2024 Draft Shooting Heuristic

“This team needs shooting.” “They lost because the spacing was terrible.” These may be the most common phrases uttered when describing an NBA team’s shortcomings over the course of a season or in a highly pressurized playoff series. Teams are always searching for shooters, and in a draft class as widely panned as the 2024 draft, shooters are seen as a stable commodity. Shooting is viewed as an easily projectable skill which can be integrated into any context and immediately be additive to various lineups. The reductive lens through which we (and many NBA teams) view shooting has always piqued my interest. As a quick thought exercise, below are two separate shooting profiles of prospects drafted in the lottery within the past decade. Both players were 6’5” freshmen who would be considered conventional shooting-guards.

Player A.

Player B.

If asked to pick between the two players without added context I’m sure many (myself included) would choose Player A. The gap in three-point shooting efficiency combined with the wide disparity in dunks paint Player B as a much more athletic, play-finishing wing. Considering the similarity in age, this may indicate more potential in Player A than Player B, despite Player B’s self-creation proxies (percentage of unassisted shots) being more impressive. For the reveal…Player A is Ben McLemore (the 7th pick in the 2013 draft), and Player B is Tyler Herro (the 13th pick in the 2019 draft).

Both 2013 and 2019 were considered relatively weaker draft classes at the time, and both Herro and McLemore had high draft capital invested in them mainly due to their shooting ability. So if shooting production is so easily forecasted why did these two players yield such wildly different results, and why are past drafts littered with highly touted shooters who either flamed out early into their NBA careers, or simply didn’t return anywhere near the value expected from their draft placement? What separates the Ben McLemores, Jimmer Fredettes, and Nik Stauskases of the world from the luminary shooters who came to define this era of basketball? Is there something that inherently makes shooting more inconsistently translatable than we’ve acknowledged or are aware of?

In an attempt to answer these questions I want to examine the shooting profiles of three 2024 draft prospects whose primary sell has been their shooting. The three players I’ve decided to dive into for this exercise are Ja’Kobe Walter, Melvin Ajinca, and Rob Dillingham.

Mechanic Specifically

In the past I have relied on my traditional understand of shooting mechanics to judge and grade shooting ability in different players. As the years pass and I see more and more players develop into anywhere from passable to potent shooters with unconventional shot mechanics, I realized while there is value in having some core shooting principles in your evaluations, flexibility is necessary. Confining the definition of a ‘good’ shot to an antiquated understanding of follow-throughs, foot placements and guide hand positioning will more than likely exclude high-level shooters from your rigid rubric. This realization drove me to developing a much more fluid grading system when it comes to differentiating shooters, based on these three tenets:

• Speed
• Versatility
• Volume

Shot Speed

Shooting speed is an essential component, and while it isn’t tracked in any widely available database, I am of the belief that shot speed is a great indicator of muscle memory which is closely tied to how immediately a player’s shot may translate and how far I feel comfortable projecting the potency of a player’s shot. This idea was brought about during the process of researching this piece. I had gone back to look into past prospects’ tape and see if there was a through-line in their shots which could have indicated they’d become the level of shooter they eventually developed into in the NBA. Take the clip below, for example:

The complete absence of load time physically or indecision in the process of shooting provides insight into the hardwiring of the shooter. For those who don’t recognize the shot mechanics due to the video quality (best I could find of 2012 WAC tape) the shooter here is Damian Lillard! While Dame’s shooting proficiency is an unrealistic bar to measure shooters by, there is value in recognizing how his ability to get into his shot, no matter how tight the window, was relevant to his development into a nuclear shooter.

Volume & Versatility

While all three of these core shooting principles are interrelated, it is necessary to discuss shooting volume and versatility in the same breath because one precipitates the other. It is impossible to attain sustainable shooting volume without an expansive shooting repertoire. Researching this piece I noticed a common theme amongst a lot of shooting prospect ‘misses’: an overreliance on shots from a specific play-type, whether it be shots off the dribble or catch-and-shoot attempts.

A player I had considered including in this piece was Zeke Mayo, a junior guard playing for South Dakota State. Initially enticed by his high shooting volume (11.5 3’s attempted per 100 possessions) on a diet of largely self created 3-point attempts (only 28% assisted threes), I dug into Mayo’s tape expecting to find a high-level shot creator forced into a lot of suboptimal attempts due to the lack of creation ability surrounding him. And while this was in large part the case, I also noticed an interesting trend. While Mayo was forced to take a significant amount of threes off the dribble because he was the only SDSU player capable of consistently creating their own shot, when he was provided opportunities to shoot open spot-ups they all too often looked like the plays below.

These plays, which individually may seem benign, standard cases of a player turning down a shot in search of a better look for himself or his teammates, is actually symptom of a larger issue in Mayo’s process as a shooter. After delving deeper into Mayo’s tape I eventually came to the conclusion that his low assist rate on threes was actually a function, not a bug, of his value system as a shooter. Mayo was undeniably more comfortable taking threes off the dribble, and almost always required a rhythm dribble to take an attempt. Any hard closeout which disrupted Mayo’s routine would cause him to pass up the shot attempt. This tendency not only represents a limitation in shot versatility, but also suppressed his volume. While this wart in Mayo’s shooting habits would be much easier to look over for most draft candidates, for a prospect whose shooting ability is central to their value, any minor flaw can be accounted for and exploited at the NBA level, hindering their viability as a spacer.

