Atlanta Hawks: Team-Wide Three-Point Shooting Slump Tanks Offense

A swift examination of the Atlanta Hawks three-point shooting woes, which have made the team the worst offense in the league by a substantial margin.

The Atlanta Hawks are currently 5-19, which is fine, since the team isn’t really playing to win this year – instead focusing on developing the young guys and praying that the NBA Draft Lottery falls in their favor so they can land one of Duke’s Big 3 of Zion Williamson, Cam Reddish or R.J. Barrett or perhaps Bol Bol or Nassir Little. Either way, the Hawks as an organization are looking ahead and not really concerned about what is happening on the court this year.

With that being said, there are some troubling trends about the team’s shooting numbers, especially from long-range. Though we have already lauded Coach Lloyd Pierce’s lineup tinkering and modern offensive system, the team has been unable to put it into practice by making shots.

Though the Hawks are second in the league in corner three-point attempt rate at 10.8 percent and fourth in the league in total three-point attempt rate at 36.5 percent according to Cleaning the Glass, the team is 24th in corner three-pointer accuracy (35.2 percent) and dead last in non-corner three percentage (29.7 percent) and all three-pointer attempted (31.3 percent).

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While rookie Trae Young’s 23.9 percent clip from deep is, of course, the headliner for slumping Atlanta Hawks three-point shooters, especially considering the storylines coming out of college, many other notable shooters are having down years.

Second-year big man John Collins, who flashed rock-solid shooting chops in his rookie year and Summer League, is down to 11.8 percent from deep on limited attempts (2 of 17) this year. Kent Bazemore, who flirted with 40 percent from distance last year, has drifted beneath 30 percent this year at 29.3.

Across the board and across all positions, the Atlanta Hawks are just having a hard time hitting the deep ball. Taurean Prince, Dewayne Dedmon, Tyler Dorsey and Omari Spellman are also shooting well below where one might’ve expected them to be in terms of three-point shooting coming into the season.

In the end, it is within reason that the Atlanta Hawks three-point shooting numbers will progress to the mean, especially considering the amount of triples they’re able to get up per game (35 according to NBA.com).