Science Does 3fg% affect winning for early season 2024-25 Blazers?

It obviously does. Here is the data, 18 games in:

The data above the y-axis are wins, the data below are losses.

Immediate Conclusions and Other Relevant Data:

• When the Blazers have shot 34.5% or better from 3, they are 7-3. When they don't, they are 0-8.
• Put another way, when we shoot 34.5% from 3, we are a HCA team. When we don't we are the worst team in the league.
• According to statmuse, league average this year is 35.8%, Blazers are shooting 32.8%.
• Of the players shooting 3 or more 3's a game..... Simons, Avdija, and Scoot are shooting under 30%, while Grant, Camara, and Banton are shooting above 35% (actually I had to round Grant's 34.8% up).

Further Conclusions:

• Of course there is more to an nba team than 3fg%. However, the data is so skewed for the current Blazers, it's obviously a very important factor.
• If we just shoot nba average, we are a very good team, period (7-3). The most likely reason for this is that we are an excellent Defensive Team.
• The roster is built around long athletic players, and this is a great way to build a roster. However, we are currently a "Brick & D" team (32.8 3fg%), and we need to become a "3 & D" team (>35.8 3fg%).
• In terms of changing our roster, this means is we need players are good at one or both 3 and D. Players not good at either have to provide a substantial tangible benefit.

Some Current Player Reviews:

• Ant is known to be a very bad defensive player. In the past, his ability to shoot the 3 overcame this disadvantage. However, this season he's shooting 29.6 3fg% on 7.2 attempts/game. In plain English, he killing the team. I could go on about his deficiencies.... Is Ant playing out of position at the 1? Will he regain his touch? These are important questions for Blazer fans.
• Scoot is also known to be a very bad defensive player. He is shooting 28.3 3fg%, which is horrific. He can get into the paint, and he can create opportunities for others, both of which are extremely valuable. But, are they valuable enough to overcome his lack of 3 and lack of D? Will he become more aggressive? Will he improve his shot? Will he stop turning the ball over so regularly? I know that the answers to all of these is yes. However, for a player labelled as "can't miss" and "NBA ready" it feels more like "Waiting for Godot." (OTOH, Scoot has been out, and the rest of the team seems unable to dribble the ball up the floor, and that has left me pining for Scoot a bit.)
• Deni is an excellent defender, and his 3fg%, while godawful at 28.6, but he has been improving as of late. I'm not really worried at all that this will improve.
• Ayton is a mediocre defender, who doesn't shoot enough 3s to make a difference. So, what does he give to a 3 & D team? Simply, he is an offensive beast who can score in the post and rebound. Unfortunately, his style of play when out of style 15 years ago. A focused Ayton can overcome this disability, but he's not always focused. Perhaps an even bigger problem is that he's just not that intelligent of a player. Will Ayton get focused? His biggest problem, however, is that it has become clear that he is our 3rd best center, but he make star $ so the coach feels obligated to start him and give him starters minutes.

So, imho, Ant and Ayton have values well below their contracts. Playing them at all feels like tanking.

p.s. @42N8Bounce check this out.

 

I think it's probably a little too simplistic to say bad 3pFG% = bad team. Blazers are simply a bad team and 3ptFG% is probably a symptom of the badness rather than a cause

Blazers had a horrendous game shooting three's last night. That game dropped them to a 32.2% clip down from 33.4%. They were 24th in 3 pt% before last night's game; now they are 28th. But they are also 30th in assists and 29th in turnovers. Portland is also 30th in 2ptFG%. Blazers 30th in offensive rating (again).

something else that is 'troubling': Blazers are 3rd in the NBA in offensive rebounding rate (the Clingan factor). But they turn right back around and are 30th in the NBA in defensive rebounding rate. What's up with that? While Blazer defense has improved, giving up all those extra possessions off of the offensive glass is terrible

so yeah, generally the Blazers are just bad at offense. Equal-opportunity suckage. But they are a work in progress. I think the Cronin/Schmitz combo has been focused on significantly increasing the overall height and length of the roster, and in doing so have ignored the shooting skill levels of the length they have added. And it could get worse if the Blazer actually trade Grant and Simons, as they should (but probably won't). But that would be OK because winning games should not be the priority right now. Building a viable roster should and they are a long way from accomplishing that

 

Are you saying if we make more of the shots we take, we win more of the games we play?

Sounds fake.

seriously though, shooting 33% from 3 is the same as 50% from 2, so yeah when you take a quantity of shots from 3 and then make 35% or more, it’s equivalent to making those shots from 2 at like 60% or more. You win a lot of games shooting 60% from the field. Like you say, “of course it does”.

 

They just need to get more organized in their defensive rotations. The ball hits the floor several times a game on opponent's missed 3's, and that should rarely happen.

 

Is it AFFECT or EFFECT?

 

Interesting. Another view of the same thing:
We are shooting 35.2 3s/game. If our accuracy improved from 32.8% to 35.8% (current nba average), we would be scoring 7% x 35.2 x 3 = 7.4 pts more/game. This would move us from dead last in ortg to middle of the pack. Likely, this would also help our drtg, as the other team would get fewer runouts.

 

That implies (perhaps rightly) that we are taking an league-average number of threes this year. We definitely need an offense that makes those attempts easier (perhaps a center with offensive moves that make an inside out offense work).

 

Great!

 

Actually, no. The blazers are averaging 35.2 3s, per espn. I have no idea what the league is averaging. Agreed on the rest.

 

Good point. I finally had a moment and looked it up:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2025.html#all_per_game_team-opponent

Basketball Reference says the league average is 37.4 attempts per game, so we shoot a lot fewer (22nd in the league) than average. Interestingly, this means our inside game is getting a lot more shots (8th in the leage 2PA). Also we're 30th in the league for 2P% too!

How are we winning any games at all?
2nd in Blocks
4th in Steals
3rd in Offensive Rebounds
11th in FTAs (above the league average!)

We need an offensive coach so fucking badly.

 

are you sure of your math?

35.2 X .328 X 3 = 34.64 points/game

35.2 X .358 X 3 = 37.80 points/game

that's about 3.16 more points/game...or am I missing something?

 

Preach!

 

A coach can help us become better 3 point shooters?

 

A bench of Red Auerbach/Phil Jackson and Pop ain’t helping us put down more 3s FAMS!

 

Well duh! When Red coached, 3 pointers didn't exist, and when Phil coached, teams only shot 18 a game.

 

An offense that's coherent, coached by someone credible, could MAYBE find open players for easier shots. Some of those might even be three pointers!

 

it's a minor quibble but I'm not convinced league average is a good gauge. Not with the Celtics skewing the average like they are. \\

I'd wonder if league median is a better gauge. That's about 36.55/game. Not a big difference though

 

Mean versus median is pretty minor in this particular case, and one could say the Celtics are pointing towards the future since the NBA chases winning trends more than a lot of other sports.

 

Awesome! Did you put all of that together?

So those saying we shouldn't be playing Ant and Ayton cause they will win us too many games… look to be… wrong.