The best analogy I could use to describe the effect a player has when they possess all these qualities as a shooter is the Patellar-Reflex Test, or the Knee-Jerk Reflex Test as a layman like myself had known it as. This terminology probably sounds foreign but bear with me, we’ve all probably undergone this reflex test at some point over the course of a routine doctors visit. The doctor takes a rubber mallet to your kneecap, and as long as you deliver the expected reaction by kicking out your leg the physician carries on with the rest of the check-up. For anyone not following, the test is clipped below.

While any swing of the mallet will cause the knee to move, the more force applied the greater the reaction will be. In this analogy think of the shooter as being the doctor with the rubber mallet and the defense being the patient’s knee. The greater the volume, versatility, and speed of the shooter, the more pressure they will be able to apply to the defense and the more pronounced of a reaction they will be able to elicit from the defense.

For a demonstration of this idea playing out in a game lets compare two shooting specialists, Caleb Houstan and Buddy Hield. Both rank in the 78th and 74th percentile in three point shooting Points Per Possession (PPP), per Synergy. However, a closer look at the tape will show a drastic difference in the kind of reaction they elicit from the defenses they face. The two clips below for example, both plays feature Houstan and Hield running ghost screens intended to create seams for their ballhandlers to drive to the basket and create.

However, notice only Hield is able to get the on-ball defender, in this case Bam Adebayo, to open his stance and provide Tyrese Haliburton with a driving lane. Haliburton not only has a lane to drive to his strong hand, but enough space to take a pull-up 3.

Even the best shooting specialists in the league have seen their value fluctuate almost season by season depending on swings in efficiency. Duncan Robinson parlayed one hot shooting season into a substantial contract, was unable to maintain his efficiency as a shooter, and was almost immediately deemed ‘one of the worst contracts in the league’. Only after expanding his game off the dribble was he able to regain status as a valuable offensive weapon. Davis Bertans boasted one of the most stellar shooting resumes in the NBA before a prolonged shooting slump rendered his contract a massive albatross. These examples are crucial show why having a clear understanding of a player’s shooting is essential. By examining the three players central to this piece I hope to shed some light on A.) whether their shot possesses the factors necessary to remain effective as they transition to the NBA, and B.) what qualities in the rest of their offensive game separate them as shooters.

Ja’Kobe Walter vs Melvin Ajinca

At first glance Ja’Kobe Walter and Melvin Ajinca do not seem to have many similarities outside of being two 19-year-old prospects who will most likely be entering the 2024 draft. Walter is a sinewy 6’5 guard/wing, former 5-star recruit, who is currently playing for Baylor. Melvin Ajinca is a 6’7 lefty wing playing in the LNB ProA league (the highest division in France) for Saint-Quentin. Both players are touted for their shooting ability first and foremost and will be expected to serve as high-level floor-spacers for their respective NBA teams upon being drafted. However, their divergent routes to prospect-dom help shed light on how able they will be to able to meet this expectation.

Melvin Ajinca

Melvin Ajinca first came onto draft radars after an extremely impressive showing in the FIBA U19 World Cup this past summer, where he lead the French team to the championship game while shooting a blistering 71.6 (!!) true shooting percentage. While the majority of Ajinca’s scoring was of the play-finishing variety, consisting of hitting spot-up threes and getting out in transition, there were some flashes of high level self-creation. Take the play below, for example: France clears out the left side of the floor for what appears to be an empty-corner pick and roll for Ajinca. He quickly rejects the screen and counters the defender closing off the baseline by fluidly transitioning into a stepback three.

Displays of shooting off the bounce such as this, combined with Ajinca’s indifference towards contests and his willingness pulling from range well beyond that of his peers…

…quickly vaulted him into early draft conversations and captured my attention as a potentially outlier shooting prospect.

From here I attempted to gain a deeper perspective of Ajinca’s career prior to and since the U19 tournament, watching games from his time with Saint-Quentin in the French LNB Pro B league to now where they’ve earned promotion to the Pro A ranks. Ajinca, as with many young European prospects, has been confined to filling the specific role of an off-ball spacer, and actually his seven-game stint with the U19 team had been the most freedom he’d been afforded on-ball up to that point of his career. In 41 games logged in Synergy, Ajinca had been used in Isolation or as a P&R ballhandler 39 times; over the course of seven games in the U19 World Cup he’d seen 14 possessions in the same play-types.

Ajinca’s previous usage aligns with how we conventionally think of shooters being deployed. Ajinca saw the majority of his shots in the halfcourt come from deliberate set plays, such as the possession below where Saint-Quentin runs Horns Flare Spain, where Ajinca cuts from the right corner to serve as the second screener in the Spain action. Evident in this action is Ajinca’s lightning quick release, allowing him to catch and shoot in one motion.

If Ajinca wasn’t being used in Spain he was being run off double staggers…

Or a simple pindown with some window dressing, such as this Rip (backscreen) Screen-the-Screener action.

