Portland Trail Blazers: What’s Up With Meyers Leonard’s Shooting?

Here’s a look at Meyers Leonard’s shooting woes and what they might mean for the Portland Trail Blazers

Meyers Leonard received a fair amount of attention last season for joining the renowned 50-40-90 club[1] by shooting 51 percent from the field, 42 percent from three (112 attempts), and 93.8 percent from the free throw line. Those are incredibly impressive numbers for any player, but they’re particularly remarkable for a guy who’s listed at 7’1″.

It wouldn’t have been very reasonable to expect Meyers to continue this level of shooting efficiency, especially given the relatively low number of attempts, but it’s definitely fair to say that his shooting has been disappointing this season. He’s shooting 40.7 percent from the field, 22.5 percent from three (80 attempts), and 86.7 percent from the free throw line.

A decline in a player’s shooting often causes some confidence issues, and Meyers is no exception. Take a look at this play where he pump-fakes and goes into a one-dribble pull-up jumper from midrange.

Did you see a defender there? Passing up wide-open threes is not a good sign for him or the Portland Trail Blazers. It’s incredibly strange to see from a guy who is attempting 8.1 threes per 100 possessions this year. He’s shot the ball much better from midrange than from three (24-for-48 from midrange) and shooting well from mid-range is a good thing, which could indicate that Meyers’ three-point shooting will regress upwards to the mean, maybe something around his career three-point percentage (33%).

The issue here is that being a really good mid-range pick and pop guy doesn’t make Meyers the dynamic stretch 5 that people envisioned after his hot shooting last year. Really good mid-range pick and pop guys who can’t really shoot threes end up with careers like Jason Smith’s. Jason Smith isn’t a bad player but he also isn’t the type of guy that teams would think about as being a key part of a contender someday. Teams don’t love guys who want to shoot tons of shots like these in the modern NBA.

Meyers’ three-point shooting will probably improve throughout the course of the season but his decision-making on when to shoot those threes is a bit perplexing, even beyond that pump-fake at Casper in the first video clip. Meyers hit his first two three point attempts in the Blazers game against the Heat on Dec. 21.

Yet it only took one missed three (he finished 2-3 from three for the game) for Meyers to pass up another open, although not as egregiously open, three for a one-dribble pull up from mid-range.

Meyers probably could’ve shot that three over Deng but instead elected to shoot the mid-range jumper. Those are the types of decisions that affect the geometry of the floor and how close defenders will have to stay to Meyers off the ball.

Meyers is still only 23 years old but is probably regretting not signing a contract extension this offseason and instead electing to bet on himself. He has a myriad of other issue on the court. Despite his tremendous physical tools (7’1 with a 7’3 wingspan) he has never been a very good rim protector.

Nylon Calculus’s rim protection stats rate Meyers’ points saved this year at 2.9 per 36 minutes, which puts him in the company of guys like Kevin Love, Jared Sullinger, Nikola Mirotic, and Mirza Teletovic. Opponents are shooting 53.4 percent at the rim against his contest (also via Nylon Calculus), a very poor number for a seven-footer[2]. He’s not an aggressive offensive rebounder[3] and doesn’t have the passing/decision-making skills to be a hub that an offense can run through like the Gasol brothers, Andrew Bogut or Joakim Noah.

Meyers has time to get his shooting back on track and figure this stuff out right now. Terry Stotts, Neil Olshey and the rest of the Blazers organization probably aren’t too locked into anybody other than Damian Lillard as part of the long-term core. He’s still a young 23-year-old seven-footer with a soft shooting stroke, which will keep him on the radar of almost any team.

If he continues to struggle shooting the ball though, there are plenty of talented young big men on the Blazers. Mason Plumlee and Ed Davis have played well, Noah Vonleh is a young promising big whom the Blazers have invested a lot of resources in, and Al-Farouq Aminu could be a very interesting small-ball 4[4]. At a certain point, it just comes down to whether or not the ball goes in the basket, and Meyers Leonard just needs the ball to go in the basket more.

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[1] He’s by far the lowest minutes guy in the group, but whatever. It’s more fun to say that Meyers Leonard is a member of the 50-40-90 club.

[2] Something to monitor: Nylon Calculus’s position estimates have Meyers Leonard playing 98 percent of his minutes at the 4 rather than the 5 after playing 83 percent of his minutes at the 4 last year. I think that Meyers’ ideal long-term position is at the 5 but this Blazers team is young and has a lot of talented bigs who need playing time, so it’s not a big deal right now.

[3] He has a lower offensive rebounding chase percentage than Aminu and Maurice Harkless, via Nylon Calculus

[4] He logged just over 50 percent of his minutes with Dallas last year at the 4. There’s no room to do it right now with so many other bigs on the roster, but I think he could be awesome at the 4 long-term.