3- point shooting
It’s wild that on a team with LaMelo Ball (albeit playing in only 36 games) shooting over 10.5 threes per night and making roughly 38% of them, that the Hornets are so bad from behind the arc. It’s even more bewildering when last year’s squad (made up mostly of the same core of players) was ranked 6th in 3-point percentage. But this year’s iteration is dead last (30th) making only 32.7% of their triples.
Subtracting Miles Bridges and only having Ball for half the season was part of the issue. The other part is that Terry Rozier has really struggled from behind the arc, only making 32.7% of his roughly eight attempts a game. Gordon Hayward has been worse, making only 32.2% of his threes—a far cry from his career 37.1% mark that he had headed into the season.
One of the worst offenders on the team has been Kelly Oubre Jr. After making 34.5% of his threes last season, he has plummeted to just above 32%. He’s also third on the team in attempts per game (7.1). He tried to play through a hand injury, which was part of the issue, but he may have begun hunting 3-point attempts instead of shooting the ones created by others’ attacks to the basket.
While getting Ball back will help alleviate some of the distance shooting problems, this likely needs to be something addressed in free agency. And if they decide to bring free agent Oubre back, it may mean changing his approach to the long-distance shot.