I would say these three actions are generally representative of how Ajinca has been utilized for Saint-Quentin, and, while I was initially captivated by how efficient Ajinca was in getting into his shot due to his quick mechanics and efficient energy transfer, as I watched more tape a trend started to become apparent. If you noticed a similarity in all of these clips, the plays are meticulously diagrammed, with Ajinca placed as a feature, not the focus of the action. While the speed component of Ajinca’s shot is certainly NBA caliber, to consistently place pressure on defenses these kind of plays are not best suited to answering the questions of volume and versatility essential to any high level NBA shooter.

Realizing this can sound kind of counterintuitive, if a player shoots with good efficiency and can get their shot off under duress, why would their be any uncertainty as to whether or not they can maintain their volume as they transition to the NBA? Wouldn’t it be in their team’s best interest to implement a steady diet of shooting opportunities into their offense for said player? The answer to this is complicated. In the NBA offenses typically subscribe to the philosophy of “path of least resistance”, meaning the bedrock of most team’s offenses comes down to “what is the most direct path which will yield the most consistent results.”

With shooting specialists, if they are schemed a shot it is with the understanding that the advantage typically begins and ends with the player receiving an open shot. And while this will work on occasion, frequently depending how well the play is diagrammed, there is a ceiling to how consistently these playtypes will bear fruit for an offense. The best phrasing I could think of to describe this difference is active versus passive spacing.

Compare these two clips below, for instance, of Desmond Bane and Simone Fontecchio stationed in the corner.

In the first clip, Kris Dunn drives from the middle of the floor, beats his man, and Fontecchio’s defender Fred VanVleet ‘helps the helper’ by rotating over from his initial assignment to prevent the dump-off passing angle to John Collins, all the while leaving Fontecchio open for the corner three. In the second clip, the Grizzlies run a spread pick-and-roll with Bane spaced in the corner. At first glance it seems Fontecchio’s three was the result of a defensive error by VanVleet. Whereas in the second clip Hardaway Jr doesn’t even briefly entertain the idea of leaving Bane to tag the roller in the second clip.

While it seems obvious the ideal execution in these similar positions is to remain closely attached to the shooter as Tim Hardaway Jr. does to Bane, VanVleet was doing what was asked of his defensive scheme as well. The main difference in these two clips isn’t so much the result of the play as the variety of shooter being covered in the play. While Simone Fontecchio is a respectable shooter (shooting 40% from three on the season on 305 attempts to date), what makes him a passive versus an active spacer is the understanding defenders have of how limited their responsibilities are when guarding Fontecchio.

As previously mentioned, usually when shooting specialists are schemed open, the advantage is confined to the three which was drawn up. As seen below, Simone Fontecchio is no exception to this. When the defense runs him off the line, the advantage is effectively ended.

Defenders knowing that a hard closeout, which gets Fontecchio to relocate, or even run off the three-point line, is effective in neutralizing his shooting threat, greatly reduces the strain Fontecchio can place on a defense. This simplified thought process for defenders manifests on the court in plays like the clip below. Michael Porter Jr. is Fontecchio’s initial defender, however he has no qualms helping off Fontecchio to stunt (provide help on a post-up) towards John Collins.

This play embodies the active versus passive spacing dichotomy, as while Fontecchio demands the respect of the closeout, the shooting threat isn’t so great that Fontecchio can carve out space for others outside of a very specific usage. Constant application of these kind of plays isn’t feasible for the simple fact that they introduce perhaps the hallmark of a bad NBA offense, predictability. And while implementing movement shooting elements into an offense is crucial, it is typically used as a feature, not the foundation of an offense.

Take the play below: the Cavaliers run a Ram Veer Exit play, where Georges Niang receives an off-ball screen from Max Strus en-route to setting an on-ball screen for Craig Porter Jr. (this is the Ram part of the action). After setting the screen for Porter Jr., Niang sets a pindown for Sam Merrill (Veer action), while Strus simultaneously receives an exit screen from Isaac Okoro. This play is beautifully designed, and all of these moving parts create a seam for Craig Porter Jr. to drive and score an easy layup. By expertly blending the shooting capabilities of these three players who individually demand respect, Cleveland is able to breakdown the defense without any conventional advantage creators on the floor.

However, if you were to remove all the scaffolding which comes with a well diagrammed play being combined with multiple potent shooters, what would it look like?

Take the play below, for example, a baseline out of bounds play in what is a much less shooting slanted lineup. Cleveland runs Ram Ghost, where Sam Merrill inbounds the ball receives a pindown from Niang and ghosts the on-ball screen. It is apparent from the play that this action doesn’t place nearly the same strain on the defense, with Boston switching 1-4 and not even momentarily hesitant on abandoning their scheme to pursue Merrill. Even with a heavier-footed big like Al Horford switching onto a perimeter player, the lacking off-the-bounce threat of Merrill makes this a simple rotation to execute.

I felt it necessary to reference these players not to undermine their abilities or paint them as devoid of value, but to provide a frame of reference for my concerns with Melvin Ajinca. As I went through his tape a persistent theme, similar to these shooting specialists cited above, was the absence of production when Ajinca was adequately covered out to the three-point line. There were numerous instances of Ajinca hamstringing the offense when he was forced to counter after meeting resistance on the initial action, such as this Spain PNR below…

Or when Ajinca was incapable of capitalizing on an opportunity to attack a short closeout when run off the line.

