Atlanta Hawks: Al Horford, Three Point Gunner?

Early in the season, the Atlanta Hawks look like the team everyone wanted but not everyone expected. Despite the loss of DeMarre Carroll and the fact that they are still recovering from injuries, the Hawks are 7-1. They look very much like the same team from their 60-win season, playing great as a team and finding guys to take over in key stretches.

This column isn’t about that. Instead, the focus here is on a strange trend that has emerged in the Hawks’ early streak of success: Al Horford is shooting a lot of threes.

Horford took 21 three pointers in his first 391 games in the NBA. Last season, he attempted 36 shots from behind the arc. Eight games into this season, Horford has attempted 25 three pointers.
To put that in more context…

One last number: According to Basketball-Reference, 22.1 percent of Horford’s field goal attempts this season have come from three. His previous high? 3.7 percent.
So Al Horford has apparently gone full stretch-five. The only question is: How’s it going?

Results

The early prognosis of this experiment is not great. Horford is shooting 6-for-25 from three (24 percent). Even worse, he’s shooting 27 percent on wide-open threes, per NBA.com.

Given that almost all of his threes are wide open, that number is pretty alarming. If Horford is on pace to attempt more threes in ten games than in any other whole season, one would prefer that number to be higher.

The seemingly obvious reason for this is that Horford providing spacing at the five should stretch defenses and force opposing bigs out of the paint. In theory, that’s a great idea. The problem is that opposing defenses have to care about him shooting from three. In this instance, Al Jefferson certainly does not.

Defenses not caring about what Horford is doing is strange. He’s gained a reputation as a mid-range killer. In fact, Jefferson is much less willing to help off Horford when he goes into his hot zone.

So Horford is getting open looks and not making them. Part of this is likely because he’s taking them from areas where he isn’t familiar. Per Basketball-Reference, 80 percent of Horford’s threes last season were from the corner. This year, with a much higher volume, that number is 28 percent.

Horford three-pointers are not an offensive safety valve. It’s a thing they actually set up in the halfcourt. Per NBA.com, many of Horford’s shots from deep come with between fifteen and seven seconds left in the shot clock. He is shooting eight percent (yes, eight freaking percent) on those attempts. Interestingly, he makes 43 percent of his threes early (18-15 seconds) in the shot clock.

The other thing is that Horford is doing an unusual amount of nothing in the corner this season. His corner three shooting was a rare thing last season, and that required him to take a few possessions off to spot-up. However, he would float to the corner and then come back into the play. Here he’s just doing a lot of nothing.

Does it matter?

It’s clear that Horford is not hitting these threes at an efficient rate. However, there’s a reasonable question about how much it actually matters. The spacing effect created by a stretch-five can be substantial if he shoots even 30 percent from behind the arc.

In the rush to accept the spacing revolution, it seems like the value of trying the shot is now gaining priority over actually making it. Having a player who even dares to try that shot forces rim defenders out of the paint and requires hedging out on pick-and-rolls.

The problem is that this has not been happening in practice with Horford. Again, a lot of these big guys just do not care to stop Horford, and he’s not punishing them for it.

Shooting threes from the top early in the shot clock forces opposing centers into mild contests out of the paint. This is helpful if he’s making the shots, both because it scores points (obviously) and defenders can’t sag back to protect the rim. Horford is a skilled passer. He can fake out of those shots and make a pass to a cutter when the other team’s rim protector steps out.

The problem is that if this trend continues, defenses won’t contest those shots. The Hawks ball movement is great at getting shots through sharp passing. The reality is that the Hawks aren’t getting Horford great looks through their system. Defenses aren’t challenging him. Again, almost all of his threes have been wide open.

So far, fans have been a little nonplussed with this new development.

However, it is best to treat this as an early season experiment that has not yielded good results. It is true that “small sample size” applies to anything at this point. However, this kind of experiment has been used in recent years with other bigs, and has been curtailed when it did not work. (see Blake Griffin early last season).

It’s not quite time for Atlanta to abandon this, because it can be hugely helpful if it works. However, current evidence points to the fact that Al Horford is one of those players who is better an inch in front of the arc than he is an inch behind it.

Next: NBA Power Rankings

For a 7-1 team, this is an early season nitpick. However, no team (with the possible exception of the Warriors) is without the need for adjustments. Early this season, adjusting out of the Al Horford stretch 5 experiment should be on the Hawks’ radar.