Terrence Ross shooting Analysis
I'd like to delve (a little) into his shooting percentages from different areas.
First of all, I think people overrate the percentage of shots a player should make. If you don't take into account shots at the rim, the average league percentage in every area is below 40%! Source Of course you'd like all players to only take shots at the rim, but I'm pretty sure we all agree that's not happening.
A very high percentage of his shots, almost 47%, are from threepointrange. Clearly this has a huge impact on his overall shooting percentage. And clearly this is by design; the team wants him to spread the floor and take threes. His 3pt% from above the break is around the league average of 36%. It's his corner three which drags his 3pt% so far, but he has shot less of them (13,6% against 33% above the break). Source The gap between being a league average 3pt shooter and Ross isn't very high. It's not like teams can gameplan around it and give him the three because it gives them a better shot at winning. With Ross' volume, it's 1 make or miss more about every 12 games ...
Inside upside!
One thing to love about Ross is his shooting percentage at the rim and the way he gets them (of course it's early days in his career, so there is a small sample size alert). Looking at the stats of nba.com, he finishes an amazing 72% of his shots around the rim. That's territory few players get to.
Looking further into these numbers at hoopdata is also interesting. I looked at shooting guards playing at least 30 games. Hoopdata has him at 80%, maybe because it is only updated through february 3th (the dropoff reïnforces the small sample size idea, but either percentage would be very high). On hoopdata he ranks second among shooting guards (this would not be very different looking at all players by the way). But in the top 10 he has the smallest percentage off shots assisted which means he's very good on break-outs and/or he creates them himself. Both are promising. Source
Right now he's only taking about 17% of his shots at the rim and getting that up would probably mean some regression in percentage. But even with some regression he just might be a high percentage finisher around the rim. Couple that with an even slightly improved outside shot and he will be a very dangerous offensive player!