These clips may be seen as isolated instances, and Ajinca optimists may even interpret these plays as a natural byproduct of a younger player who has received limited on-ball reps. However, I remain skeptical of Ajinca’s potential to drastically improve this skill, as Saint-Quentin has actually attempted to integrate Ajinca more as a ballhandler into their offense. While he has almost exclusively seen these opportunities come in simple, two-man actions such as this empty corner pick-and-roll below, the results have left much to be desired with Ajinca scoring only .784 PPP as a PNR ballhandler this season.

As stated earlier, Ajinca still possesses the qualities of a viable off-ball spacer, but I see these limitations preventing him from ever seeing a usage higher than the current 16% usage he’s sporting for Saint Quentin. For Ajinca, as with most shooting specialists at the highest levels, their inability to adapt when forced to play out of structure curbs their volume, and as a result their impact on a possession to possession basis.

Ja’Kobe Walter

As stated earlier, both Ja’Kobe Walter and Melvin Ajinca’s primary appeal as prospects are their utility as shooters. However, both players have seen drastically different usages and the dichotomy between their respective shooting profiles would show as much. Below is a table of both Ajinca and Walter’s shooting splits over the past two seasons (2022-23 and the current season).

At first these splits seem to represent two players with somewhat similar shooting pedigrees, and in fact this table may stir some confusion as to why there’s such a great deal of separation between the two prospects in general draft media perception, judging by draft boards. Walter has shot a greater volume of 3s compared to Ajinca, however Ajinca’s been more efficient from a more standardized distance (all of Ajinca’s 3s are from the FIBA line of 22.15 feet, whereas a substantial portion of Walter’s long distance attempts are from the high school line of 19.75 feet). Initially I came into this process expecting to see similar calibre of shooters, with the gap in shooting ability between the two players to be equally represented on film; however in reality the effect these players had on defenses held stark contrasts.

To fully grasp the difference between Walter and Ajinca’s shooting ability, a holistic approach is necessary. While Ajinca has more or less seen identical usage in every team context he has been placed in, Walter’s role has varied greatly over the course of his young career. The different levels of usage are apparent in the difference between the number of non-threes Walter has taken compared to Ajinca. The scope of this article so far has mainly focused on these players ability to space the floor from three, but Walter’s shot diversity amplifies his effectiveness as a spacer.

Previously Melvin Ajinca’s processing and ability to adapt off the catch had been greatly scrutinized, and mentioned as a potential limiting factor to his utility to an offense. Ja’Kobe Walter, on the other hand, has a well-refined game off the catch and has melded other aspects of his scoring repertoire to fully exploit his shooting. The disparity between how reliable the two are at parlaying the shooting threat they present is evident in their respective free throw rates, as Walter has posted a robust 0.46 ratio of free throw to field goal attempts compared to a paltry 0.20 for Ajinca. The clips below are a prime examples of how Walter is able to convert these hard closeouts into quality offense.

In the first clip, Baylor runs a simple spread pick-and-roll, with Walter positioned in the weakside corner. Cincinnati’s big is in a high-drop coverage, and because of the angle he takes Walter’s defender (the low-man) has to over-help to prevent the wraparound pass. Once Walter receives the kickout in the corner, he fully capitalizes on the long closeout his man has to make by immediately getting downhill and drawing the foul

What is not visible in this clip, however, is Walter’s excellent footwork attacking these closeouts. Walter consistently is able to deploy ‘negative step’ footwork, where he uses his rear-foot to springboard his drives and mitigate some of his lackluster burst. The play below exemplifies this: the Baylor point-guard RayJ Dennis is able to break his man down off the dribble, triggering Walter’s man to help on the drive. As Walter receives the pass in the corner, his defender simultaneously recovers and is shading Walter towards the baseline. However, the defender’s top-foot is too high on the closeout, enabling Walter to attack and open up a driving lane to then draw the foul and finish for an and-one opportunity.

Why I initially thought it necessary to delve into the different developmental contexts between Walter and Ajinca, beyond their ability to attack closeouts, is how capable they are of adapting to the defense once run off the line. Walter isn’t just fixed to foul drawing when attacking closeouts. His previous time spent as a primary offensive option afford him a bevy of alternatives to place pressure on the defense.

Below is an example of exactly this, Baylor once again is running a spread PNR with RayJ Dennis as the ballhandler and Walter stationed in the corner. As Dennis’ defender loses contain, Walter’s man rotates over to help on the drive, creating a gap for Walter to attack when the ball is swung to him. Unlike the last closeout attack vs Cincinnati where Walter was provided a direct driving path towards the basket, this time Dennis’ defender rotates over from the topside. Despite the added variable Walter is able to quickly pro-hop to navigate the dig, and get to a balanced floater off two feet.

Take notice that as the screen is set Walter and his teammate on the wing, Jalen Bridges, exchange. While this may seem insignificant this is a microcosm of shooters having different levels of gravity. While on the surface Bridges may seem to be the better shooter than Walter, as he boasts a 40.6% 3-point shot compared to Walter’s 34.5%. But Walter is a much more reliable release valve for an offense because of plays just like this.

Synthesizing the information gathered from the tape and available databases like Synergy shows Walter to have a more impressive shot versatility than Ajinca. The table below displays three-point shooting efficiency over the past 2 seasons off handoffs and screens, showing how Walter has actually been more efficient in the most common playtypes for their presumed archetype.

