Emmanuel Mudiay Can Help the Nuggets With Better Shot Selection
Emmanuel Mudiay is a 19-year-old rookie playing point guard, the position usually associated with words like “floor general” and “leader”. It’s a tough task for a player that young and inexperienced, even a player as highly-touted as Mudiay.
But there’s no doubt the Congolese youngster has to step things up, although he hasn’t been terrible.
I’m not going to go in-depth on Mudiay’s turnover problems, though those are a real issue (6.3 per game in his first three games). I’m actually going to focus on his shot selection.
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Coming into the league, Mudiay had only one major weakness: his jump shot. He was going to be able to finish at the rim just fine due to his quickness and explosive leaping ability, and he was going to get his teammates involved well with impeccable vision and on-target passes.
But surprisingly, the weakness been the thing he’s relied on during his first three games.
Of Mudiay’s 42 field-goal attempts, 26 have come from either the mid-range or the three-point shot. He’s actually been really solid from long-range, knocking down five of his 13 looks from there. From mid-range, though, he’s just 1-of-13.
Mudiay’s has been blocked six times already, so maybe that’s scaring him away from penetrating. Either way, he’s settled for far too many outside looks.
Let’s compare his shooting breakdown through three games to that of John Wall’s rookie season and Ty Lawson’s final season in Denver. Wall was an extremely comparable player to Mudiay coming out of Kentucky in 2010, and Lawson was the Nuggets’ diminutive point guard from last season. Mudiay has six inches on Ty and is more explosive, so he has no business settling for more jump shots than the former Nugget.
Below are the three main locations where each player shoots from (or shot). Note that this isn’t a field-goal percentage breakdown, but rather the percentage of a player’s overall attempts that come from certain areas.
As you can see, Mudiay’s attempts at the rim are significantly lower than Wall’s, and a decent amount lower than Lawson’s. His three-point attempts are much higher than both.
As long as the Congolese floor general keeps shooting 38.5 percent from downtown, I have no problem with him shooting as many threes as he is now. But I suspect that number probably won’t stay quite that high.
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All this to say, Mudiay needs to be aggressive getting to the rim instead of bailing out his defenders, many of whom are less athletic and can’t handle him physically if he tries to barrel to the rim. Both he and Nuggets head coach Michael Malone need to look for ways to get the young guard driving to the rim, whatever the play type is.
That way, he’s put in a better position to score or draw a foul at the rim, or make a pass to an open teammate for an easy layup or jump shot.
It’s good to see that Mudiay is making a concerted effort to work on his jump shot during games, but it’s just a little bit too much right now, especially from mid-range. If he makes more quick darts to the rim, he gets put in better positions to score and find open teammates.
And that can only make the Nuggets’ offense better.
Next: Erick Green Was the Right Call for the Nuggets
Note: All statistics used are from NBA.com/stats