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In a late January game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, Landry Shamet submitted his finest performance in a Phoenix Suns uniform.
Tying a season high with 17 points, Shamet went 5-for-10 from the floor, 4-for-8 from 3-point range and chipped in 5 assists and 4 rebounds for good measure. It wasn’t empty production in another Suns blowout either; in his 21 minutes off the bench, he genuinely made an impact in the fourth quarter, helping keep the Wolves at bay and turning a single-digit game into a 10-point victory.
The praise immediately came pouring in from his coach and his teammates.
“It’s just good to see guys who work like him — all of our guys work, but he’s been feeling it lately,” coach Monty Williams said. “To see him shoot the ball with confidence and see his teammates push him to shoot the ball, that’s pretty cool to watch. But he’s a pro. He’s in the gym getting shots in the environments and spots where he’s going to get them in the game, and so you know that guys like that, sooner or later, they’re gonna have impactful nights like he had tonight.”
“I kind of sometimes don’t even realize if he’s struggling or not, ’cause I know how cash he really is,” Mikal Bridges opined. “So I’m happy for him and for our fans and stuff, but to me, if he would miss a couple, I’m just like, ‘Aight, he just missed.’ Like, I know how crazy Sham can shoot, so it doesn’t even really bother me as much.”
With the NBA Trade Deadline closing in, it felt like a potential turning point for the 24-year-old guard. His back was against the wall, and he delivered.
Two nights later against the San Antonio Spurs, Shamet rolled his ankle on teammate Cam Johnson’s foot, and Phoenix hasn’t seen him on the floor since.
“Any time you just step on your teammate, kind of freak accident thing like that, more than anything, that’s what’s frustrating,” Shamet said. “It’s like, what are you gonna do to avoid that? Can’t really do anything.”
That frustrating sequence — following up a fleeting, excellent performance with an ankle sprain — feels like the epitome of Landry Shamet’s first year in the Valley. Through 45 appearances, the former Wichita State product is averaging 7.4 points in 19.8 minutes per game, shooting 37 percent from the field and 35.3 percent from 3-point range on 4.5 attempts per game.
Every single one of those numbers you just read represents a career low for the fourth-year sharpshooter, whose shooting in Phoenix has been anything but sharp. The Law of Averages dictates he’s due for progression to the mean, but his Murphy’s Law of a season has state otherwise over and over again.
Until recently, that might not have mattered: The Suns are on a 67-win pace despite Shamet’s struggles and recent absence, and come playoff time, it’s unlikely he’ll see much action unless injury woes rear their ugly head again.
But that’s always a distinct possibility, and Chris Paul’s expected absence for the next 6-8 weeks due to an avulsion fracture in his right thumb may serve as a last-gasp trial period for Shamet to prove he can step up in times of need for this title contender. With Paul sidelined, Cam Payne no longer a sure bet to return in Phoenix’s first game after the All-Star break and Elfrid Payton still unplayable, Shamet has an opportunity to carve out minutes for himself and validate James Jones’ faith.
Shamet’s struggles
So far, Landry Shamet’s season would’ve been nothing short of disappointing even without the four-year, $43 million extension Phoenix gifted him before he ever played a game for the team. Shamet’s deal had nothing to do with Deandre Ayton’s lack of an extension, but the timing of its announcement — right before that deadline, with no deal on the table for DA — hasn’t helped the perception of his fit with the Suns.
Regardless of that lingering fan resentment, Shamet has still proven to be the rare case of high-caliber shooter joining a high-powered offense and somehow getting worse at hitting shots. The Suns are the NBA’s third-ranked offense and boast the league’s eighth-best 3-point percentage, but Shamet — a career 39 percent shooter from long range — has only made 35.3 percent of his looks from beyond the arc.
Assuming he plays in the Suns’ final 24 games and keeps taking 3s at his current rate, he’d need to knock down 45 of his remaining 96 3-pointers this season (46.9 percent) just to get back to his career average. And that’s just the first in a series of daunting statistics for Shamet.