Granted this a small sample, but this lends support to the theory of Ajinca’s shooting efficiency being drastically boosted by shots which don’t generate “gravity” as it is commonly understood.

Walter is not without his faults as a shooter, however, as while he surpasses Ajinca in versatility there is a limiting factor in his shot speed. If you notice in the clips above Walter is able to get downhill because he is operating off substantial advantages created by others and he has the respect to draw hard closeouts. Neither of these are factors can be relied on at the next level, where closeouts lie on more of a spectrum.

To demonstrate the relationship between shot speed and long versus short closeouts, I have pulled a few clips shown below. In the first clip, Moses Moody attacks a mismatch after Golden State gets an offensive rebound, and kicks the ball out to Brandin Podziemski after drawing Pascal Siakam as the help defender. Take notice of the depth of Siakam’s closeout; instead of closing out with reckless abandon or crowding Podziemski to prevent him getting a shot off, he stops a few feet short.

This short closeout is informed by Podziemski’s reputation as a shooter, where despite shooting 38% from 3 on the season and a blistering 44.7% as a collegian this past season, his discomfort shooting over contests and in tighter windows dissuades him from attempts with a high degree of difficulty. And when Podziemski does attempt shots over length, his lower release point makes contesting shots an easier task for defenders, as demonstrated in the clip below.

Podziemski runs off an Iverson cut to receive the entry pass and from here the Warriors attempt to flow into an empty corner PNR. However, the Raptor’s matchup zone clogs up any driving/passing lanes for this action, forcing Dario Saric to flash to the middle of the floor and find Podziemski sinking into a pocket of space left vacant by the zone. Notice again, despite the space a recovering Gary Trent Jr. is forced to cover, he stops a few feet short and is able to well contest the shot. Understandably this may seem like a harsh judgement of an ostensibly quality NBA shooter, however capitalizing on these margins is what separates shooters at the next level.

Contrast the treatment Podziemski receives as a spacer versus a player like Tim Hardaway Jr., for example. Hardaway’s high and quick release, paired with the bordering irrational confidence he has in his shot. When the shooting windows shrink, Walter will need to prove he can consistently get his shot off. Examining his previous tape shows how this will need to be an area of improvement for Walter.

Take the clip below. After Baylor runs some disjointed early offense they flow into a Spread PNR. Walter’s defender, Jameer Nelson Jr., is forced to tag the roller early due to TCU’s big hedging the ballscreen and RayJ Dennis swings the ball to Walter on the wing. Nelson Jr. closes-out on Walter with balanced footwork, and most importantly short. The short closeout allows Walter space to get up an attempt from 3 which Nelson Jr., listed at 6’2, is able to emphatically block.

This play does a great job of capturing the gradient which closeouts lie on. Walter is a dangerous enough shooter to demand some sort of closeout and is proficient driving against hard closeouts, meaning an option teams will exercise is the short closeout where Walter is forced to shoot over a moderate contest. While this block can be seen as an aberration, a single play not indicative of more than a bad decision from Walter, I’m of the belief this represents a wider trend and a weakness which Walter could struggle improving upon at the next level.

First of all, it is not just spot-up attempts Walter struggles getting up quickly, he also frequently had issues getting up shots off-the-dribble up against smaller defenders. Take the clip below, for example. Baylor runs a Get-77 action which is blown-up, and in response Walter lifts up from the corner and runs an empty corner PNR with Jordan Pope as his primary defender. Pope, listed at 6’2, blocks the shot AFTER going under the screen.

I’ve avoided discussing shot mechanics up until now because I don’t think there’s a platonic ideal to what a shot should look like, and often judgements in shot mechanics are more informed by aesthetics than functionality. In Walter’s case however, his struggles transitioning into his shot quickly run downstream from his mechanics. The clip below demonstrates two ways Walter compensates for this mechanical inefficiency.

Walter has a lower release point, to compensate for his struggles generating power from his lower body. This is evident from the valgus collapse in his knees shown more clearly below.

Another idiosyncrasy of Walter’s shot, potentially limiting his shot speed, is an inelastic set-point, also apparent in this clip. Notice how Walter gathers for this shot well outside his frame in order to position his shot so that it is set with his elbow pronated. This elbow pronation is more clearly displayed in the picture below.

Typically a shooter’s elbow is much tighter to his body, and more closely aligned with the shooter’s feet. The elbow pronation makes the set-point rigid, causing the shooter to take another split second to transition from their set-point to release. Both of these deficiencies are a result of Walter lacking general strength, which can be alleviated with time spent in an NBA strength program. However, when he doesn’t have the hair-trigger release speed to be consistently effective off horizontal shooting actions like ghost screens and flares, Walter’s defender can go under the flare screen and still credibly contest the shot, as in the clip below.

For a shooting prospect who cannot draw the hard closeouts necessary to create unambiguous driving opportunities, and who doesn’t necessary have the handle to capitalize on less pronounced advantages, the application of their shooting prowess can be significantly narrower than previously anticipated.

I found the parallels in these two plays and between these two players striking. Both Kevin Huerter and Walter are run off double staggers and neither is able to gain a significant amount of separation from the trailing defender. And when the decision is forced upon them by the defense, neither has the self organization skills to quickly transition into a shot off the dribble or drive to maintain the advantage, so in both cases the play results in a turnover.

