LA Clippers: How Landry Shamet fit in
By Paul Headley
Strength: Spacing
Landry Shamet is a great shooter. In fact, the former Wichita State guard was probably a top-10 shooter in the league in year one.
According to the basketball-index’s new gravity metric (an attempt to quantify how attached defenders stay to players in certain zones on the floor), Shamet has some of the best gravity in the league.
Shamet ranked in the 91st percentile in 3-point gravity per-game, and the 95th percentile in total 3-point gravity on the season. Simply put, if Shamet was moving outside the arc, defenders were attached to his hip.
Spacing is the oxygen that allows superstars to breathe. Shamet provides the LA Clippers slashers all they could need.
Shamet has a versatile stroke. He can shoot going either direction, off screens and from either wing. He even flashed a pull-up game, one of the most valuable shots in the modern NBA, shooting 40.7 percent on one attempt per game:
Shamet ticks every box you’d want from a shooter: Volume, versatility and efficiency.
J.J. Redick is the most common comparison, and it’s an apt one. At 6-5, Shamet is two inches taller than Redick, but stylistically they’re similar. Redick makes his bread shooting off screens at full speed, a skill much more difficult than most acknowledge.
Shamet increased his volume shooting off screens significantly with the Clippers:
The effect Shamet had on the team’s offense was immense. The Clippers had a 114.9 offensive-rating with Shamet on the floor, a number on par with the best team offenses in the league (Golden State came in at 115.0). When the sharpshooter sat, that number dropped to to 107.5.
The team posted a blistering 55.0 effective field-goal percentage when Shamet played, a mark that would’ve tied Milwaukee for 2nd in the league. When Shamet moved to the bench, the teams percentage dropped to 52.3 (roughly 17th overall).
ESPN’s real plus-minus ranked Shamet 18th among point guards this past season. Shamet isn’t a point guard, really, but the fact that he ranks so highly among members of the league’s deepest offensive position conveys his impact.