Game #62 - Brooklyn Nets vs Raps - Tip 7:30PM EDT - 4:30PM PDT - TV SN1 , YES Ntwk , Various Streaming Sites..

[planetmars]

planetmars but you can you say hes an elite shooter when hes 65th at 3% and thats totally ignoring his 2 game?

When I said elite shooter I meant 3pt shooter. And he is. He averages 38.5% for his career with 5 attempts a game. This year is a down year, but he is still taking 9 a game. That's not easy to do.. it means he's creating his own 3pt shot.. which is difficult.

He averages more than Harden and Luka. And is close to Lillard (about 1% difference). Now those guys are elite elsewhere.. but are still in my opinion elite 3pt shooters.. because they can create their own 3pt shot.

OG is more efficient, but he has to have someone create the 3 for him.


With that said, I don't think Fred is anywhere close to being a superstar. He's properly paid at $20M a season.. and has the right role for this team. He's not taking away shots from Pascal or OG or Kyle or Trent Jr. We put up a lot of shots as a team, mostly from the 3pt line.. and he's one the best on our team that can do that. And if any Raptor made the all-star game this season it would have been him.

Trust me I won't cry if we traded him. But his defense usually makes up for his offensive deficiencies. And since covid and his hip injury his defense has been not so great. Have you seen how soft his arms look like? He's usually ripped. I'm giving him a break this season. It's a weird ass one.

Let's see how he does next season, assuming he's still a Raptor.

[Yuri Gagarin]

Yes we’ll see. Im a Raptor fan so I hope Im wrong 👍🏻

[golden]

When I said elite shooter I meant 3pt shooter. And he is. He averages 38.5% for his career with 5 attempts a game. This year is a down year, but he is still taking 9 a game. That's not easy to do.. it means he's creating his own 3pt shot.. which is difficult.

He averages more than Harden and Luka. And is close to Lillard (about 1% difference). Now those guys are elite elsewhere.. but are still in my opinion elite 3pt shooters.. because they can create their own 3pt shot.

OG is more efficient, but he has to have someone create the 3 for him.


With that said, I don't think Fred is anywhere close to being a superstar. He's properly paid at $20M a season.. and has the right role for this team. He's not taking away shots from Pascal or OG or Kyle or Trent Jr. We put up a lot of shots as a team, mostly from the 3pt line.. and he's one the best on our team that can do that. And if any Raptor made the all-star game this season it would have been him.

Trust me I won't cry if we traded him. But his defense usually makes up for his offensive deficiencies. And since covid and his hip injury his defense has been not so great. Have you seen how soft his arms look like? He's usually ripped. I'm giving him a break this season. It's a weird ass one.

Let's see how he does next season, assuming he's still a Raptor.

38.5% isn't elite 3P% shooting either. The Clippers, as a TEAM, are shooting above 41%..... on average. Average. Bucks, Jazz, Nets and Knicks (wtf?) are all averaging above 38.5%, as a team. 5 whole teams shooting better than Fred in his better years. On average. The bar for elite shooting has been raised. Again, I think that number is now 40% for a player to be called elite.

And Fred isn't "creating shots" in the traditional sense, i.e., off the dribble in the half-court, which would be valuable. A lot of those unassisted open 3 attempts are pull-up 3's in transition. Nurse encourages those type of shots, and Fred has the greenest of green lights on the team... and has for a while. That's why you're seeing the 9 attempts per game.

If Fred was able to create easier looks for teammates at the rim, like Malachi does, then his overall FGAs should ideally go down while team efficiency goes up. That's what a true PG should be doing, but instead Fred sometimes looks a lot more like a selfish chucker, combo SG. I don't think it's because he's being selfish, but more that he can't actually create offense for others. Fred is more like type of player who benefits from playmakers and the attention that stars attract, rather than vice-versa. He doesn't elevate others.... he needs to be elevated.

[DanH]

Mid range bricks and stuffs at the rim are still shots. Its still shooting. But lets just discount that coz hes fred. If he stopped those attempts his 3’s would be even worse because theyd be on him more.

but ok so hes 5th in the league at 3pt fga attempts and 65th in top 100 3pt fga attempt players in 3%. And thats the great part of his elite shooting “people are talking about”

It's not about discounting it. It's a perfectly viable criticism.

It's just entirely irrelevant to what people mean when they talk about his shooting. If he limited himself to a shooter and not a creator he would be incredibly efficient, as he'd be catching and shooting at the arc (40% on catch and shoot threes this year, the vast majority of those above the break). But they ask him to do too much, including creating almost half of his own threes off the dribble - where he shoots 34%, very much in company with the vast majority of elite three point shooters in the league, most of whom are in that 34-36% range on those shots. There are only 13 players who take as many pull up threes as VanVleet per game, and only Steph Curry (of course) and Mike Conley (bit of an outlier year for him but he's been great this season) are around 40%. The rest of the names on that list are guys like Lillard, Harden, Doncic, McCollum, Mitchell, Tatum, Walker, LaVine, Trae... Jordan Clarkson too but he's the one that falls outside that typical range on the wrong end (31%). Very hard to see the argument for Fred not being an elite shooter.

You want to criticize Fred's ability to play PG, where he has to create off the dribble and score inside and finish at the rim, I mean, get in line. But they've used the past two seasons to try to stretch him into that role, and his playmaking has improved significantly due to that although his finishing mostly hasn't. He can slide back to playing SG full time and be easily worth his contract, or he could improve his midrange shooting (though he's shooting around 40% from there, which is pretty typical of all but the best midrange scorers who approach 50% - Chris Paul is a midrange assassin and his career average cutting out his first two seasons is 49%, Kawhi's last three seasons he's been around 47%) and make another offensive leap like his playmaking. Fred's bigger problem is he doesn't take those midrange shots, and can't finish at the rim.