This is not to say Walter is a one-to-one comp to Huerter, more so to illustrate the struggles a shooting specialist in his mold may encounter when his jumpshot is lacking in certain qualities. What we want to avoid is a shooting prospect whose draft slot warrants heavy investment of developmental resources, but who ultimately possesses a fungible skillset which I believe is the case with Walter.

Rob Dillingham

Up to this point the focus has been on parsing shooting aptitude based on which conditions prospects FAILED to meet, however, I wanted to delve into 6’2 Kentucky guard Rob Dillingham’s game as an example of what constitutes a high level shooting prospect on tape and by the numbers.

In order to understand what makes Dillingham’s potential as a shooter so appealing, it is necessary to look at his shooting profile over the past two seasons just as we had with Melvin Ajinca and Ja’Kobe Walter.

What immediately stands out about Dillingham’s shot profile is the difference in volume of off-the-dribble 3’s as well as catch-and-shoot 3’s compared to Walter and Ajinca. Dillingham over the exact same time frame and comparable total number of games played (Dillingham played 71 games over this stretch, compared to 75 and 80 for Ajinca and Walter respectively), managed to shoot more 3’s off the bounce than Walter and Ajinca COMBINED while shooting significantly less Catch-and-Shoot 3’s than both players (193 C&S 3’s versus 315 and 353). Some of the discrepancy in shot distribution can definitely be explained by their positional distinctions, but seeing how quickly Dillingham adapted to more of an off-ball role, when his responsibilities more closely aligned with Ajinca and Walter’s, was a revelation. When deployed as an off-ball player and asked to run off screens, Dillingham created space by utilizing the burst and understanding of tempo which made him such a potent scorer off the bounce.

Take the play below for example. Kentucky runs Floppy initially, with Dillingham being defended well on the catch. After Dillingham swings the ball back to Reed Sheppard at the top of the key, he runs towards Aaron Bradshaw on the left block, setting what seems to be the first screen of a baseline double stagger set. However, with Dillingham’s defender going over the top of Bradshaw’s screen, Dillingham recognizes this, reroutes and turns this into a ‘Ricky’ action, where the screener rescreens for the cutter but going in the opposite direction of the initial screen.

While Dillingham was used sparingly as a movement shooter (only 12 3’s off screens this season, on which he went 5/12), this play exemplifies how quickly Dillingham can self-organize and get into his shot off a variety of footwork patterns. Dillingham’s shooting numbers this season for Kentucky were obviously stellar, however a deeper look into the degree of difficulty on these shots quells any concerns I have on the translatability of Dillingham’s jumper. In the clip below for instance, Dillingham breaks convention not by taking a transition 3, but taking it as the primary ballhandler dribbling full speed down the court.

Willingness to shoot in these suboptimal situations, like the plays below where Dillingham comes off a pindown and takes a one dribble 3 with Tre Mitchell splayed at his feet..

…and over a tight contest from Armando Bacot, bodes well for maintaining his shot volume at the next level.

As I watched Dillingham over the course of the season I found there to be interesting parallels between him and a rookie from this past year’s class, Keyonte George. While there are drastic differences between the two in certain respects, there are/were similar concerns in their shot selection as prospects. During his tenure at Baylor, George had been much maligned for a perceived inability to operate within a team construct and even labeled a ‘chucker’ by some draft analysts. I would argue what was considered a weakness has actually been essential to George outperforming expectations in his rookie year.

Take this play from early in the season, for example, where Utah attempts to run Horns Out for Jordan Clarkson in early offense, but when the entry is denied George receives a Flare screen from Clarkson. Notice the apathy the defense displays towards a George three point attempt: if we are judging the value of George as a shooter by the aforementioned Knee-Jerk Reflex Test, it would be pretty low.

What I found so interesting about George’s rookie season was that despite how pedestrian his shooting splits were (38.6% from the field and 32.8% from 3), the coverages he saw over the course of the season transformed in large part because of how consistent he was with his volume. In fact, George saw his 3-point volume steadily increase over the course of the season. In the 2023 calendar year (games played from October-December) George averaged 5.1 attempts/game, and in 2024 George averaged 6.3 attempts/game. The Jazz were intentional in exploring the upper limits of George’s capabilities offensively and he consistently answered the bell. He now demonstrates his comfort shooting in simple flow actions like the DHO from John Collins below, where the sliver of space provided by Steph going under the screen is enough for George to pull the trigger.

George also displayed utility as an off-the-dribble shooter when provided more opportunities on-ball. In the play below Utah flows into a spread PNR as the secondary action and George, without a moment’s hesitation, pulls up for 3 when Bam Adebayo begins to backpedal into drop coverage.

George’s willingness to take these 3’s under duress resulted in him eventually receiving the kind of coverage which stands as the benchmark for offensive players, forcing the defense to place two on the ball.

Later in the same game as the play above, Utah runs Pistol Flare Zoom, a well schemed staple of their offense. Despite the fluid transitions from one action to the next, Miami stifles the offense and the ball finds Keyonte George in the corner. As with most NBA offenses, when Utah’s designed offensive options are taken away they resort to a simple spread PNR. However, because of the threat George presents as a shooter off the bounce, Miami’s big (Orlando Robinson) hard hedges the PNR, triggering the low-man (Haywood Highsmith) to tag the roller and leave Lauri Markannen open in the corner. When George diffuses the pressure of the hedge he quickly finds Markannen for 3.

