Tre Jones' 3-Point Shooting Improvement
After he struggled shooting the ball from outside early in the season, San Antonio Spurs guard Tre Jones' 3-point shooting has improved as the season has gone along.
Entering the 2023-2024 regular season, three point shooting has been one of the areas of need for improvement for Tre Jones of the San Antonio Spurs.
In his rookie season, Jones took 0.1 threes per game, with 60% accuracy in 37 games played, but that’s based on a sample size of JUST 5 shots. In his second season, he was still shy in taking threes, attempting less than one per game (0.7 per game), while shooting 20% from distance.
Last season Jones started to take more 3s, as he launched 2.3 per game. Yet, as he shot those long balls, his accuracy moved up to 29%, still not an efficient number from outside. Opponents continued to leave him wide open on the scouting report, with Jones taking 67% of his triples when wide open.
For the first three months of this season, Jones was still struggling from three, attempting 2.1 per game on 24% accuracy between October and December.
However, as displayed above, something clicked for Jones in shooting when the calendar flipped to January and he’s been shooting efficiently ever since.
From January to today (April 7, 2024), Jones is not only attempting slightly more 3s, launching 2.6 per game, but he’s shooting 42% on those attempts.
Now just because Jones is shooting better from three doesn’t mean teams are updating their scouting report on him. For the season, 78% of his 3s are still being attempted wide open. With the attention rookie phenom Victor Wembanyama draws on a nightly basis, teams would rather have more bodies around Wemby and that means sacrificing wide open 3s to Jones and Jeremy Sochan in the starting lineup, two players how have had difficulty shooting the three ball.
As the season comes to a close in the final five games beginning Sunday, Jones will have to not only continue shooting well to end the season, so opponents are aware of the progress he has made, but also when next season begins. Starting next in October, opponents may still not see him as a threat from outside and they might think this was just a lucky three month stretch.
If the Spurs take an approach this offseason of not adding a star point guard to the roster, then Jones will have to be ready for next season as the starting guard, when teams will continue to test him from outside while sending help toward Wemby.
If the Spurs sign, trade for, or draft a star point guard, then Jones’ three point shooting will still be needed even if he comes off the bench to help spread the floor for the offense, regardless of who is on the floor.
Stats via NBA.com/stats