Sacramento Kings: Ben McLemore’s Summer League Shooting Woes

Sacramento Kings guard Ben McLemore. (Photo by Ashleigh Lee/Flickr.com)

Josh Selby shared Summer League MVP honors with Damian Lillard last season. Lillard, of course, went on to grab the Rookie of Year trophy as well, while Selby managed 59 minutes of court time for the Memphis Grizzlies and shot less than 30 percent  from the field. It’s great that the Las Vegas Summer League has emerged as a legitimate NBA experience over the last few years, but with its emergence, the Summer League has raised some questions. The most important of these questions: How much of an individual player’s summer league brilliance can we expect to carry over into the regular season, where the players are faster, stronger and can actually make a jump shot? For Lillard, last year’s summer league performance was a precursor of what was to come. For Selby, those two weeks will only live on as stories he tells his grandchildren when they ask him about his time in the NBA.

And that is the problem. At first look, success and failure from the summer league does not tell us a whole lot about how a player will fare in real NBA action. Trey Burke’s struggles in Orlando have not condemned him to an Austin Rivers-esque rookie season and Jonas Valanciunas‘ MVP run does not guarantee an All-Star bid for the Toronto Raptor center next year (and that is coming from a huge fan of the big Lithuanian). However, if you scratch the surface there is information there that can help gauge a player’s NBA ceiling. If you look close you can see how Lillard’s ability to shoot the 3 ball translates better than Selby’s ability to attack the rim against lesser defenses. There is valuable stuff there for us to pick apart. We just have to dig a little deeper.

Let’s look at Ben McLemore, praised as the best talent of the 2013 draft and a guy who started out the gate getting Ray Allen comparisons. There have predominantly been two schools of thought regarding McLemore’s five summer league games. Quick speakers gawked at the poor shooting he displayed through most his time in Vegas, while more patient watchers and typically overly optimistic NBA guys pointed to the two good lines he put up this summer as reasons for hope. For me, the key narrative of McLemore’s summer league and the question that matters most to his success as an NBA shooting guard is his jump shot and how prominent and effective a weapon it will be in his scoring arsenal.

Here is a shot chart for McLemore’s five summer league games:

Shot chart for Ben McLemore’s five summer league games

Before we even mention all that red, let’s take a look at the type of shots McLemore is getting. Sixty-four percent of McLemore’s made field goals were assisted baskets. Six of his seven made 3s were assisted and six of his eight paint baskets were assisted. Considering scaled-back defenses and elevated roles provided by summer league rosters, the fact that such a large portion of McLemore’s made baskets were assisted suggests that he is not the type of player that is capable of consistently creating his own shot. That 64 percent percent number leans more to a Danny Green or Klay Thompson of the world than it does a LeBron James or Carmelo Anthony. That’s further confirmed by his mid-range shooting. More of McLemore’s made baskets from that area were unassisted, but he shot very poor 34.48 percent from that range. So even though McLemore at times this summer tried to exert himself as a go-to scorer who can create his own basket, his poor shooting from mid-range and his inability to create unassisted baskets around the rim suggest he will look like a Jordan Crawford-type player if he attempts to go that route in the big leagues.

And that inherently isn’t a problem. Wings that consistently knock down assisted 3-point baskets are extremely valuable as floor spacers in the modern NBA, especially if that wing can play defense — something McLemore should be capable of considering his size and athleticism. During the playoffs the aforementioned Thompson and Green confirmed how important 3D wings can be for your team. Ray Allen — the player McLemore often is compared to — has made the second half of his career by being one of the league’s deadlist assisted 3-point shooters. McLemore can be a force in this league without being a player that creates his own shot.

The problem, though, is that McLemore was deplorable from beyond the arc in Vegas–19.44 percent is not “he just needs time to adjust, even Stephen Curry struggled his first Summer League” bad. No, 19.44 percent is “the NBA 3 may just be a little too far for him, this looks a lot like a Draymond Green-level drop off” bad. Ben McLemore’s greatest commodity going into the draft was his ability to shoot the basketball and so far, that commodity is nowhere to be found.

The thing is, McLemore has near-perfect shooting form. It doesn’t make sense that he shot it this poorly. We should at least assume a shooting form that sound will lend itself to better shooting going forward, right? Maybe not. When I had a chance to watch McLemore play during summer league, I think I may have saw something in his shot that explain his struggles. Check out this clip of a Klay Thompson shoot around:

Now compare Thompson’s jump shot to McLemore’s at Kansas:

Above the waist, these are two of the most fundamentally sound jump shots in basketball. But when you compare, you may notice two big differences. Thompson shot requires much less elevation than McLemore’s and perhaps as a result, Thompson shoots his shot on the way up while McLemore shoots at the peak of his jump or on the way down. It is a little thing, but it may explain why McLemore is struggling with the deeper NBA shot. When you shoot on the way down it takes more of an effort to get range on your shot. This typically leads to your shot coming up short or coming off to the left or right because you compromise your hand and arm work to get the extra range on your shot. So while McLemore’s elevation and release point worked fine with the shorter college line, it may be the reason he is struggling with the NBA’s deeper 3-point shot.

That little hitch in McLemore’s jump shot, however, is easily fixable. Also, there is a chance the release point becomes a non-issue altogether as McLemore gets stronger and becomes more accustomed to the NBA. Again Ray Allen’s name can be mentioned as a player who has had success with greater elevation and a later release point on his jump shot. All in all, Kings fans should not be lamenting their first-round selection quite yet. The development of McLemore and his jump shot is definitely something to keep an eye on this season, though.