Trae Young and Long 3s (Patreon)

In my Trae Young video this week I talked about his propensity for long 3s. Per basketball-reference's play-by-play, more than half of Young's 3s (!) were from 27 feet or longer. 

As we'd expect, accuracy typically drops off as shots grow longer and longer, and these long3s are no exception. The leaders in 27+ attempts will look familiar over the last 2 seasons: 

Stephen Curry |  214 @ 39%

James Harden | 198 @ 35%

Trae Young | 156 @ 33%

Brook Lopez | 145 @ 33%

Eric Gordon | 142 @ 35%

Damian Lillard | 139 @ 36%

Luka Doncic | 103 @ 35%

No one else has taken more than 100 long 3s in 2 seasons, and Trae's already at 156 from 2019 alone. Kevin Durant and Kyle Lowry have taken 99 at 40%, Klay 92 at 39% and  LeBron 85 at 33%. There are a few small-sampled flame-throwers in Kyrie (42% on 69 shots) and Kevin Huerter (44% on 62 shots), but in general, these are difficult shots where you won't find those fat percentages from my previous post on the top 3-point shooters. 

When it comes to shooting percentages, my biggest concern with Trae is whether he takes so many of these because that's the only way he's comfortable firing his shot. I ran a stopwatch on his release and compared it to Steph, and Trae's release is slightly slower (and lower/farther in front of him). As a player, I had a release like this and I struggled getting off my shot once I started to encounter longer defenders. Something to keep an eye on moving forward. 

Quick hit, Al Horford:

Horford is up to 15th in my BPM update this week. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UPt5oybqcWmazOhQ8JVA4kdchKh14DufF3JYWcZNJ8M/edit#gid=334792176

He's looking healthy and continues to be one of the most underrated players in the league, and a +4.3 in this stat is a career-best for him. I've always viewed him as a Draymond Lite, and he's finally passed Green for the first time in his career in this stat. He's not doing one particular thing better than before, he's just passing at a high-level, defending at a high-level, shooting at a fairly high-level, creating shots and providing post offense in spurts. 

Easily an All-Star to me. 

Final Thought, MIT Sloan:

I attended the Sloan MIT Sports Analytics conference last week. It was my first time and I had a blast. I still have to dive into some of the papers on the talks I saw, but I enjoyed Adam Silver's sit-down with Bill Simmons (which is available on YouTube here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ1lFirN91E). 

Silver suggested a mid-season Tournament instead of the All-Star game, and I like the idea for two primary reasons. First, the Al Horford's of the world would collect more accolades -- I've never been a big fan of rewarding players for 30 hot games while someone was snubbed because they sat for 15 due to injury. And second, I don't love the boom-or-bust approach people have around the championship, and I think adding a Tournament that would be worth competing for would add a great wrinkle to the year, and maybe even curb the RINGZ crowd. 

Let me know you what you think.