Can Shooting Be Reliably Taught, the Conclusion

So for three weeks we have looked at 6 draft classes between 2008-2013 and looked at the frequency at which players that needed to learn to shoot, could. Let's start with the raw numbers. Over the 6 years, and 84 lottery players, about 36 of them had a shooting weakness that needed to be solved to take their game to the next level. Only 11 of them managed to do so. Of those 11, 4 really took their game to lofty heights, becoming perennial all-stars and have made all-NBA teams, and James Harden became an MVP. Only 1 other person, Brook Lopez, made any all-star games at all, the other 6 never did. All of them are still in the league however. The positional breakdown (many of these players are listed with two positions, I used whichever was listed first on NBA Reference) is as follows: 1 PG, 3 SG, 1 SF, 2 PF, 4 C. Overall the draftees, by position, comes out to 1/17, 3/21, 1/12, 2/18, 4/16.

The other 25 players that did not improve their shooting had some issues. Positional breakdowns of the 25 are 5 PG, 3 SG, 4 SF, 7 PF, 6 C. 3 of the 25 still became multiple time all-stars and made all-NBA teams, and one, Derrick Rose, became an MVP. 13 of those players are out of the league (over half), but 8 of those are from 2008-2009, meaning it could just be a decent career winding down. 5 of them had less than an average career length of 4.5. Lets compare that to players that already had a shot as a strength. 10/48 players coming out of college where shooting was not a concern for them (doesn't mean it wasn't one in the NBA, just that it wasn't a fear on draft day) are out of the league now. However they did all have greater than average NBA careers (the one exception being Anthony Bennett, but he was just recently signed, and if he holds on it would be 5 years for him).

Let's look at some highs and lows per year. 2009 was a strange year, where 11 of 14 lottery picks needed to work on their shooting. The next year, 7 needed to, no other year was above five. The lowest was 4, in 2008 and 2011. No year had 0 players improve their shooting, but three of them, 2008, 2012 and 2013 only had one player do so.

Now let's look at trends. 3/8 top 3 picks that had shooting problems fixed them. It becomes 6/15 if expanding that to the first five picks. Both of those percentages are well over the 30% of the overall sample, which bodes well for Zion, Ja and RJ, the top 3 picks of 2019 who have shooting as one of very few weaknesses for them. Point Guard was the least successful at improving shooting, coming in at 1/6. Shooting Guards were the most successful, at 3/6. Small Forwards were at 1/5, Power Forwards were 2/9 and centers were 4/10, surprisingly the second highest percentage of success.

Finally, some personal conclusions to the whole project. First, I would not say shooting can be reliably taught. However, that doesn't mean it still isn't the most teachable offensive (or otherwise) skill in the game. That would require much more study. However, drafting players that cannot shoot does lead to the biggest busts, especially if offense is their trademark but they cannot reliably shoot. At the same time, those players also lead to some of the biggest stars if they do learn, meaning these players are very boom or bust. Secondly, I would generally avoid point guards that cannot shoot, as they are the least likely to improve. On the other hand, Rose and Wall are two players that never developed a shot but are great players anyways, so take that with a grain of salt.