There’s a huge difference.
Comparing Shooting and scoring is akin to comparing honesty with truth.
Being honest and being truthful are different.
Seth Curry: shooter or scorer?
He’s a shooter
DeMar DeRozan is a scorer
Buddy Hield is a scorer that can shoot.
Hield is RARE. He doesn’t need the ball in his hands to find a way to score.
Lou Will is another scorer than can shoot.
The Lakers from a fundamental perspective lacked scoring not necessarily shooting, that was a separate issue.
Do I care how the ball goes in the hole? Nope.
Scorers give you 20 a night
Shooters give you 20 when they’re in the middle of an outlier shooting period.
Lakers NEED both.
Scorers solve the issue. Shooters are just a band-aid if you don’t have a killer or two.
Great analysis, Sean. I would add that the other major difference between shooters and scorers is how they get their points. Shooters generally get their points from midrange and three while scorers generally get a high percentage of their points at the rim. In other words, shooters get most of their points from outside the paint, scorers from inside the paint.
Why is that important? Because teams need a combination of shooters and scorers, who have a symbiotic relationship. Shooters create spacing that allows shooters to be left open. Scorers create gravity at the rim that opens up passing lanes to shooters on the perimeter. Today’s game is drive-and-dish.
Right now, the Lakers have enough scorers (LeBron, AD, THT, Schroder) but not enough shooters. We need better balance than that, primarily from our starting guards. Scroder is a low percentage, low volume 3-point shooter and KCP is a high percentage, low volume 3-point shooter. We need both of our starting guards to be high percentage 3-point shooters and at lease one of them to be a high volume 3-point shooter.
We need a 3rd guy who can go on a 12-0 run individually.
Dennis seemed to be a half-in/half-out. I never really saw him pick up his game as a scorer when AD and LeBron were absent. A few glimpses that was it…
Heck Kuzma fancies himself a scorer and he couldnt do that.
Scorers find ways to get buckets. Russell and DeMar are the two best scorers in the past 15 years and neither one is considered a shooter.
Klay and Buddy Hield are scorers thst can shoot. Ditto with Durant. Trae Young.
Tom’s correct, a balance is necessary. It helps when you have a pure scorer in your starting 5 and a guy who can do it off the bench.
In today’s NBA, you need at least 3 scorers and 3 shooters min…
A scorer is someone who can get 20+ a night consistently. I never saw that from Dennis Schroder. Cant define him as a shooter or a scorer he did neither consistently as a Laker.
Good stuff, Sean. In a way, we’re having the same conversation as the third star conversation. We lack a scorer who we can put in the game to trigger a comeback when we’re behind or go off and turn a small lead into a blowout.
I think so, Tom. I like the idea of a Lowry or a Paul or a Westbrook or a Myles Turner and a guy like Lou Will Melo DeRozan off the bench. 2 of those dudes makes us better up and down
Man, I don’t remember seeing a post so convincing and well-informed. You did a masterpiece on this one, Sean and I completely agree with you and Tom on everything you both stated. Great job, man.
Thanks, Buba.