Inside the Numbers
By Shane Young
The success of the 2014-15 Atlanta
Hawks is going to draw many forms of
imitation, but nobody will be able to
quite recreate how Mike Budenholzer
unleashed Kyle Korver, one of the
most unforgiving snipers in NBA
history.
Last season, Korver became
one of the Hawks’ identities on the
court, setting the NBA record with
the highest 3-point percentage (49.2)
on at least 300 attempts for a season.
The two player s closest to Korver’s
season were Joe Johnson in 200405, and Dale Ellis in 1988-89, both
hitting 47.8 percent; though Korver
attempted 100+ more shots than each
of them.
Korver’s adroitness with his
shooting stroke was almost exclusively
from 3-point range. Only 100 of his
911 points last season came from the
midrange area of the floor, while 663
were produced from beyond the arc
(NBA.com). That left just 148 points
by Korver from either the restricted
area, inside the paint, or from the foul
line. In a sport where new strategies
and idiosyncratic skills are taking
over, it isn’t always a bad thing to have
this type of specialization, especially
when utilized in creative ways.
Budenholzer tinkered with many
different actions to get Korver his
449 3-point looks. With the Hawks’
starters last year, they found that using
a form of “double screening” would
get Korver open in his favorite spot at
the top of the key. As Korver would
begin the play by zipping from the
corner, DeMarre Carroll would screen
Korver’s man hard to “knock him off
the path,” slowing the defender down
for Al Horford to finish the doublescreen, hitting Korver’s man with an
unbreakable wall.
The actions not only worked
to space the floor, but they drained
opponent’s energy. Defenders loathed
chasing Korver through his neverending off-ball movements (2.3 miles
per game), slithering around screens
and remaining in constant motion on
the floor.
The above the break 3-pointer
accounted for 72.4 percent of Korver’s
points from threes last season. The
other 183 were from the corners.
So, he scored a significantly higher
proportion of his outside shots
from the harder areas, since corner
3-pointers are shorter and perceived
as easier.
That’s not to say he didn’t succeed
in his corner spot-up situations, too.
Connecting on 61 of his 114 corner
attempts last season gave Korver a
frightening 53.5 percent reliability
from those crucial areas.
Finding that volume of shots
for a player who can’t create his
own is a difficult task. But then,
Korver is a unique weapon. And
as we delve deeper into the data,
combining shooting percentages with
player tracking and conditioning
information, teams like the Hawks
will be able to further unlock talents
in ways that Budenholzer did for
Korver.
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