In the middle of the fourth quarter of the Raptors’ 110-97 win over the Celtics on Wednesday, those who’ve watched Toronto bumble their way through innumerable close finishes were surely bracing for fun-spoiling Boston surge. The champs’ commitment to launching threes for sport means they’re never out it, and puts high import upon their opponents knocking in threes to keep them at arms length.
With seven minutes and change to go,and the Raptors leading by 11, an unlikely marksmen trotted up the court, pitched it to RJ Barrett atop the key, relocated to the right wing, and cashed the ensuing catch-and-shoot triple that came his way. It would hold up as the game-winning bucket in the Raptors’ best win of the season to date, and served as Jamal Shead’s 10th made three in his last 14 tries.
“If he learns how to shoot,” is a rallying cry among prospect optimists. You hear it every year about incoming players with bunch of pro-level skills offset by a wonky jump shot. In reality, shaking wayward jimmy is damn hard. For most poor shooters, they find themselves on the fringes of the league before the triples ever start to fall — especially so if that poor shooter is a guard trying to hack it in the modern NBA.
Shead absolutely fell into this category of prospect. Everything but the jumper was there in college. He won a national Defensive Player of the Year as a 6-foot point guard, a ridiculous feat when you really think about it. His passing vision and explosive first step give his offense a nice baseline. Pair all that with a no-doubt pedigree of just being a flat out winner (Houston went 120-18 over Shead’s four year run there), and he really did look the part of a guy who was a reliable three ball away from a decade-long NBA career.
After a rough beginning to his rookie season from beyond the arc, things are taking shape for Shead. And while a 10-of-14 run is little more than a tiny sample hot streak, there’s reason to believe this run of ripping nets could have some staying power. He’s up to 37% this season on 81 attempts — 40.4% on his catch-and-shoot looks, per NBA.com.
You could do dumber things with your money than betting on young guys who work hard refining the trouble spots in their games. Shead seems committed to bucking the history that says bad shooters tend to stay bad.
“He’s putting a lot of work in. He’s one of the guys that gets most shots in our gym,” said Raptors coach Darko Rajaković after Shead banged three of his four triples against the Warriors on Monday. “He’s really diligent about the work, and we believe in his shot. We trust his shot. So it’s good to see that he’s making those in games as well.”
Of course hard work and belief in one’s self don’t guarantee long-haul success from beyond the arc. But couple those things with tangible changes in mechanics, and you just might be cooking with gas.
If you watch closely, you can track how Shead’s jumper form has evolved over the course of his first year in the Raptors’ player development lab. It’s all in the follow-through.
On his early season threes, you could see Shead’s right hand trail off upon his release — a tick that affected the arc and trajectory of his three-ball.
“Yeah, we identified that. Actually identified that in his draft workout that he has a tendency on his shot to follow to the right side. And, you know, that’s why a lot of times the ball is going left, right,” said Rajaković when I asked him if the Raptors had been working to fix that hitch in Shead’s mechanics. “So we’re definitely trying to address that he has a consistency of shooting straight up and that his misses are not left and right.
“And there is also a connection with the arc. You know, when you transfer from college basketball to the NBA, it’s a deeper line and you need more arc on your shot as well. So all of those things are something that we are addressing.”
You can see the difference in his form over the course of recent hot spell. The follow-through is more compact and straight-on, and he looks way more on-balance letting it rip off the catch.
We’re, of course, a long ways off from declaring Shead a legitimately good shooter. He’s about a tenth of the way to the number of attempts from deep that you’d call a representative, normalized sample. And while his catch-and-shoot numbers are impressive (and probably enough to make him rotationally viable if they hold on their own), he’s still canning just 22.7 percent on a very low volume of pull-up threes — the shots that really launch point guard careers to the moon.
Though while he’s very early in his shooting development arc, it’s no longer a fool’s hope to think Shead can improve his shooting enough hold up as a helpful contributor when the Raptors truly want to get serious about winning. Similar to a baseball player making a tangible change to their swing and seeing increased production follow, that the Raptors and Shead have made a mechanical tweak to pair with his relentless work ethic is reason enough to believe his recent heater could be early days of a new normal.
If the shooting uptick sticks, Shead will be helping the Raptors stave off fourth quarter comebacks for a long time to come.
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Today on the podcast, I’m joined by Katie Heindl to talk for a round of Toxic Positivity Friday to talk about the bright spots of the first half of the Raptors’ season. Enjoy the show, and have a great weekend!
