Can the Raptors sustain their 3-point shooting?

Imman and Katie look at early season trends and predict what will last until the end of the season, including Toronto shooting the ball well from the 3-point line. Full episode is available on the 'Raptors Over Everything' podcast feed.

Video Transcript

IMMAN ADAN: Another bright spot for the Raptors, which will also come to be very important in the playoffs, is a 3-point shooting. 3-point shooting has been something that we're all sort of talking about when it comes to this team because naturally there aren't very many guys that you look at as elite 3-point shooters. And yet, and yet the Raptors are top five in the league in terms of 3-point percentage, and it's not like they're not taking 3's. They're around league average, they're tied with 18th in terms of 3 point attempts at 32.3. So not that far off from like, you know, the 15th ranked team, which is like 34. So roughly around that part. Top 5 in percentage, do you think that is a statistic that will keep up?

KATIE HEINDL: I do actually. I was talking about this with John Woodley a little bit earlier, but the point was brought up that, you know, we haven't even seen Otto Porter Jr come in really and take any 3-point shots, I haven't seen one Juancho Hernangomez take any shots. Like this is just from your main producers. And like Otto Porter Jr is a shooter, right? Like, yeah. He's like a veteran, but like that's what he did--

IMMAN ADAN: What his here for.

KATIE HEINDL: --yeah, on all of his teams previously. Like that is what he's here for. And if they don't even feel the need to like have him come in yet and do those things, then to me I think this is a pretty lasting stat. It's like it can feel-- I think as a Raptors fan and like a person who's watched and covered the team for a while, it can feel like a nervous stat to kind of hang your hat on. Like it doesn't feel like it should last. But, I mean, they've been trying to build up shooters in this team for years now. I believe-- I believe in Gary Trent Jr. I thought like, I don't know. Like, yeah, Pascal has looked a bit like--

IMMAN ADAN: His numbers are not great.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

--imagine that they would come up. But I think that bodes well for like what this Raptors team can look like.

KATIE HEINDL: Yeah, I think so. And I mean, it's where you also want to go. So it's not so bad to think aspirationally, right? Because like this is actually the missing-- one of the missing pieces that this team needed for such a long time. So like why not now? You know, everybody was working on it in the off season. It was like the one thing that you need to as a modern day NBA player be able to add to your game, at least, with some proficiency.

IMMAN ADAN: Yeah.

KATIE HEINDL: You know, some Level of regularity. And I think like they went-- everybody went away in the summer and did that.

IMMAN ADAN: I agree. Here's the thing, right? Currently they're shooting 40.3%, do I think that they'll continue to shoot 40%? No. But it's early in the season and no team in the top 5 is going to shoot, you know, the 40% to 50% that everyone's at currently. But I do agree with you. And another step that I thought was really interesting is 94%. The Raptors lead the league currently in catch and shoot 3's, and that's why I think the numbers kind of-- I think they can sort of sustain. I don't know that like even top 5 maybe, like in the top 10, right? Like being a good 3-point shooting team as opposed to being a terrible one is because they're taking a lot of catch and shoot opportunities. So aren't a lot of guys that are going to be taking it off the dribble.

I think the Raptors trust Fred to do that. I think they trust Gary to do that in situations. And like, you know, Pascal is probably going to have a lot of opportunities to do that just because he has the ball in his hands so much. But they currently lead the league in catch and shoot 3's at 94%. So like when you think about nearly every single 3 that they're taking, there's a catch and shoot opportunity and OG, Fred, Gary, these are really great 3 point shooters. I think it makes sense that the Raptors are actually shooting it at a high percentage. And I would imagine that would carry over if this sort of diet of offense moves forward as well.

KATIE HEINDL: Yeah. And I think it speaks to like a lot of really good ball movement, which we have seen more. And that's always so generative of the offense for the Raptors. Like when that gets stagnant all these numbers fall off. So I like the way that those two things kind of speak to each other. I'm with you. It's like, yeah, we could-- top 10 feels great. Like if we can stay top 10, wonderful.

IMMAN ADAN: Yeah. The 40% is not going to say neither you're going to finish the top team in the league.