Hat tip to Reddit nation for finding this awesome nugget. Among the players who finished top 10 in field-goal percentage last season, nobody took more of their shots from beyond 10 feet than Timberwolves big men Karl-Anthony Towns and Gorgui Dieng.
Here’s the top 10 in field-goal percentage.
- DeAndre Jordan: 70.3 %
- Dwight Howard: 62.0 %
- Hassan Whiteside: 60.6 %
- Enes Kanter: 57.6 %
- Marcin Gortat: 56.7 %
- Jonas Valanciunas: 56.5 %
- Kenneth Faried: 55.8 %
- Karl-Anthony Towns: 54.8 %
- Robin Lopez: 53.9 %
- Gorgui Dieng: 53.2 %
And among those players, here’s what percentage of their shots were from at least 10 feet.
- Towns: 45.0 %
- Dieng: 41.5 %
- Gortat: 23.5 %
- Kanter: 22.1 %
- Whiteside: 17.9%
- Lopez: 15.0 %
- Valanciunas: 14.6 %
- Faried: 10.4 %
- Howard: 2.1 %
- Jordan: 0.8 %
Basically, the farther out a player takes his shots, the harder it is to crack the top 10 in field-goal percentage. The fact that Towns and Dieng are there goes to show how good their mid-range games are. These basic numbers are an oversimplification of things, but the numbers don’t lie.
Stephen Curry shot 50.4 percent overall while attempting nearly 900 threes, or 11 per game, which is three more than anyone else averaged. That’s why he’s the MVP.
