One week into the month of December, most teams around the league have played about 18 games. It’s important to take an occasional look at the number side of things to gauge how players are performing. The fast-pace of the NBA makes it easy to overlook continuously bad play, especially when a team is winning. Here’s a look at some of the biggest jerks in their given categories.
FG%: This year’s current worst shooter is Dion Waiters, despite all the hype among the fantasy basketball twittersphere. Through 17 games, Waiters is hitting only 36% of his field-goals, and he’s missed 60 of his last 93 three-point attempts.
3PT%: Monta Ellis is hitting 21% of his threes so far this year. That wouldn’t be so bad if he wasn’t taking threes very often, but he is. He’s missed 47 of his last 60 three-point attempts. What’s more, Ellis is hitting only 39% of his shots overall.
Honorable mentions in these two categories go to Byron Mullens (37% FG, 28% 3PT), Michael Beaseley (38% FG, 27% 3PT) and Ramon Sessions (38% FG, 19% 3PT)
FT%: Dwight Howard has turned free-throw shooting into a new disorder for psychologists to ponder about. He is making it seem incredibly difficult. So far this year, Howard has missed a majority of his free-throws, hitting them at a clip of 47%. Fortunately for Howard, this is the least of the Lakers’ problems.
On one hand, these struggling shooters may be offering solutions to their being on the court by contributing defensively, but in the meantime, it’s tough to justify the amount of minutes they are getting.
The NBA is not a one-size-fits-all league; that’s evidenced by the number of teams currently forced to “play their best players” and come up short, game after game. After nearly twenty games played, there are 6 teams in the NBA that have 6 wins or less.
Disparity is an NBA trend. Commissioner David Stern likely won’t do anything about it, either.
Stats courtesy of ESPN.com
