Q12543 wrote:Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart, and Jayson Tatum. Brown was a 29% college 3-point shooter. His NBA Career average is 37%! Tatum was at 34% in college. Now he's a 40% shooter. Smart was at 29% in college. Over the past three seasons he's at 35%+. Three guys. Same effing team. And we can't even get this to happen one time with a gazillion draft picks. Literally we have turned zero mediocre shooters into good ones in 30+ years and Boston does it three times with three fairly recent draft picks. We're cursed I tell you! Cursed!!!
(yes - KAT, LaVine, and Love turned out to be solid shooters, but they were known as good shooters as prep players)
So what is the Celtics organization doing that the Wolves organization isn't? My answer is that they're making better draft judgments. I don't think there's any magic or secret sauce in what Boston or any other organization has done to develop the perimeter shooting of the players they draft. Culver's shot was fundamentally broken mechanically when the Wolves drafted him. I don't believe that was the case with Smart or Brown.
On the flip side, the Wolves have actually had some players improve as shooters after getting to MN. KAT hardly ever took perimeter shots in college but has become the best 3-point shooting big man in the NBA and one of the best perimeter shooters overall in the League. Zach LaVine came to the Wolves as a good 3-point shooter in college on relatively low volume and became even better with the Wolves on higher volume. Kevin Love shot 35.4% from behind the college arc on only 2.1 attempts and then became a career 37.1% three-point shooter in the NBA on much higher volume. He had his second best three-point percentage in his last season with the Wolves. So he certainly progressed as a perimeter shooter with the Wolves. In these three instances, the Wolves made good draft decisions - players with skills and what it takes to develop those skills. Beasley looks really good from the perimeter - even better than he was with Denver.
Watching Culver tonight, I have serious doubts about whether he'll even develop into a good shooter. I noticed what you mentioned - i.e., that his mechanics are still a mess. On the other had, I see Layman improving his career 30.6% three-point shooting over time here. And I still believe that Okogie will become a decent 3-point shooter. He's always been a good free-throw shooter and his mechanics don't see to be terrible. I think he'll be our Marcus Smart if we're patient.
The bottom line is this. Draft the right players and they will develop. Draft the wrong players and they won't - not here and not with any other team either. But it does require patience. The Wolves front office lost patience with Chauncey Billups. I'm still pretty optimistic about Okogie's shooting and I haven't lost all hope for Culver. Edwards has a lot to prove as a perimeter shooter after hitting only 29% of his college threes and only 40% of his FG attempts. Layman looks like he should be a higher percentage shooter than he's been, but that was true before he got to the Wolves. And I think Beasley will continue to develop into an elite 3-point shooter.