This is an optimal shot for the Jazz, and Utah was able to create this in spite of Miami playing almost 20 seconds of good defense BECAUSE of George’s off-the-dribble shooting ability. While George isn’t seeing two to the ball with a high frequency yet, per Synergy all 8 of the times he’s been trapped as the PNR ballhandler have come since February 11th, which coincides with George’s rise in shooting volume.

Before revisiting Dillingham’s evaluation, I’d like to reiterate the comparison between George and Dillingham is not being drawn as a 1-to-1 comparison, rather as an example of how a seldom sought after archetype (smaller guards who are high volume shooters) can be extremely valuable if they meet certain criteria.

Dillingham showed himself more than capable of diagnosing coverages where he could utilize his off the dribble shooting prowess. Dillingham, like George in the previous clips, was decisive and consistent in punishing drop coverages which is integral to success for his archetype. In the clip below, Dillingham rejects the first screen in a 77 action (Double Drag) and finds the pocket of space left occupied by the trailing point-of-attack defender and the drop big man, and from there he decisively takes the pull-up 3 with a right-handed gather.

Even as scouting reports became more robust over the course of conference play, Dillingham was still able to get to his pull-up 3 against drop coverage. Like in the play below where Kentucky runs Horns, the POA defender is better able to stay attached to Dillingham and the drop defender is slightly closer to the level of the screen than Hunter Dickinson in the previous clip, however Dillingham is still able to get up an attempt, this time with a left-handed gather.

Even when defenders were playing at the level, like in this play against Oakland in the tournament, Dillingham was undeterred. Kentucky once again is running 77 and Dillingham seizes the space given to take a deep 3 early in the shot clock, despite Zvonimir Ivisic’s defender actually quickly showing at the level.

What makes Dillingham’s shooting ability so enticing is how rare it is to find a prospect who’s not only capable of drawing aggressive coverages with the ball in his hands, but also capitalizing on the attention they draw as shooters off the ball. As previously discussed in Ja’Kobe Walter’s evaluation, attacking closeouts as a shooting threat is of upmost importance. And while Walter’s shot mechanics could limit his effectiveness drawing and attacking closeouts, Dillingham has no such concerns mechanically, along with having an even better process attacking closeouts.

Dillingham was deployed off-ball this season more than any point in his career and shot an astounding 42/88 (47.7%) on Catch and Shoot 3’s. Even more impressive was Dillingham’s ability to parlay the hard closeouts his shooting efficiency attracted into high percentage shots for himself or teammates.

In this clipped play Florida switches the spread PNR placing the big, Thomas Haugh, on Dillingham. Eventually the ball is swung to Antonio Reeves, who drives, causing Haugh to provide gap help. On Haugh’s recovery Dillingham quickly ‘punches’ the gap, drives, and hits a runner. In this play Haugh executes scheme perfectly by funneling Dillingham towards help, but the nuance in Dillingham’s game off the catch renders this advantage.

Dillingham has a wonderful habit of running through the catch, or ‘stampeding’, on closeouts. This creates the finishing angle in the play above, and can be seen even more clearly in the play below. Kentucky flows into a double Zoom action for Antonio Reeves after they’re unable to create a quality look out of the empty corner PNR. When Reeves is stonewalled on his drive he kicks it back out to Dillingham at the top of the key, and Dillingham’s stampede allows him to create the quick separation to finish high off the glass.

Dillingham’s game off the catch can best be described as kinetic in my opinion, whether the possession ends in a Dillingham shot or not, he is able to keep the offense in motion and the defense shifting with his keen sense of court mapping.

In the following clip, Kentucky runs through two hapless spread PNRs with Reed Sheppard as the primary ballhandler. On the 2nd PNR Sheppard rejects the screen and dribbles to the right side of the floor where Dillingham is stationed. As Dillingham lifts from the wing, his defender pressures the ball, prompting a switch onto Dillingham. The switch demands urgency, and Dillingham is able to weaponize this brief advantage on a subpar closeout from an otherwise excellent defender in Cam Matthews.

Dillingham’s drive is an expert display of manipulating defenders with your eyes and tempo, as he waits for both Matthews and the primary rim protector here (Tolu Smith) to commit before eventually making the dumpoff pass to Aaron Bradshaw for a dunk. While some may see this as a combination of bad defense from Smith and solid passing vision from Dillingham, Dillingham’s arsenal of pullups, runners, and floaters, necessitates Smith lifting from his position closer to the basket.

Dillingham’s technical refinement operating off-ball, when paired with high volume off the dribble shooting, amounts to an offensive weapon which could potentially change the entire complexion of a team’s offense. Instead of having a shooter who can only force the defense to react when placed in a set of ideal conditions, a shooter with the depth of tools Dillingham possesses can activate defensive pressure points simply by participating in the play.

An example of this effect can be seen below. Miami runs Iverson 77 Shallow, where Nijel Pack receives the entry pass as he’s cutting across the opposite wing (the Iverson component of the action), and the two elbow screeners flip to initiate the 77 Shallow phase of the action. As previously discussed, 77 consists of double drag screens, however 77 Shallow is a variation where the screens are staggered so the 2nd screener can make a shallow cut to the 3 point line. As Pack takes the 1st screen, the Pitt big man quickly shows to disrupt the rhythm of Pack, a respected off the dribble 3-point shooter. Ideally this should place Blake Hinson in a situation where he’s forced to cover the roller and the shallow cutting shooter, but George is a tick late to lift which kills the window for the advantage to be created. Pack continues dribbling towards the right wing and the gap help from Jaland Lowe carves open a driving lane for AJ Casey who finishes on the drive.

