Pelicans: The mysterious deterioration of Anthony Davis’ jump shot

Anthony Davis just played the best season of his career, and is assuredly on the up and up. But over the past few seasons, his jump shot has begun to fail him. What is going on?

Anthony Davis lives life relatively under the radar. Such is life when you play for a franchise in a small market with an ever-changing roster.

The New Orleans Pelicans were on national television just 14 times this year, which is considerably less than the more featured teams in the league like the Golden State Warriors, who were televised 43 times.

Rest assured, when members of the media tell you that Anthony Davis is playing the best basketball of his career, you can take their word for it.

Davis set numerous career highs this season, including points, assists, 3-point percentage, effective field goal percentage, free throw percentage and total minutes played. He absolutely deserved his MVP consideration and is arguably the third-best player in the NBA going into next season.

With all of that being said — in one of the more bizarre phenomena taking place in the NBA — Davis’ increasing dominance has gone hand-in-hand with a disappearing jump shot.

Despite shooting a career high 34.0 percent from 3 this season, Davis shot just 34.2 percent on all jump shots outside of 15 feet, according to Basketball-Reference.

This is just the latest data point in a four-year trend that is difficult to explain.

It started with Davis’ First Team All-NBA campaign in 2015, when he led the Pelicans to the first playoff berth of his career. Anthony shot 41.2 percent outside of 15 feet in that season. For a player that was branded as a non-shooter coming out of college, this was a remarkable development.

“Jumper needs work; doesn’t get set and shoot in rhythm all the time, face up game unreliable and touch from midrange is subpar,” ESPN‘s Chad Ford had written leading up to the 2012 NBA Draft.

In DraftExpress‘ Jonathan Givony’s evaluation, he simply stated, “The truth is he rarely dribbles or takes a shot outside five feet, and isn’t overly successful at the moment when he does.”

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To go from an absolute non-threat outside of 15 feet as an 18-year-old to 41.2 percent on 173 makes in NBA games as a 21-year-old is borderline unprecedented. There was optimism that Anthony Davis could become an evolutionary Kevin Garnett, dominating the paint while doing considerable damage from the outside.

But, strangely enough, Davis’ outside game has deteriorated considerably since then. Fortunately, he has more than compensated in the other areas of his game, but it doesn’t make the phenomenon any less peculiar.

The following season, Davis shot 40.7 percent on jump shots outside of 15 feet (175 makes). Then, in 2017, he shot just 38.5 percent (207 makes), leading into this season where he shot 34.2 percent on just 148 makes.

Again, it is important to emphasize that Davis just had a career scoring year, with a career high in effective field goal percentage. So he is scoring more, and more easily than ever before.

It just happens to be largely without the aide of his once-reliable jumper.

As we continue to project Anthony Davis forward as a superstar, it is important to remember this area of his development. In the playoffs, when things really bog down in the half court, it’s so important to be able to knock down jump shots.

After all, 57 of Davis’ 204 shot attempts during this year’s playoff run were jump shots outside of 15 feet. He shot just 35.1 percent on those shots, and he was just 10-for-31 in the five-game loss to the Golden State Warriors.

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It is a testament to Anthony Davis’ greatness that he has been this unstoppable in spite of his poor shooting. Without a doubt, it’s his biggest area of opportunity moving forward.