According to Cleaning The Glass, Shamet is posting a career low in points per shot attempt, despite his 15.6 percent usage mark being just a hair shy of last year’s career-high 15.7 percent:
- 2018-19 (Philadelphia 76ers): 126.5 points per shot attempt (97th percentile)
- 2018-19 (LA Clippers): 120.3 points per shot attempt (92nd percentile)
- 2019-20: 115.1 points per shot attempt (65th percentile)
- 2020-21: 114.4 points per shot attempt (60th percentile)
- 2021-22: 107.4 points per shot attempt (33rd percentile)
Shamet has made just 37.1 percent of his corner 3s and 34.6 percent of his above-the-break triples. He’s converted only 35.8 percent of his catch-and-shoot 3s and 33 percent of his “wide-open 3s” (nearest defender is six-plus feet away), both of which are career-worst figures.
However, the blame game isn’t as simple as a good shooter simply missing shots. Going into the season, the Suns touted Shamet’s playmaking and ball-handling as a boon for their 0.5 offense, envisioning him as a secondary creator based on his time playing point guard throughout college. It may have been a case of too much, too fast for the new arrival, and for a shooter, where 90 percent of the game is mental, that diminished confidence within his expanded role started to seep into other areas.
“The Landry stuff is just, ‘Let it go. Stop thinking about it, shoot the ball. If you miss, so what?'” Williams said. “We have so many guys on our team that get upset when he doesn’t take shots, from coaches to players. He has the ability to make shots, he also has the ability to put the ball down and get to spots on the floor and find other guys. But for us, it’s like, ‘Landry, shoot the ball. Let it fly. Don’t worry about the consequences. We believe in you.'”
As his own toughest critic, Shamet appreciates the continued support he’s gotten from his teammates.
“It’s important, and it definitely doesn’t go unnoticed,” he said after the Timberwolves game. “It’s easy to overthink things sometimes, but when you have the same people saying the same things every day, you kind of hang onto that more than anything. So that’s what I’ve been trying to do.”
Whether it’s Shamet running himself off the 3-point line or the Suns failing to get their sniper enough spot-up looks (as was the case with Langston Galloway last year), the match hasn’t been ideal by any means. Shamet is posting career lows in catch-and-shoot 3-point frequency, as well as wide-open 3-point attempts per game.
According to The Bball Index, which assigns letter grades to its metrics in every category for each player, only 16 percent of Shamet’s 3-point attempts this season have been open, earning an F grade. Shamet hasn’t been effective as a pull-up 3-point shooter since his rookie year, so if Phoenix isn’t getting him enough catch-and-shoot looks, his long-range efficiency will continue to suffer.
After the Wolves game, Williams spoke about wanting to be able to play Shamet 20 minutes a night to help ease his starters’ minutes leading up to another playoff run. Now, with Paul out for the foreseeable future and Payne not back yet, that potential luxury may become a borderline necessity.
Aaron Holiday’s arrival threatens both Shamet and Elfrid Payton’s playing time but minimizing those Payton minutes is key, and in order to do so, Shamet has to be better than he was before that ankle injury. For his part, being forced to take a step back and watch the game from the sidelines have proven to be instructive.
“A change of perspective sometimes is helpful,” he explained. “I’ve been able to kind of sit back and watch, and little things that maybe you don’t pick up on in the game, you can kind of tunnel vision on the game, on yourself, on how you’re playing, what you need to be doing, you can kind of zoom out a little bit now and see every thing.”
More than likely, Shamet will be available for Phoenix’s first game back on Thursday. He survived the NBA Trade Deadline, which he said he’s become numb to after being traded three times in his first four seasons.
After practices and shootarounds leading up to the break, Shamet could be seen flying off screens and getting plenty of shots up. The ankle looked ready for game action, and when he pegged his return as “post-All-Star,” he even went as far as saying he could’ve played already if it had been a postseason game.
But as much as he said he’s “not cupcaking it,” the Suns’ record has provided Shamet the luxury of being able to bide his time for a full-strength return…which may come at the opportune moment now for Phoenix.
“I’ve come back from ankle injuries a little too early in the past, and with the aspirations this team has and what I have for myself and for us, I want to make sure I’m in the best place possible to be able to sustain for a long time,” he said.
It’s been an ugly start to Landry Shamet’s Phoenix tenure, and performances like the Timberwolves game have been few and far between. But with 6-8 weeks without the Point God coming up, and competition coming from Holiday and Payne’s imminent return, now would be the perfect time for the Law of Averages to kick in for one of the league’s renowned spot-up shooters.
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