This play encapsulates the interplay between actions designed to get shooters open on the East-West plane, to create North-South gaps for drivers to attack. And shooters who are prolific off the bounce and off the catch function as queens on the chessboard, in how they activate defensive pressure points in either manner.

These versatile shooters also serve as force multipliers for other shooters effectiveness. Take the play below for example, Dallas intends to run ‘Motion Strong Zoom’, where Tim Hardaway Jr. runs off double staggers from the corner (Motion Strong), swings the ball to Dereck Lively, and screens away to initiate the Zoom action for Kyrie Irving. However, as Irving approaches THJ to receive the first screen he is denied, or ‘top-locked’, by Jalen Suggs. This prompts Hardaway to take a handoff from Lively as his (Hardaway Jr’s) initial defender, Anthony Black, and Suggs simultaneously switch their assignments. Suggs switching onto Hardaway Jr. and Black switching onto Irving.

This sequence is so important because with Suggs and Black switching the Mavericks essentially have them dead to rights, as seen in the frame below.

Suggs has lost the battle of leverage, with the switch placing him on Hardaway Jr’s outside shoulder, and Hardaway Jr. being a respected shooter in his own right forces Goga Bitadze to lift slightly out of his drop coverage. This rotation creates the angle for Hardaway to make the short skip pass to Irving, effectively inverting the floor and creating a window for Irving to continue the advantage with a pass to the rolling Lively.

This sequence is a perfect distillation of the synergy between a dynamic off-the-dribble shooting threat and a dynamic, albeit more conventional, shooter. And plays like these are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to manufacturing offense between these two archetypes. Utilizing shooters as screeners has come into vogue in a major way recently, and perhaps there’s no team better at combining these elements within their offense than the recent NCAA champion UConn Huskies.

In the following clip, UConn runs a wildly intricate action I could only term as ‘Pistol Motion Strong Ghost Flex Screen the Screener’. Despite the overly verbose terminology, this core concept of this action is quite simple, UConn taking their best and most versatile shooter in Cam Spencer and weaponizing him by involving him in as many phases of the offense as possible. As Spencer fakes the Cross Screen for the player in the weakside corner and receives the down screen (Ghost Flex), his defender tightly trails, attempts to deny the curl, and funnel Spencer into Alex Karaban’s defender so they can switch. Switching being the preferred defensive scheme because of Marquette’s similarly sized lineup and the lack of off the dribble scoring threat UConn’s players possess. UConn uses this perceived weakness against Marquette here by having Spencer set a down screen for Karaban as he’s curling towards the basket, springing Karaban open for 3.

I find these clips relevant to Rob Dillingham’s projection because these are the ways his offensive skillset can manifest not only in scoring opportunities for himself, but for others as well. The confluence of Dilling

Conclusion

In summation, I think all these players have viable skillsets as shooters, however my general philosophy when it comes to the draft is to pick for scarcity. Especially when it comes to a team using a high pick, players who provide unique skillsets allow teams to pivot stylistically and adapt to changes in the NBA meta. When it comes to the three prospects previously discussed, I chose them specifically because it was my belief these prospects main value proposition was their shooting talent. Each possess strengths and weaknesses compared to the others in the other facets of their game, but ultimately if a team is picking any of the three it should be for what their shooting ability unlocks within the team’s offense. And in my estimation Robert Dillingham is the only prospect of the three whose shooting and shooting adjacent skillset warrant a high, lottery level, pick because of the previously discussed attributes. Ja’Kobe Walter, who has an interesting profile as a shooter and scorer, doesn’t meet certain thresholds specifically as a shooter to warrant a higher pick, and Melvin Ajinca is too deficient in certain shooting adjacent qualities to be useful outside of the conventional shooting specialist role.

Prior to delving into these prospect’s games I hadn’t considered shooting ability holistically, I’d previously weighed shot mechanics as most essential to projecting shooting. Having worked through this evaluation I realized early on assessing shooting from a purely mechanical perspective naturally introduced aesthetic bias because there’s no idealized shooting form. Ultimately, recognizing this implicit bias lead to a clearer perspective of other flaws in my shooting criteria, flaws which didn’t lie in the characteristics being accounted for, but instead how rigid my philosophy had been overall.

As I dug deeper and deeper into these prospects I realized scouting shooting talent is as much about evaluating evidence which is absent from a player’s shot profile as evaluating the data currently available. The less variables I was able to see a player interact with, the less confident I was in how their shooting ability would translate to the next level. And finally, perhaps even more importantly with prospects who are shooters first and foremost, recognizing there may be no greater impediment to an offense than a player with an unwarranted reputation as a shooter. This is in reference to the ‘active’ vs ‘passive’ spacer dichotomy previously mentioned, as the narrower a player’s shooting can be applied, the less space they are providing an offense.

The days of conventional shooting specialists are long gone, and avoiding spending valuable draft capital on a player who may fall into this category is an imperative.