The 3-point shot has been an incredibly effective weapon in the NBA. If you make 38 percent of your 3-pointers in the modern NBA game you are almost guaranteed to make the playoffs. While plenty of teams make the playoffs without doing that, it is certainly a threshold that holds truth to team success.
Basically, 3-point shooting is incredibly important.
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The Washington Wizards made 647 3s last season, below league average. The problem is, they will start the season without two players, Martell Webster and Trevor Ariza, who accounted for more than half of those long balls (326).
Webster will miss the start of the season after having offseason back surgery and Ariza is now a member of the Rockets. The Wizards did not bring in any knock down shooters to help replace their value.
Could this be a problem for the Wizards?
I think it may be. The Wizards brought in veteran Paul Pierce to replace Ariza, but he is not nearly the 3-point shooter that Ariza is. Ariza shot better than 40 percent from deep on more than 440 attempts. Pierce has only done that once and that was back in the 2001-02 season when the future Hall of Famer was in his prime.
Pierce may be a better all-around offensive player than Ariza. He is a better playmaker, ball handler, and finisher, but Ariza was so effective last year because he was a catch-and-shoot player who kept the ball in point guard John Wall’s hands.
The Wizards offense is predicated on Wall’s passing ability. His ability to get in the lane and find shooters made it tough to guard both Ariza and sharp-shooting Bradley Beal on the 3-point line. Wall generated more 3-point field goals (243) than any other player in the league.
A lot of that had to with Ariza being ability to knock down open jumpers.
Ariza shot 43.5 percent on catch and shoot 3s, sixth best in the league of anyone who shot four more per game. Pierce shot 39.7 percent on those shots.
Wall also loved to find shooters in the corner, especially Ariza. He assisted on 53 corner-3s last season to Ariza. Pierce hasn’t shot more than 50 total corner-3s in a season since 2005-06.
We could see Pierce increase that number when he plays with Wall, but without Ariza or Webster to go to early on, the Wizards offense may be much different than it was last season.
With the lack of 3-point threats on the floor, I can see the Wizards settling for even more mid-range jumpers. That’s not good. They shot the most mid-range jumpers in the league last year at 2,199 (38.6 percent on those) with usually two knock down shooters on the floor at one time.
While the Wizards offense did get stagnant at times and settle for mid-range shots last season, they still got a lot of open shots because Wall knew he had shooters to go to. Now the starting lineup consists of only one real deep threat teams have to consistently be worried about in Beal. Without that, the offense could be frustrating.
Another problem is with Webster out, no one on the bench is a proven 3-point shooter. Glen Rice Jr. and Otto Porter may develop into decent 3-point shooters, but at the time, they are not.
I worry about the Wizards under utilizing Wall because he is just so damn good at finding open shooters. Like he’s literally the best in the league. If you have someone so good at a certain skill you should use it as much as possible, especially how important 3-point shooting has become in the league. With how the roster is constructed right now, they simply can’t do that like they could last year (and they were still just average at it).
Pierce may be able to come in and fill that void to a reasonable degree, but it is not going to be an easy task and it could lead to more mid-range jumpers and more times of me banging my head on my desk.
I’m a little worried.