Minnesota Sports Forum

The last couple days I was looking at a few different Wolves players and I found some interesting things compared to their career numbers.

Corner 3's

Rubio and Bazz are guys that are taking a much higher percentage of their 3's fro the corners than in previous seasons. I find that significant because those guys have clearly better percentages from the corners for their careers. So despite both guys struggling to shoot the 3 this year they are taking shots from spots they have had had success in the past. Is that coaching staff players or even the system getting those shots? I think it has seemed that the Wolves have used the corner 3 more this year than they did last year especially in totality. Some guys shoot better above the break. I tried to find a place that had corner 3 rankings for teams the last few years but i couldn't find it. I would be interested in those numbers if someone was able to find them or direct me to where they can be found.

Rubio is shooting 43.8% from 2 point range. That's well above his career average of 38.6% He is shooting well over 60% of his shots from the most efficient spots on the floor at the rim and from 3. The last time he took that high percentage of his shots from those zones was his 82 game season in 2013-2014. He took a lot more shots at the rim that year. Compared to that year he has basically flipped the percentages of where he takes his most frequent shots from 40% at the rim and 20% from 3 to about 40% from 3 and 23% at the rim. So right now his TS% is .519 which is 2nd only bested by last year. After a terrible start from the FT line he is now almost even with his career high last year from there. So what does this all mean? I guess it means in some ways despite obviously struggling Rubio when he has shot he hasn't been quite as terrible up to this point as it at first seems. He is obviously trending in the right direction. Will he become a good or turn the corner in some way? Probably not except maybe he can hit those corner 3's at a healthy enough rate to either keep teams honest or make them pay for leaving him wide open.

There is probably more stuff to look at but after looking at a few of these numbers I wonder if Thibs and his staff have made some pretty smart decisions about how they are utilizing their players and likely encouraging them to take certain shots from spots on the floor.

EDIT:

Feel free to post any other interesting shooting stats for players or the team.

monsterpile wrote:The last couple days I was looking at a few different Wolves players and I found some interesting things compared to their career numbers.

Corner 3's

Rubio and Bazz are guys that are taking a much higher percentage of their 3's fro the corners than in previous seasons. I find that significant because those guys have clearly better percentages from the corners for their careers. So despite both guys struggling to shoot the 3 this year they are taking shots from spots they have had had success in the past. Is that coaching staff players or even the system getting those shots? I think it has seemed that the Wolves have used the corner 3 more this year than they did last year especially in totality. Some guys shoot better above the break. I tried to find a place that had corner 3 rankings for teams the last few years but i couldn't find it. I would be interested in those numbers if someone was able to find them or direct me to where they can be found.

Rubio is shooting 43.8% from 2 point range. That's well above his career average of 38.6% He is shooting well over 60% of his shots from the most efficient spots on the floor at the rim and from 3. The last time he took that high percentage of his shots from those zones was his 82 game season in 2013-2014. He took a lot more shots at the rim that year. Compared to that year he has basically flipped the percentages of where he takes his most frequent shots from 40% at the rim and 20% from 3 to about 40% from 3 and 23% at the rim. So right now his TS% is .519 which is 2nd only bested by last year. After a terrible start from the FT line he is now almost even with his career high last year from there. So what does this all mean? I guess it means in some ways despite obviously struggling Rubio when he has shot he hasn't been quite as terrible up to this point as it at first seems. He is obviously trending in the right direction. Will he become a good or turn the corner in some way? Probably not except maybe he can hit those corner 3's at a healthy enough rate to either keep teams honest or make them pay for leaving him wide open.

There is probably more stuff to look at but after looking at a few of these numbers I wonder if Thibs and his staff have made some pretty smart decisions about how they are utilizing their players and likely encouraging them to take certain shots from spots on the floor.

EDIT:

Feel free to post any other interesting shooting stats for players or the team.

I'm going to continue my broken record tirade because you invited it, monster...and then I'm going to go off and enjoy this blessed holiday weekend.

Tired legs lead to missed outside shots...those of us who played the game a lot know this, and we also know it by watching our overused starters clank shots as 4th quarter leads dissipate once again. Does it seem like our Big 3 tries and misses more threes in the 4th quarter? Well, here are their numbers:

KAT: 32.5 % for the game, 22.9% in the 4th
Zach: 39.8% for the game, 28.3% in the 4th
Wig: 35.2% for the game, 38.1% in the 4th

KAT and Zach are the main victims of Thibs working them to death, and their percentages fall off more than 10 percentage points (note that the entire game percentages include the 4th quarter, so there's actually a much greater difference between the 4th and the other 3 quarters). Wig plays big minutes and actually gets a little better in the 4th, but unfortunately he takes fewer attempts than the other 2 in the 4th. And some of us would argue that extra minutes may not hurt Wig as much as the other 2 because he doesn't exert the energy throughout the game that they do, but that of course can't be measured.

I'm not going to take the time to track our opponents 3-point percentages in the 4th quarter, but it certainly seems to me that our fatigue leads to poor rotations and way more open looks for our opponents in the 4th.

Jeez, Thibs...get in step with the rest of the league and stop overworking your stars. We need them at crunch time and you're killing our season.

Plenty of stars in the top 10 in minutes don't dip in the 4th. Zach and KAT are just taking more dumb shots and succumbing to the pressure of the 4th quarter. It's in their brains and not their bodies. If they are tired then I am extremely worried that they're not the athletes we thought they were.