Memphis Grizzlies: 5 keys to making the playoffs in 2017-18

4. Improved shooting

The Grizzlies really struggled shooting the ball last year, posting a league worst 43.5 field goal percentage. Somewhat surprisingly, they fared considerably better from 3, posting a 35.4 percent mark from beyond the arc, ranking 17th overall. Memphis didn’t pull the trigger enough from deep for their relative competence to impact their overall effective field goal percentage, however. Their 49.1 percent rate was good for third-worst in the league, which is to say, quite bad.

Poor shooting is the easiest way to submarine an offense. It not only keeps a team from accumulating points, but also restricts spacing, shrinking driving and passing lanes to make the act of scoring all the more challenging. The Grizzlies had to deal with those realities last year, and there is a reasonable argument to be made that they were lucky not to end the year worse than their 19th place finish in offensive efficiency.

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The logical question thus becomes, what can Memphis do to boost its shooting competence in the upcoming campaign? Not giving minutes to the departed triumvirate of Zach Randolph, Tony Allen, and Vince Carter should help. Those three combined for .438/.323/.700 shooting splits. Carter’s 3-point field goal percentage was the only distance at which any of the trio hit at an above-average rate.

The Grizzlies may have some difficulty finding palatable substitutions. They’ve shot the ball terribly during the preseason, and opted to jettison their second best 3-point marksman, Troy Daniels, this summer. Free agent addition Ben McLemore should give them a bump when he returns from injury, and if Chandler Parsons ever regains his old shooting stroke, he would represent a massive upgrade from any of last year’s wings or bigs.

It’s not clear that Parsons will ever be anything close to what he once was though, and really shooting the ball more effectively as a team will likely come down to whether or not the Grizzlies’ younger players make substantial enough internal improvements to raise the tide.