Despite All the Exceptions, Toronto's Offense Still Has Room to 'Trim' Down Inefficient Shots

The Toronto Raptors have given Pascal Siakam, Gary Trent Jr. and Scottie Barnes rope to shoot inefficient shots, but Nick Nurse says there's trimming to be done

Aaron Rose | Jan 9, 2022

Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports

A decade ago, Nick Nurse was at the cutting edge of basketball innovation. He used to ridicule his players if they took mid-range jumpers. It didn’t matter if it went in or not, any shot that wasn’t at the rim or behind the arc was strictly prohibited.

“I’d call a time-out after a player took one of the forbidden shots and say to him, ‘You understand that I’m serious about this? We’re not shooting that shot anymore,’” Nurse wrote in his book Rapture.

He was trying to push the limits of modern basketball with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, the G League affiliate of the forward-thinking Houston Rockets then run by general manager and analytics guru Daryl Morey. His teams took something like 96% of their shots either at the rim or behind the arc, Nurse said, squeezing every last ounce of efficiency out of the philosophy.

If only 2013 Nick Nurse was around to see the Toronto Raptors today.

After two years as one of the NBA’s most efficient shooting teams, taking over 75% of their shots either at the rim or behind the arc, the Raptors have become one of the league’s least efficient shooting teams this season. Fewer than 65% of their shots have come at the rim or behind the arc, where shots are either the most likely to go in or the most valuable. Making matters worse, Toronto has taken the seventh-most long two-pointers in the league.

“It’s such a different kind of scenario,” Nurse said following Saturday’s practice. “We were really trying to build a system and test the system (with the Vipers), almost to the extreme. And I think that through these years here that I've learned that there's certainly exceptions to the rules.”

Toronto has had its fair share of exceptions over the years. DeMar DeRozan was and still is one of the league’s premier mid-range shooters. He’s been a dinosaur in an evolving league, taking and making tough shots while NBA teams move toward efficiency. Kawhi Leonard too was an exception in Nurse's first year as Raptors head coach. Leonard preferred those tough jumpers from the right elbow, a deadly shot for NBA superstars.

In today's league, those shots mid-range shots are reserved primarily for superstars. They’ll dribble around their defender, find a soft spot in the middle of the defense and rise up for a jumper. If a second defender comes, they’ll find a teammate, either for a highly efficient catch-and-shoot three or a dunk, Nurse’s ideal shot attempt, he said in November.

“When you have that much attention, getting to the rim every time is not easy,” said Pascal Siakam who is taking nearly 50% of his shots from the mid-range, an 11% jump from last season.

But right now, the Raptors have a ton of exceptions. Scottie Barnes loves the short mid-range area, VanVleet is taking more mid-range jumpers than ever before, and both Gary Trent Jr. and Siakam take more long twos than almost anyone else in the league. It’s why Toronto’s offensive Shot Quality, a metric that measures the value and probability of every shot based on the location of the shot, the skill of the shooter, and how the play is being defended, ranks 20th in the NBA, well below where the team has been in years past.

"I think you play through your personnel," Siakam said. "I mean it’s a number’s game, right? So everyone is not going to shoot mid-ranges but there are some players that have a little bit more rope and shoot a little bit."

It’s far from a dire situation. Even without maximum efficiency, Toronto still boasts the ninth-best offensive rating this season. But they’ve had to do it the hard way, with offensive rebounds, turnovers, and far more mid-range shots than Nurse has ever permitted before.

“To be honest, we have to trim some of that on the amount (of mid-range shots) we're taking too,” Nurse acknowledged.

The Raptors have to find the right balance. The personnel is good, but the efficiency could use some work. When those things do come together, Toronto's offense will take a big step forward and become even tougher to stop.

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