[DanH]

38.5% isn't elite 3P% shooting either. The Clippers, as a TEAM, are shooting above 41%..... on average. Average. Bucks, Jazz, Nets and Knicks (wtf?) are all averaging above 38.5%, as a team. 5 whole teams shooting better than Fred in his better years. On average. The bar for elite shooting has been raised. Again, I think that number is now 40% for a player to be called elite.

And Fred isn't "creating shots" in the traditional sense, i.e., off the dribble in the half-court, which would be valuable. A lot of those unassisted open 3 attempts are pull-up 3's in transition. Nurse encourages those type of shots, and Fred has the greenest of green lights on the team... and has for a while. That's why you're seeing the 9 attempts per game.

If Fred was able to create easier looks for teammates at the rim, like Malachi does, then his overall FGAs should ideally go down while team efficiency goes up. That's what a true PG should be doing, but instead Fred sometimes looks a lot more like a selfish chucker, combo SG. I don't think it's because he's being selfish, but more that he can't actually create offense for others. Fred is more like type of player who benefits from playmakers and the attention that stars attract, rather than vice-versa. He doesn't elevate others.... he needs to be elevated.

Fred pulls up for three over pick and rolls all the time.

Now, I agree that he's not a PG, ideally. But there is more than one way to elevate your teammates than creating the offence yourself.

[DanH]

As for all his self-created threes being in transition, Fred has a 44.6% FG% in transition and a 53.7 eFG% in transition. That means of his 3.1 transition attempts per game, roughly 1.6 of them are threes. That leaves him with about 2.4 pull up threes in the half court per game.

[Yuri Gagarin]

Dude keep it simple. He sucks in fg% this year and in 3% hes 65th out of top 100 players in 3pt fga attempts and 5th in 3fga per game. Not elite

you can say he should do this he should do that all day you can slice up any players best spots and suggest they do more of that.

just watch the games he has 4-15 nights every second game

you like his game cool - I dont

[The Claw Reborn]

Dude keep it simple. He sucks in fg% this year and in 3% hes 65th out of top 100 players in 3pt fga attempts and 5th in 3fga per game. Not elite

you can say he should do this he should do that all day you can slice up any players best spots and suggest they do more of that.

just watch the games he has 4-15 nights every second game

you like his game cool - I dont

Major regression...totally agree with you.

[DanH]

Dude keep it simple. He sucks in fg% this year and in 3% hes 65th out of top 100 players in 3pt fga attempts and 5th in 3fga per game. Not elite

you can say he should do this he should do that all day you can slice up any players best spots and suggest they do more of that.

just watch the games he has 4-15 nights every second game

you like his game cool - I dont

I didn't even say I liked his game (I do).

I took issue with your contention that he's not an elite three point shooter. He is. He is very comparable to all the other elite three point shooters in the league, especially those so elite that they create a high volume of their own three point shots (like Fred does).

His inside scoring is absolutely terrible and he should not be running the offence when Siakam or Lowry are on the court, which should be always. But that doesn't mean his strengths are not strengths.

[Yuri Gagarin]

Dan hes 109th in 3 pt shooting %. How is that elite?

[JawsGT]

Dan hes 109th in 3 pt shooting %. How is that elite?

The idea is that comparing fred to catch and shoot players like reddick, for example, is a poor comparison because fred creates more of his shots off the dribble. Given the way he is used, his comparables are guys like lillard, luka, lowry even. I dont think hes elite, but hes a damn good shooter and would likely have a much higher 3pt percentage if he was just a catch and shoot player, like a reddick. He has the ability to get hot, shoot with volume, and do alot of that with ball in his hands. Those are skills and capabilities that many of the truly elite shooters dont have. Nobody thinks fred is curry, but if was used more like a 3&D player, its hard to believe he wouldnt have a more impressive percentage. Furthermore, its tough to judge anyone on their performance this season, given all the well documented reasons why this season has just been...weird.

[golden]

The idea is that comparing fred to catch and shoot players like reddick, for example, is a poor comparison because fred creates more of his shots off the dribble. Given the way he is used, his comparables are guys like lillard, luka, lowry even. I dont think hes elite, but hes a damn good shooter and would likely have a much higher 3pt percentage if he was just a catch and shoot player, like a reddick. He has the ability to get hot, shoot with volume, and do alot of that with ball in his hands. Those are skills and capabilities that many of the truly elite shooters dont have. Nobody thinks fred is curry, but if was used more like a 3&D player, its hard to believe he wouldnt have a more impressive percentage. Furthermore, its tough to judge anyone on their performance this season, given all the well documented reasons why this season has just been...weird.

Comparing Fred to Luka? Seriously? Luka is a 35.8% USG player. Fred is 23.7%USG...over 12% lower. That’s a massive difference.

Lillard is 32% USG and has a ridiculous ORTG of 123; whereas, Fred has an ORTG of 113. Let’s get real here people. Fred should never be mentioned in the same sentence as those players, offensively.

I mean, we might as well just compare Fred to 11-12% USG guys like Bismack, Facundo Campazzo and Batum if we want to be fair.

[MixxAOR]

[A.I]

Harden and Lillard being that poor is kind of crazy. Didn't expect to see that.

[golden]

Yeah, I don’t know where DanH was getting his numbers, but that’s more like what the eye test is showing. The only thing FVV has in common with Lillard and Luka is an ultra- bright green light to take whatever shot he wants.