As the Toronto Raptors head into the 2017-18 season, one thing is clear before they have even take a shot: they are missing a lot of threes.
Last season, players who dressed for the Raptors and are no longer with them hit a total of 420 three-pointers – the likes of DeMarre Carroll (109); Terrence Ross (142) and Patrick Patterson (94) among them.
The Raptors have compensated by adding C.J. Miles (who hit 169 threes for Indiana last year) in free agency and will benefit from a full season of Serge Ibaka, whose 129 threes were split between Orlando and Toronto last year.
But the bottom line remains this is a team missing 129 threes throughout its line-up – and that’s just to get to the 725 threes they hit last season, which was 21st in the NBA and miles behind the league-leading Houston Rockets (1181) or even the Eastern Conference-leading Cleveland Cavaliers (1067).
Quite wisely the Raptors have acknowledged that the rate they shot threes a year ago wasn’t enough. The saw it first-hand in the playoffs when Cleveland swept them easily, in large part because of LeBron James, but also because the Cavs made 61 triples in four games (on 47 per cent shooting) to the Raptors’ 27 (on 30 per cent).
The lid has come off the NBA’s long-bubbling three-point revolution and the goal posts keep getting moved.
But if a reasonable target is 30 three-point attemps a game – just six more than the 24.3 they averaged a year ago, but enough to finish in the top six of the NBA last season – where are those extra five or six threes going to come from?
The answer is it’s going to have to come from a variety of sources. The Raptors don’t want to – and likely can’t even if they did – leave behind an offensive approach that relied heavily on DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry dominating the ball.
And DeRozan isn’t likely to become Kyle Korver.
But they need to find more three-point shooting.
The most obvious place to begin is with Lowry himself – far-and-away the most dangerous returning three-point threat and one of the best three-point shooters in the game.
The three-time all-star already set a franchise record with 7.8 three-point attempts a game last season but he wants more.
“I was planning to take 10 a game, maybe I should try for 12?” he mused. “It’ s going to be a challenge for me, because I’m an unselfish player but I want to do what’s best for the team.
“I think I’m going to do whatever needed to be done. One of my weapons is shooting threes and I have to take advantage of the weapon and make it better for everyone else.”
He has the full support from Casey to try and put up threes at a rate only ever matched by Steph Curry of the Warriors in NBA history, who averaged 10 attempts a game a year ago and 11.2 attempts the season before that.
How does Raptors head coach Dwane Casey feel about Lowry setting his sights so high?
“Go for it,” said Casey.
So that’s two extra triples, maybe more.
But where else?
Following Miles’ lead should help. Entering his 13th year in the league, his ability to find ways to get open for looks the defence doesn’t want him to have has made him a valuable commodity. When he recognized three-point shooting was going to be his path to a longer and more lucrative career, he studied the craft and has a full bag of tricks on offer.
“The biggest thing is carrying a threat,” he said. “Making sure guys know you’re out there and you’re not standing around, letting guys easily guard you. Making sure your presence is felt, sliding into open space; even if it’s just calling for the ball to get your defender to not be in help [position] knowing the ball is not coming to you, things like that. And then it’s footwork, patience, things like that, not rushing.
“Me being able to see the defensive rotation before, because I’m off the ball and on the backside of plays … you know ahead of time that if you run the first part of the play right the big guy is going to get a layup or you’re going to get a three in the corner.
“It’s about understanding rotations and watching the film ahead of time and knowing how they’re going to guard you.”
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To the extent Miles’ expertise can trickle down throughout the lineup, that should help youngsters like Powell, Delon Wright and even Bruno Caboclo become better three-point shooters without ever taking a shot.
Another two or three threes should come from places that were considered poor shots only a few years ago, but are now coveted in the ‘any open three is a good three’ era.
“Transition, kick-outs off offensive rebounds is another way, we’re going to look at that. Anytime we get an offensive rebound, kick it out, look for a three,” said Casey. “The discipline of getting to the corner in transition … we want to take that. Some nights it’s going to be ugly, but hopefully we take enough that we make enough to make up for it. That’s going to be our philosophy. Being disciplined in our shot spectrum.”
But perhaps the surest path the Raptors can take to being a better shooting team is being more fundamentally sound. Good shooting is sometimes shrouded in mystery, like it’s a special power. But the reality is open shots make good shots, and open shots require solid, accurate passes.
“It definitely makes it easier,” said Miles. “We work on the bad passes and things like that, but being able to put it anywhere close to that pocket, the time to get it up is faster, your feet getting down is faster, the rhythm is there and everyone knows for a shooter rhythm is a big thing”
Perhaps still with visions of the never-ending arms of the Milwaukee Bucks disrupting the timing of the Raptors ball movement in the first-round of the playoffs last year, when Raptors other than Norm Powell (who was 10-of-11 from deep in the series) shot just 30.6 per cent from three, Casey has made basic passing a point of emphasis to start training camp.
“The most important thing is the pass,” he said. “On time, on target. Zip passes … I know it sounds elementary, but we’re working on zip passes in practice, even in shoot-around, even in warm-up passes. Like everything in basketball, it’s a habit. I have a saying: the passer makes the shooter. You give a guy a bullcrap pass down by his ankles there’s no way he can shoot it, you give him a good pass in the pocket, now I’m talking to the shooter.”
The Raptors – all of them — need to be listening.
