Minnesota Sports Forum

Fred VanVleet scored 54 points last night, making 11 of the first 12 three pointers. VanVleet was undrafted out of Wichita State after a solid, but unspectacular, 4-year career, but has excelled as a 2-way player in his 5 years in Toronto. I don't think anyone expected much from this undersized guard who had never scored over 14 PPG in college when Toronto signed him. I'm not sure I can come up with another NBA star who was so average in college. Any thoughts?

Toronto has had immense success with turning undrafted free agents or late first rounders into very good players: VanFleet, Siakim, Boucher....the list goes on.

In fact, a great contrast to make is Josh Okogie vs. OG Anunbody. OG made a total of 27 3's in two years of college and shot 52% from the free throw line? He's currently a career 37% 3pt shooter and one of the premier 3 & D wings in the NBA.

Josh Okogie made 66 3-pointers at a 38% clip in two years of college and shot 78% from the line. He's currently a career 26% 3-pt shooter and has gotten progressively worse every season.

Josh could have very easily become our version of OG Anunbody. But nope. Our franchise takes a player like Josh and manages to totally obliterate his shooting potential.

Josh is shooting 16% this season from 3. Multiple air balls, like I've never seen. Actually Ben Simmons might be worse though he is also 16% on the year with only 1 make in 6 attempts.

Q12543 wrote:Toronto has had immense success with turning undrafted free agents or late first rounders into very good players: VanFleet, Siakim, Boucher....the list goes on.

In fact, a great contrast to make is Josh Okogie vs. OG Anunbody. OG made a total of 27 3's in two years of college and shot 52% from the free throw line? He's currently a career 37% 3pt shooter and one of the premier 3 & D wings in the NBA.

Josh Okogie made 66 3-pointers at a 38% clip in two years of college and shot 78% from the line. He's currently a career 26% 3-pt shooter and has gotten progressively worse every season.

Josh could have very easily become our version of OG Anunbody. But nope. Our franchise takes a player like Josh and manages to totally obliterate his shooting potential.

Very true, Q...it's hard to understand this phenomenon. But I'm wondering what your hypothesis as to why it occurs. Personally I believe it is entirely bad luck rather than an indictment of our coaching, drafting or systems. If guys like Culver and Okogie weren't getting wide open looks, then I would blame their poor shooting on our offensive system. But both of them are clanking threes with nobody guarding them! Both of them were primary scorers on their college teams and attracted a lot more defensive attention than they are seeing in the pros, where sometimes they are almost encouraged to shoot by opponents. And yet they both shot much better in college than with the Wolves. I recognize the 3-point shot is a little longer in the pros, but that's not enough to explain both of their futility.

So I guess I take issue with your last statement that the franchise "manages to totally obliterate...shooting potential", because if Okogie and Culver are missing wide open looks, I put the blame totally on them. For recent examples that are different than the Okogie/Culver experience, take Beasley and H-Gomez. They came from a franchise that all of us would conclude is far superior to the Wolves, and yet they both had career bests in threes after coming here. Naz Reid is another example. He only made 33% of his threes in college, but is making over 40% this season on decent volume. Should we credit the Wolves coaching staff's ability to improve shooting because of how Beasley, Juancho and Reid have improved since they arrived? I don't think so. The only difference is for some reason Beasley and Reid (and Juancho last season) are making their open threes, and Culver and Okogie aren't.

So I don't know why Okogie and Culver have become so inept at hitting threes, but I would tend to put the blame on them rather than the Wolves' drafting or coaching. I don't think any NBA scout would have predicted Josh would become a 26% 3-point shooter in the pros after watching him make 38% of his threes in college. It's a mystery to me.

FNG, My remarks on shooting potential apply primarily to the folks we have drafted, not vets we pick up via trade or free agency that were drafted and spent their early years in other franchises. So Beasley and DLO aren't really in scope for my thesis.

My thesis is based on history. In the last 14 drafts,I can name a total of three players we have drafted (or traded for at the draft or shortly after) that ended up shooting the 3 well for our franchise over a sustained period of time: Kevin Love, Zach LaVine, and Karl-Anthony Towns.

That. Is. Incredible.

Brewer - Nope, Wes Johnson - nope, Derrick Williams - nope, Ricky Rubio - nope, Andrew Wiggins - nope, Kris Dunn - nope, Robbie Hummel - nope, Lorenzo Brown - nope, Josh Okogie - nope, Jarrett Culver - nope, Keita-Bates Diop - nope, Wayne Ellington - may be (got progressively worse before being traded).

Naz Reid, Jaylen Nowell, Jaden McDaniels, and Anthony Edwards are TBDs, but Naz is the only one that so far has shot it above average, but that's on low-ish volume.

My theory is that the franchise has not invested in long-range shooting and emphasized it enough. The above simply can't all be bad luck. And many of those guys above were excellent college shooters with great tools to work with coming into the NBA.

Good points, Q. And you've hit the nail on the head. While the prevailing premise here seems to be that this franchise doesn't develop shooters, the fact of the matter is we really don't draft shooters. I would argue that the only reliable college shooters in your post were Hummel and Ellington. Hummel actually shot the three all right in his two years in the NBA, but injuries made him irrelevant. And Ellington continued his 40% clip in his first two years with us, but other holes in his game limited his minutes (as they have throughout his career despite a very respectable 38%).

