Data-Driven Insights: Jalen Suggs & Developing Shooting Touch
- Yashwant Sathish
- Sep 28, 2024
- 2 min read
Over his three NBA seasons, Jalen Suggs has steadily evolved into a high-level 3-point shooter, both on and off the ball.
After hovering around just 20% on pull-up and catch-and-shoot three-pointers as a rookie, Jalen finished this past season converting approximately 40% of such shots.
These improvements are impressive on their own, but they also raised an interesting question: what could be driving this consistent growth?
Analysis
Suggs’ noticeable progress from deep prompted a deeper dive into the data. I wanted to explore whether there were underlying factors contributing to his shooting growth and to see if there was a broader improvement to his game that I might be missing.
With these ideas in mind, I conducted a correlation analysis to explore how different areas of his scoring game may be correlated (interconnected) with his 3-point shooting improvement, if at all.
Using tracking data scraped from Synergy, I examined various factors, including shot types, shot locations, timing relative to the shot clock, assisted vs unassisted attempts, and shooting performance based on defender proximity.
Results
The results of the analysis revealed an interesting find. Suggs' year-by-year improvements in catch-and-shoot and pull up 3PT shooting percentages produced a strong, positive correlation with his percentage improvements on floaters and overall non-rim paint shots.
This correlation underscores a broader development in his shooting touch—a skill that translates to multiple areas of scoring.
Jalen's touch allows him to excel, as discussed, on 3PT looks, both as a release valve...
... and when he's creating his own shot.
But it has also allowed him to efficiently expand his game when needed.
In last year's playoffs, the Cavaliers attempted to take away Suggs' strengths by running him off of the 3PT line and forcing him to score inside the arc.
Suggs' touch gave him a solution—when Cleveland sent hard closeouts, he drove into the "in-between" range (non-rim paint) and finished at a 1.13 PPP rate (72nd percentile):
Looking ahead
Refining his scoring touch early in his career has laid a strong foundation for Jalen Suggs' future success.
Right now, only ~6% of Suggs' shots are floaters (39th percentile). With more opportunities to create his own shot in the future, Suggs could lean on the floater to produce efficient outputs. Derrick White is someone Suggs could model his game after. White's great at getting to his floater (13% of FGA, 77th percentile) out of PNR, making him an efficient creator despite not having exceptional physical tools.
All data/statistics in this piece were sourced from Synergy Sports
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