LA Clippers: Is Shamet’s Shooting Sustainable?
By Matt Chong
Landry Shamet spent his rookie season draining threes and making a name for himself as one of the NBA’s premier shooters. Should LA Clippers fans be worried that he won’t be able to keep it up?
The LA Clippers found themselves a gem at the trade deadline. In sending Tobias Harris and co. to the Philadelphia 76ers, the Clippers acquired the sharpshooting rookie out of Wichita State, Landry Shamet. Whether or not they were fully aware of just how good Shamet is and promises to be (I’d bet that they were), he’s turned out to be a clear foundational piece for the franchise moving forward; playing an integral role in the team’s post-All Star break success and helping them to lock up a position in this year’s playoffs. The Clippers also fleeced the Lakers and turned an ancillary piece of that same trade into the promising young big man, Ivica Zubac. But that’s neither here nor there!
Shamet wrapped up his first career regular season in the NBA with 167 three-pointers made (396 3PA), shooting 42.2% from behind the arc. That tally being good for fourth on the list of total three-pointers made by rookies since the introduction of the three-point line. Landry trails only Donovan Mitchell (187 3PM), Damian Lillard (185 3PM), and fellow rookie Luka Doncic who only has him beat by one made three. Of course, Luka did attempt 118 more threes than Landry, so make of that what you will.
In fact, Landry took the least three-point shots of them all, making him the most efficient by far; the three players above him taking an average of 126 more threes, yet putting up percentages that were all in the mid-to-low thirties. The best of which being Damian Lillard, who shot 36.6% from behind the arc on 503 attempts.
The purpose of this piece isn’t to bag on the players who knocked down more threes in their rookie season, though. There are no sour grapes here are Clipperholics. This is all just to show how Landry stacks up against other elite shooters. The context here is necessary to see just how impressive Landry Shamet has been for the Clippers (and Sixers).
So, how have those players (besides Luka) fared since their rookie seasons?
Not only have they tended to take and make more three pointers as their careers progressed but they’ve typically improved in efficiency as well. Being that Landry is already a very efficient player for the amount of shots he takes, there may not be as noticeable an increase as his peers, but we really shouldn’t be expecting it to dip in any significant way.
None of these guys really have Landry’s game though; they’re all ball-dominant guards. None of them move and operate off of the ball in the way that a pure shooter of Shamet’s ilk does. The majority of Landry’s shots come as he runs off of screens and almost exclusively in catch-and-shoot situations. So let’s look at the most accurate player comparison we have available to us, who also happens to be the guy that Landry has modeled his game around. The most prolific shooter in Clippers history, J.J. Redick. (Sorry, Piatkowski)
In Redick’s rookie year, he didn’t even crack 100 three-pointers attempted. He only put up 98 of them (298 less than Shamet) and of those 98 shots, he only made 38. Some quick math will tell you that’s good for just about 39%.
Throughout his 13-year career, the volume of shots has ballooned but Redick has mostly hovered at right around the same percentage, improving just a bit once he really established himself in the league. Climbing as high as 47.5% in one of his years with the Clippers (by far a career high) and never dipping below 36.6% in the year Orlando traded him mid-season to Milwaukee. Given the similarity of their game, this bodes well for the sustainability of Landry Shamet’s production.
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How much stock should be put in a comparison to one of best pure shooters the NBA has ever seen? Well, J.J. said himself that Landry is basically the exact same player as him, only better. I think that between this ringing endorsement and a wealth of information that tells us so, it would be prudent to assume that not only will Landry Shamet continue to be a good three-point shooter for the LA Clippers, but he could go on to be a truly great one for a very long time.