Corey Brewer and the Corner Three Myth

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

One of the many rationalizations for signing Corey Brewer to a fairly significant contract is that he is allegedly good at hitting the corner 3. Simply put, this is a B.S. justification.

First off, we need to look at a player's overall 3-point %, not just from certain spots. And in that light, Brewer fails miserably:

2010-11 - 26.8%
2011-12 - 26%
2012-13 - 29.6%

Now let's break it down to the left and right corners:

2010-11, Left = 31%, Right = 43%
2011-12, Left = 27%, Right = 29%
2012-13, Left = 41%, Right = 28%

You don't want to see his percentages from other spots beyond the arc......

The bottom-line is that there is no pattern to Corey's corner 3-point shooting that one can state as anything other than randomness. Yes, last year he had a good run of shooting 3's from the left corner. But that's one season from one spot - and he was terrible at the other corner. How can we possibly draw the conclusion that Corey Brewer can hit the corner 3 based on this data? We can't.

Here is what we can conclude: Corey Brewer sucks at shooting. Always has, and probably always will. His role in the offense should be not to shoot unless he has a wide open dunk or the shot clock is about to run out.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

I always appreciate the statistical analysis you provide to support your theses, q....very interesting. I have to admit you have tempered my enthusiasm about Muhammad somewhat.

But I'm not totally on board with your Brewer conclusions. We signed Brewer primarily to add a defensive wing to balance the Kevin Martin signing. With three starters capable of averaging at least in the upper teens, we don't need to look to Corey for offense. But I would argue that his results last year from the left corner are a bonus. While I find his less than stellar results from the left corner before last year to be interesting, I cant disregard his 2012-13 results, especially since that was his most frequent 3-point shot last year (i.e. adequate sample size). After all, Victor Oladipo and CJ McCollum would not have been drafted as high if their out-of-line 2013 3-point results had been disregarded.

If Corey plays within Adelman's offense, he should get a lot of open looks from the left corner, with Martin, Love and Pek attracting most of the defensive attention, and I expect him to continue the 40% success he had last year. If not, it will be Adelman's job to either refocus Corey on his proper offensive role or turn to one of the many other options he has at SF.

Corey can play a really important role for the team this season if he contributes solid defense, runs the court, and limits his half court offense to the wide open corner three.

[bleedspeed]

I'm hoping Rubio can find him in transition and cutting to the basket. I hope he is not taking many 3's.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

LST, I couldn't agree with you more on Brewer's role. His scoring needs to be opportunistic only, meaning cuts to the hoop, fast breaks, and wide open corner 3's at the end of shot clocks (i.e. because he has to shoot it). Otherwise, he should not be looking for his own shot. He was jacking up nearly 4 three-pointers a game last year! We simply can't have that from someone who shoots as poorly as him.

This is why I want him in the starting lineup with Pek, Love, and Martin. It totally takes the pressure off of him to score and he can focus exclusively on defense and opportunistic easy buckets off of steals, outlet passes, and basket cuts. Otherwise, he should be largely ignored in half court sets.

[markkbu [enjin:6588958]]

Q, where do you get your stats from? Thanks!

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Mark, NBA.com has a great stats site where they breakdown shot charts by players (that's where I went for the Corey Brewer info I posted above). I also get a bunch of my stats from hoopdata.com and basketballreference.com.

What bugs me is that this is publicly available information that any of us yahoos can access for free, yet front office personnel will create a narrative that rationalizes their actions that can be easily disproved by the average fan. You don't need a statistics degree to understand that one season of hitting the corner three (and only the left corner mind you!) does not make for a long-term trend!

Cheers!

[markkbu [enjin:6588958]]

Q, you are not proving what you are wanting to prove with this post. Obviously, I am still waiting to look at the data that you are looking at, but 2 of those 3 years, his corner 3 shooting looks MUCH better than any 3 pt shooting that we had last year.

Assuming that he took roughly the same number of shots from each corner, his corner 3 pt% is

10-11 37%
11-12 28%
12-13 34.5%

Granted the 11-12 season was bad, but the 10-11 and 12-13 seasons would provide us with significant improvements over last year's team.

I think that we all can agree that Corey should not shoot the ball much and at his 10-11 12-13 levels, he is a legit threat to hit an open corner shot, which helps the Wolves.

[markkbu [enjin:6588958]]

Thanks for the sources Q!

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Mark, Our squad last year was one of the worst 3-point shooting teams in the past 10 years, yet we still managed 37% from the left corner and 34% from the right corner. What Corey has done in the cumulative over the past three years is not an improvement at all over last year's squad.

[Coolbreeze44]

Well, I in fact have a degree in statistics, from St. Cloud State University. I know how to incorporate stats as a useful tool in analysis. I know when they're totally meaningful, I know when they are less meaningful, and I know when they don't mean much of anything. I commend Q for the way he uses statistical data to back up his points. In most cases he makes compelling arguments with quite a bit of basis for them. What i don't like is that it tends to be the only lens that he looks through. Stats used properly are just one aspect of a complete analysis of just about any application. Truth be told in most cases, statistical data can be found to support both sides of an argument. Mark illustrates this in his post above. I love statistics, so much that i devoted 4 years of study (actually 5, but we won't go there) to achieving my degree. But even I know that quantitative measures can't be the sole discipline incorporated into your analysis.

That being said, I put the odds at 50/50 as to whether Brewer starts this year. If he doesn't I'm betting it will be DWill. But if Brewer does start his value is going to be in playing off Ricky and getting his points in transition or on cuts to the tin. We have other guys who can shoot the three more efficiently in Martin and Love in the lineup. But if left wide open, Corey can and should have the green light to let it fly. He shouldn't be out there if that isn't the case.