![]() If Timmy can stay healthy this season, I think we’ll look back at last season as the outlier.īut, the most encouraging thing I’ve seen to indicate actual progress is the way Hardaway is getting to his shots this year, primarily via the pick-and-roll. Secondly (and likely relatedly), remember that lower leg stress injury I mentioned before? It lingered until almost February, and could’ve been a major factor in Hardaway’s struggles. ![]() For one, last season was by far the worst shooting season of his career. OK, so he’s taking more difficult shots while being guarded more closely? Is this just a small sample size blip before an inevitable regression? I don’t think so, for a few reasons. Timmy’s eFG ranks fourth in the league behind only Khris Middleton, James Harden, and Steph Curry. So far this season, 61 players have taken at least 30 pull-ups. Granted, he’s been absolutely unconscious on pull-ups, hitting an absurd 60% eFG. Even more surprising, Hardaway has taken a smaller ratio of catch-and-shoot attempts, transferring them over to the more difficult off-the-dribble variety. Last season, 41.9% of his total field goal attempts were from open and wide open threes. Last year, he took a greater percentage of his shots on open and wide open threes (per NBA.com’s definitions). To start, his shot diet looks worse on the surface. I dug into the numbers and, at first, didn’t love what I saw. Through eight games, Hardaway is shooting 41.1% on just over nine three-point attempts per game and averaging a career-high 3.3 assists per game. It’s because those are two areas in which, eight games into the season, Hardaway has looked very strong. And, it’s not just because they are his two worst categories. The two areas that jump out from his report card above are perimeter shooting and playmaking. It wasn’t exactly encouraging to see such high-volume ineptitude in the first year of his 4-yr/$71M deal, but year two has started on a different note. On the right, is how he compared to shooting guards who played similar minutes: On the left is how he rated against the league overall. Per BBall Index’s talent grades, THJ fared how you would expect. Granted, that was not long after a stress injury to his lower left leg forced him to miss about two dozen games. His season-long swoon included a 10-game stretch during which he shot 10-of-60 (16.7%) from behind the arc. For perspective, 59 players launched at least 350 triples last season, Hardaway ranked dead last in three-point field goal percentage among that group. He heaved a whopping 7.2 threes per game, connecting on a measly 31.7% of them. was arguably the worst volume shooter in the NBA. I won’t sugarcoat this: last season, Tim Hardaway Jr.
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