Everyone else that we drafted was either an average to below average percentage 3-point shooter, or didn't have enough attempts to be relevant. Derrick Williams, for instance, made 57% of his threes his final year in college, but only had one make per game. It's interesting to me that nobody would have predicted that the three players you cite who have been good 3-point shooters for us would be good shooters in the pros based on their college experience. Love made 35% of his threes on only 2 attempts per game; LaVine hit a respectable 37%, but only started one game and only made one three-pointer per game. And Towns only made 2 of the 8 attempts he tried in his one year!

So the conclusion is, regardless of who has been our POBO, 3-point shooting has been largely ignored in the draft. Some of this is due to circumstances...Wiggins was the obvious choice at #1 his year despite being a below average 3-point shooter in college. But mostly it has been the result of poor draft choices (passing on Curry and Murray, for instance). Fortunately we have been successful in turning some non 3-point shooters into shooters (Love, LaVine and KAT) and improved some others (Reid and Beasley). But poor drafting has led to us being a horrible 3-point shooting team for years. No surprise there.

FNG, I think it goes beyond the draft. I can cite tons and tons of examples of guys that were mediocre/average-ish shooters in college and then developed into solid NBA 3-point shooters within the first couple years after being drafted by other franchises. So I think it starts with the draft, but then is further neglected in our player development investments and programs. You simply can't have that many draft picks fail to figure out how to shoot a 3 consistently over such a long period of time without systemic failure, post-draft included.

The Wolves did not turn Kevin Love, Zach LaVine, and Karl-Anthony Towns into great shooters. I find that statement to be far off, respectfully. All three of those guys had the shooting skill long before they made it to Minnesota. Their opportunities grew, of course, but the Wolves did not take bad or poor shooters in those three and groom them into what they are.

Camden wrote:The Wolves did not turn Kevin Love, Zach LaVine, and Karl-Anthony Towns into great shooters. I find that statement to be far off, respectfully. All three of those guys had the shooting skill long before they made it to Minnesota. Their opportunities grew, of course, but the Wolves did not take bad or poor shooters in those three and groom them into what they are.

Camden, I need to know on what basis you found those three to have shooting skills before they got to Minnesota. I remember getting excited about seeing video of Towns pre-draft draining three after three unguarded in the gym, but then I remembered that even a proven non-shooter like Rubio looks great pre-game and at halftime. And I can remember getting excited at Target Center early in 2019 as I watched Culver make about 90% of his threes pre-game. There are very few NBA players who can't make an open shot. Heck, there's even video of RHJ making shot after shot in the gym, but it doesn't translate into game time. So all we really have to go on is their college 3-point results, which were not very impressive:

Love: 25% on 2 attempts per game
LaVine: 37.5% on 1.3 makes per game
KAT: 25% on only 8 attempts (and only 1 make per game even in HS!)

None of those stat lines jump out as overly impressive to me. In fact, none of them are as good as Josh Okogie's 38% on 4.2% his final year in college. You can say that each of them exhibited excellent form on their infrequent outside shots in college, but so did Wes Johnson, and his 42% on 3.5 attempts per game his final season was more impressive than any of the three. With all due respect, it takes a whole lot of hindsight to say anyone expected the three of them to be great 3-point shooters when they got to the pros. It would kinda be like me saying today I knew VanVleet was going to become a terrific 3-point shooter watching him at Wichita State. If you can't make 'em at a good clip in college, there's not much of an expectation of becoming a great 3-point shooter in the pros. I still think we're fortunate the Wolves were able to develop these three guys in a manner their college coaches, including the great Calipari, couldn't.

FNG wrote:

Camden wrote:The Wolves did not turn Kevin Love, Zach LaVine, and Karl-Anthony Towns into great shooters. I find that statement to be far off, respectfully. All three of those guys had the shooting skill long before they made it to Minnesota. Their opportunities grew, of course, but the Wolves did not take bad or poor shooters in those three and groom them into what they are.

Camden, I need to know on what basis you found those three to have shooting skills before they got to Minnesota. I remember getting excited about seeing video of Towns pre-draft draining three after three unguarded in the gym, but then I remembered that even a proven non-shooter like Rubio looks great pre-game and at halftime. And I can remember getting excited at Target Center early in 2019 as I watched Culver make about 90% of his threes pre-game. There are very few NBA players who can't make an open shot. Heck, there's even video of RHJ making shot after shot in the gym, but it doesn't translate into game time. So all we really have to go on is their college 3-point results, which were not very impressive:

Love: 25% on 2 attempts per game
LaVine: 37.5% on 1.3 makes per game
KAT: 25% on only 8 attempts (and only 1 make per game even in HS!)

None of those stat lines jump out as overly impressive to me. In fact, none of them are as good as Josh Okogie's 38% on 4.2% his final year in college. You can say that each of them exhibited excellent form on their infrequent outside shots in college, but so did Wes Johnson, and his 42% on 3.5 attempts per game his final season was more impressive than any of the three. With all due respect, it takes a whole lot of hindsight to say anyone expected the three of them to be great 3-point shooters when they got to the pros. It would kinda be like me saying today I knew VanVleet was going to become a terrific 3-point shooter watching him at Wichita State. If you can't make 'em at a good clip in college, there's not much of an expectation of becoming a great 3-point shooter in the pros. I still think we're fortunate the Wolves were able to develop these three guys in a manner their college coaches, including the great Calipari, couldn't.

Kevin Love actually shot 35% in college.

There's also those who believe free throw shooting is the better indicator. Granted, Okogie and Rubio have been decent to good free throw shooters.