were shot wide open.
While he had the corner three down this season, Jones’ next target will have to be the arc 3. He showed in January and March he can shoot 40% on arc 3s, but his arc 3 is still a bit of a roller coaster when looking at the whole season.
Jones’ shot selection also improved, as he saw a 6% decrease in mid-range looks, and shots now went into the 3PT category. Jones also took more attempts from the dunk/layup range as opposed to floater range, and he saw his accuracy increase in the dunk/layup range this past season.
Julian Champagnie
Champagnie’s accuracy was off the charts last season, and part of that was because he only had a sample size of 128 shots after joining the team late in the season. It would have been unfair to expect Champagnie to shoot at that level for a full season, but with a whole season complete as a Spur, he was able to still be a dangerous threat from the outside. Champagnie’s 3-point ability to space the floor was one of the reasons (as well as his defense) he was put into the starting lineup a few weeks into the season, to provide more spacing for that group.
While defenses still don’t want to leave Champagnie open from three, he was able to get 45% of his looks wide open because of the attention Wemby and Vassell draw on a nightly basis.
Since Champagnie plays a lot of minutes with the starters, he had one of the lower usage percentages on the team. However, when he did attack the paint, he mainly stuck to trying to get dunk/layup attempts instead of floater looks.