AJC: Should Smoove really keep shooting jumpers?

[Hawksquawk]

He's so good at this should he really shoot jumpers?

Maybe it’s getting to the point where all those fans who groan when Josh Smith winds up to take a jump shot (or even just gets the ball on the perimeter) should bite their tongues. Perhaps all those media types who call a Smoove shot attempt a bad one solely because it’s a jumper (*cough cough*) should become a bit more nuanced in their analysis.

A look at the Hoopdata shot location numbers shows that Smoove is making 43 percent of his shot attempts (20 of 47) from 16 to 23 feet and has a 70 percent effective shooting percentage (7 of 15) on 3-pointers. That’s compared to league averages of 40 percent and 54 percent on those shots, respectively. Over his career, Josh has never shot better than 34 percent from 16 to 23 feet or recorded an effective field goal percentage greater than 45 percent on 3-pointers.

All of the usual caveats apply here. It’s early in the season and the sample size is small. There is a mountain of …

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