Did Tyrus's jumper improve last year?

[dougthonus]

Did Tyrus improve his jumper last year?

A long discussion about Tyrus's jump shot and whether it's gotten better from the 07/08 season to the 08/09 season using stats from NBA hotspots, synergy, and 82games.com.

 

[B1LLIONAIREKR3W]

well in the 1st start of the season tyrus jumper was not that good he played bad to. but after they bench larry i think tyrus had lots of playing time to improve his jumper and then from the trade that brought brad miller i think tyrus had a good jumper then last year and more blocks. other then that tyrus better improve better in the 2009 season or esle its a bust!

 

[Shakes]

The stats don't really surprise me, it seems that people still had year one Tyrus' jumper stuck in their head when they kept raving on how much improvement he made.

That he only hits 35% unguarded is really quite a damning statistic. Basically it's a free pass for teams to leave him open. It really limits his usefulness to practically every team in the league, other than the few who have someone who can play C and hit jumpers. I guess the Bulls kinda qualify if they play him with Miller, but that's still not going to be that many minutes a game if Noah is playing 30+ like you'd expect him to next year.

If Tyrus could at least hit open shots reliably and make teams guard him then maybe he could work next to Noah given Rose looks like he'll carry a bigger offensive load than the average point guard. But if he can't do that, we're only going to be keeping one, and it's not going to be Tyrus.

 

[dougthonus]

One thing I found interesting, but I didn't post the stat, because I didn't look at it at the time is that his dribble jumper improved by about 10% while his unguarded jumper fell by about 10%.

If he could get the unguarded jumper up to 45% again and keep the dribble jumper at 35% it would help him a lot.

 

[Shakes]

Well he only shots 61 attempts the previous year, so it's not exactly a huge sample. I doubt his true ability was 45% in 07/08, he probably just beat the averages a bit.

As you mentioned it is weird he's managed to get his FT percent up to 78% and still be such a bad shooter of open jump shots though. Maybe it's just him rushing in game situations, good shooters seem to know when they have space and aren't bothered by late closeouts etc. Not sure how easily the ability to not crap yourself when you see something out the corner of your eye can be learnt though!

 

[cool007]

The problem I have with Tyrus is that every time he is hesitant and goes for head fakes and then shoots a jumper, it almost never goes in. I heard coaching staff numerous times when asked about if they want Tyrus to shoot jumpers and I liked Vinny's answer "Yes, as long as he doesn't hesitate and takes the jumpshots in rhythm and within the flow of the offense" he has no problem Tyrus taking jumpers.

Where Tyrus gets in trouble is when he gets wild and forces jumpers while not in rhythm and fakes a lot.

 

[AirP]

Tyrus' jumper did improve overall and I'll tell you why.

The 2-17 shooting in the Boston game put him into a huge funk for nearly 3 weeks(almost every game in that stretch was just horrible shooting by Tyrus). Minus those 3 weeks the rest of the season he shot 37% from jumpers. So 3 HORRIBLE weeks dropped his FG% for the season by 2%... that tells you how bad his funk was.


*** How I got the numbers, going of % of jumpers taken(82games.com), I figured out the # of jumpers he took from his total attempts, then I went game by game in that 3 week stretch counting which shots were jumpers and which weren't.

Tyrus OVERALL FGA - FGM in that 3 week stretch...
2-17
0-5
3-7
0-1
6-12
3-10
1-8
2-5
0-3
3-6
2-9

He shot 27% over that 3 week span, can't remember how bad his jumper was total for that time period, I believe it was 19% or 20%.

So if we were to erase those 3 weeks to see what he did for the rest of the season...
Jumper - 37%
Overall FG% - 48%

So although most go by the season as a whole, most of the season he shot the jumper at a 37% rate and his fg% for most of the season was near 48%. I guess you look at Tyrus as a guy who just happen to have a nearly once in a lifetime horrible shooting night that put him in a huge funk or you expect him to have bad stretches like that every year.

Now 37% still isn't good, but it is an improvement but as Tyrus' confidence grew with his jumper he also put up some very bad jump shots which helped lower his %(some turn arounds, some shots after a pump fake and a man still in his face). I do believe as Tyrus defines his game and what he can and can't do his numbers will dramatically go up compared to where they are now. He's got to throttle down his percentage of jumpers to inside shots though... meaning take a less contested jumpers.

By the way... the way he shot most of the season with his jumpers... 37%(actually a tad under 37% but rounds up) puts him ahead of B.Davis, Iggy, D.Lee, S.Hawes, Westbrook, Big Baby, Rondo, A.Throton, T.Prince, Milsap, T.Young, Deng and K.Love. It also puts him within 5% points of K.Martin, A.Danials and L.James.

 

[AirP]

cool007 wrote:

The problem I have with Tyrus is that every time he is hesitant and goes for head fakes and then shoots a jumper, it almost never goes in. I heard coaching staff numerous times when asked about if they want Tyrus to shoot jumpers and I liked Vinny's answer "Yes, as long as he doesn't hesitate and takes the jumpshots in rhythm and within the flow of the offense" he has no problem Tyrus taking jumpers.

Where Tyrus gets in trouble is when he gets wild and forces jumpers while not in rhythm and fakes a lot.

Finally someone else sees that. Anytime he gets a pass and doesn't automatically shoot it you know it's trouble, he's just not that advanced yet. He's trying to skip walking and trying to go from crawling straight to running. He worked on his shot and we he's reaped the rewards standing still and shooting... his FTs went up dramatically and his outside shot did go up too, but man, weather he's guarded or not, if he didn't instally catch and shoot... he more then likely he was going to miss, whether a person was guarding him or not.

Tyrus is becoming a better jump shooter, he's now got to discipline himself into taking only good shots and know what shots are bad... or really work on the head fake then take the jumper.

I still maintain, in the next year or 2 he's going to take a huge jump in efficiency on the court, either by getting better at faking and then hitting the shot or by erasing those bad shots from his game.

If Tyrus doesn't refine his game or get better at those hesitation shots... and he still takes them, he's not going to be a starter in this league for long. He's getting development time now but that's going to come to an end as he starts inching towards his mid 20s. Soon it's shut up or put up for him... but he still has some time.

 

[cool007]

Actually, his shut up or put up (good numbers) year is THIS YEAR. He will be looking for that first big contract so he better produce and be improved or he is not getting a big pay day from anyone.

 

[AirP]

cool007 wrote:

Actually, his shut up or put up (good numbers) year is THIS YEAR. He will be looking for that first big contract so he better produce and be improved or he is not getting a big pay day from anyone.

Yeah, this upcoming season is his biggest by far. No... Chicago has no reason to sign Tyrus this summer. If the Bulls don't deal him they should sit back and see how he develops next year, I'm sure they don't have any problem paying bigger bucks if Tyrus proves to be a much improved PF in the NBA, but if he's not maybe it's time to acquire another player and let Tyrus move on.

I'll be very disappointed if Tyrus isn't a much better/consistant player by atleast halfway through next season. If he still has just as bad shot selection, still forces things then it's time to go in another direction, you can't have someone that questionable on the court and expect to win consistently.