We’re now 43 games into the post-Achilles/ACL tears-era of Klay Thompson’s career and he has yet to find his legs, both literally and figuratively. The time off and physical changes have had a severe effect on his scoring and defense, but I want to focus on how it affected his purest skill: the shot.
To see where the problems lie, I collected data the only way I know how: watching 1,298 threes across the past three seasons to look for trends, problem areas, or anything else that sticks out. But before we dig into the data, I’ll outline my methodology and some terms that will pop up throughout.
First, there are the types of misses I tracked. The primary three misses are the front rim, back rim, and side rim. Too short, too long, just off. In a general sense, a large number of front rim misses indicate not enough power generation. The back rim misses point towards overcompensation. Side rim misses are largely a question of pure accuracy,
When watching these shots, I broke them into four categories: set shots, movement, off-the-dribble (OTD), and running. Set shots are largely catch-and-shoot looks (C&S), but I chose to add shots where he settled his base for more than a half-second. This added some reload threes with long pauses to that mix because he was squared and still when attempting the shot.
Movement shots are when he’s moving either left or right while shooting, usually coming after a handoff or flare screen. They don’t involve any gather or reload dribbles, unlike (you guessed it) off-the-dribble shots. Any shot with 1+ dribble fell into this category, except for the half-second+ reloads I previously mentioned.
Lastly, we have the runners, where he’s running directly into the shot and makes no effort to slow his momentum. Get it? Got it? Good.
Now let’s get into it.
The Set Shot
This forms the largest share of his shots before and after the injury. 58% of the pre-injury shots I charted came as set shots, and 49% after. That dip is likely explained by the deterioration in roster quality and credible non-Steph spacing options. But what’s really interesting is how remarkably consistent he’s been regardless of the injuries.
When charting the set shots from his 2021-22 season, he got off to a brutal 3/25 start with 13 front-rim misses. Considering those were his first games in over 1,000 days, it makes sense that he was coming up short almost half the time. As he got his legs under him, the results really turned around, hitting 44.5% of the last 202 set shots all the way up through the postseason. He overcame the brutal start to hit 40.9% of set shot looks last year.
Funnily enough, his healthy 2018-19 season followed an eerily similar pattern. He had an identical 3/25 start and was stuck at 30% from deep after his first 100 looks. But over the last 320 shots, he striped a crisp 44.2%, ending up at exactly 40% for the year. Sound familiar?
(Yes, Klay took 420 set shots that season. I’m not making that up.)
In both seasons, he started off with a high proportion of front-rim misses, before evening out as the season went on. A higher number of back-rim misses after an initial slump shows it takes him some time to build a solid base, with or without injury concerns.
Out of his 54 set shots to begin this season, Klay has hit 16, which is just shy of 30%. Does this mean he’s automatically going to hit ~44.5% of his remaining shots down the stretch? Maybe. I’d certainly be willing to bet it’s well over his current 30% mark, and his full-season numbers creep back toward 40% on the whole. If he followed the same pattern pre-and-post injury, it might just be a trend.
I think this is the most explicable phenomenon, and Warriors coach Steve Kerr has provided the answer:
Movement Shots
This is where it begins to get interesting. Before the injury, 24% of Klay’s total threes came off movement. Post-injury, it has risen slightly to 26%, probably explained by the overall spacing around him or just simple statistical deviation. What’s really interesting is how he splits between going right and left.
Of his 177 pre-injury movement shots, 90 were going left, almost a 50/50 split. Post-injury, 93 of his 148 movement looks are going left, a 63% share. Is that a by-product of a new roster or a change in tendency? It’s hard to say without more data, but keep it in mind when we get to OTD shots.
What also interests me is the huge drop in efficacy. He hit 43% of his movement looks before the injury and sits at 31% after. To me, this has two explanations, one that can be seen and one that has to be assumed.
The assumed explanation is the nature of the injuries. Klay tore his right Achilles, which is crucial to forming a base in the leg when shooting. While going to his left off of movement, the right leg is his inside (plant) foot and is relied on for the majority of the strength and balance needed to get square to the basket. If he doesn’t have the same strength in that leg, a big drop makes sense.
Another interesting potential explanation is the change in his shooting base. Though he often changes his base on a shot-to-shot basis, it has been most prominently widened when going to his left.
What really tells me that the problems are coming from the right leg are his splits on movement shots going right. Traditionally he’s 2-3% better going to his right, but that figure has jumped over 5% post-injury. I think this is due to two important factors.
Opposite to the movement left looks, he uses his left leg as the plant foot on these. Though I can imagine it’s still difficult post-ACL injury, he can still generate power from that left Achilles at a normal rate. That has resulted in only a minor change in his shooting base after the injury, as you can see below:
Running Forward
These shots really serve to highlight two things: confidence and momentum.
