Josh Giddey Could Improve Shooting Even More in 2022-23

Thunder guard Josh Giddey improved his shot in his sophomore year, but year three could yield much better results.

Like so many other prospects entering the NBA, the biggest question mark surrounding Josh Giddey’s game has always been his ability to hit jumpers, especially from beyond the arc, which is an incredibly crucial skill for guards and forwards in the modern NBA.

And though he’s shown improvement over his first couple of seasons with the Thunder, Giddey still has room to grow.

In his first year in the league, at just 19 years old, Giddey knocked down only 26 percent of his 213 3-point attempts over his 54 games — a potentially concerning number for the sixth overall pick. And prior to his rookie season, he had converted just 29 percent of his 99 attempts over 28 games for the Adelaide 36ers in the NBL.

Though Giddey’s high-level passing, vision and fiery competitive nature was exciting to watch in his rookie season, there was always an inkling of worry about the jumper.

But in his sophomore year, Giddey responded by converting 32.5% of his 234 3-point attempts, finishing with a 6.2% increase in efficiency from beyond the arc. What’s more impressive is how Giddey finished last season, though. Over his final 20 games for the Thunder, he saw 36.1% of his 3.6 attempts per game go in.

Beyond the numbers, it was clear that Giddey’s confidence as a shooter, as well as his shooting stroke, was certainly trending in the right direction in 2022-23. And entering his third year in the NBA, there’s an extremely strong chance that the guard makes another developmental leap as a 3-point shooter.

The vast majority of Giddey’s 3-pointers have been of the catch-and-shoot variety over the course of his first two seasons, with a miniscule percentage of his attempts coming from pull-ups. That should bode well next season considering the Thunder have even more playmaking at their disposal in the form of Cason Wallace, Vasilije Micic and Chet Holmgren.

The mere presence of Holmgren as a rim-runner, post-up player and passer should absorb enough defensive attention to free up Oklahoma City’s perimeter players a bit more relative to last season. Which should certainly benefit Giddey as a spot-up shooter.

Furthermore, another summer working with renowned shooting coach Chip Engelland, will go a long way towards Giddey seeing even more of his 3-pointers go in.

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