Most of these runners come when Klay is really feeling himself, and it’s no surprise he shot 43.5% on these very difficult looks pre-injury. What really surprised me is that he hasn’t lost a step on those looks post-injury, hitting a scorching 56% of those attempts. Granted this is a small proportion of his looks (only 6% both pre-and-post), but considering none of his other shots with more than 20 attempts are over 38% post-injury, it certainly stands out.
I think this points to a similar phenomena we see with his righty movement looks. The increased momentum transfer really boosts his accuracy, and no shot involves more momentum than a sprint directly into a pull-up three.
The increased proportion of these shots coming as heat-checks certainly plays a role here, but there’s no denying the results. If you’re not convinced that a higher proportion of momentum is playing a role yet, let’s dig into the final category.
Off-The-Dribble Looks
This category produced by far the most drastic results I found.
Pre-injury, Klay was a killer when dribbling to his left. It gave him a great way to shield the shot from defenders and go against a defender’s instincts by going left instead of right. They were also shots he could hit at a high rate: he cashed 24 of the 52 dribble looks going left I charted, a 46.2% mark, which was the highest of any shot in his pre-injury bag. They also represented a large propostion of his OTD looks at 62.6%.
Post-injury, it’s a completely different story. Not only has he dropped down to 35.9% on those looks, but he’s favoring them more often; 73% of his OTD looks now come going left. What’s even more interesting is he hasn’t changed the base on those shots relative to the others.
Though this certainly points to that lack of strength in the right leg we saw with his movement looks, the proportion of total shots is what interests me the most. Before the injury, 7% of his threes were OTD left. Now, it’s at 14%. In that same time, his OTD right looks have only risen by 1%. He hasn’t even taken an OTD right shot this season. Is he leaning on a shot he’s most comfortable with as he tries to regain his previous form? It’s very possible.
The number of makes also points to the need for increased momentum. When dribbling to the right, he gets a similar amount of energy compared to his movement right shots, getting a little more of a power transfer. Though it represents a small proportion of his overall shots, and could certainly be skewed by sample size, his 10/19 figure on OTD right shots post-injury is worth noting when lumped into the aggregate (which we will get to soon).
Another figure I hesitate to mention because of SSS problems are the step-back looks. He’s never really been one for stepping back, and they represent only 2% of his looks both pre-and-post injury. But he was able to at least hit some with both his legs under him, making 5 of 13. Now, he’s 2/9 post-injury. This by itself is not a significant figure, but certainly follows the larger trends.
The Need for Speed
Outside of the set shots, you can break all these looks into two basic categories: positive and negative momentum shots. His off-the-dribble and movement shots going right would be considered positive momentum looks, along with the runners. OTD, movement left, and step-backs are all negative momentum shots. If you’ve been paying attention, you probably already guessed which one is stronger for him right now.
After the injury, he’s splashed 45.9% of his 111 positive momentum looks. The 180 negative momentum looks drop all the way down to 32.7%. That is a MASSIVE drop compared to his pre-injury self.
The old Klay took 151 positive momentum shots, hitting a crispy 44.3% of those looks. He also managed to hit 43.9% of his 155 negative momentum shots. Notice the split is almost 50/50 between the positive and negative and the near-identical efficiency. The post-injury proportion has risen to 63% being negative momentum shots.
These numbers more than anything point to my two biggest conclusions: he’s really favoring his shots going left out of comfort, and the efficacy of those shots has dropped severely. Meanwhile, his shots with positive momentum have stayed effective because he’s using the left leg as the plant foot instead of his right. His tendencies have changed to favor the left despite the drop in efficacy, but he’s more or less the same going to his right.
So, What Do We Do With This Info?
The set shot really doesn’t concern me. Both the data and the eye test point to a guy struggling to find his legs early in any given season regardless of injury status, and he will only get stronger and better as the season goes on. It would be nice if this roster could get him a larger proportion of set shots relative to motion shots, but that 50% mark is palatable going forward.
Change may be needed regarding his motion shots. Someone needs to get in his ear and tell Klay to lean more into those righty shots and take advantage of a stronger left plant leg. It would also behoove the coaching staff to call more actions that get him flowing towards the ball going right, like Chicago and motion strong actions instead of the flare screens and double drags that usually skew towards his left.
What is clear to me is that patience needs to be exercised, mostly by the fans. If you can temper your expectations and weather the early-season slump, the rewards will be fantastic. Don’t be doom-and-gloom in the early regular season while he tries to figure things out. He has a full year ahead of him to tinker, unlike last season.
My main conclusion? Don’t doubt Klay Thompson. Most players couldn’t even handle starting minutes after this injury, let alone have the confidence to still take their preferred shots, which in his case are very taxing on the lower body. He will figure out a way to be a great shooter by the end of the year; that much I am certain of.
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