Thunder Guard Josh Giddey’s Shooting Is Trending Upward

Prior to the start of the 2022-23 NBA season, Josh Giddey wasn’t exactly known for his shooting. Was he known for his ridiculous vision and passing ability? Yes. Was he adept at hitting mid-range floaters? Yup.

Stroking it from deep, though? Nope. It was certainly a weakness. He wasn’t exactly the best at making free throws, either.

Last season, his rookie season, Giddey knocked down just 26.3% of his 213 3-point attempts and converted just 70.9% of his free throw attempts. And in his pre-draft season, with the Adelaide 36ers, Giddey made just 69.1% of his free throws and only 29.3% of his 99 3-pointers.

Fast forward to his sophomore year with the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Australian passing wizard is producing encouraging results.

Through 30 games this year, Giddey is shooting 46.2% from the field, or 4.3 percentage points better than in his rookie season. He has also knocked down 32.6% of his 3-pointers and is shooting 76.6% from the line. Not too shabby for a guy who just turned 20 in October.

Upon closer inspection, however, the 6-foot-8 ball-handler might be improving faster than surface-level statistics seem to indicate.

Josh Giddey's shooting 46.7% from 3 on 3.3 attempts this December

Here's every make so far from the best shooting month of his career pic.twitter.com/0z0iXKBNLe
— TF (@ThunderFocus) December 24, 2022

Through Giddey’s first 19 games of the season, he shot 45.3% from the floor, 25.5% from downtown, and just 67.9% from the line, scoring 14.4 points on 13.9 shots per contest. But in his last 12 games, he’s scoring 15.8 points on just 13.3 shots per contest and doing so on incredible efficiency.

Yes, in his last handful of games, Giddey appears to be on the verge of making a permanent offensive jump. This doesn’t just seem to be a hot stretch, but time will tell.

Over those last 12 games, Giddey is converting nearly half his shots from the field, or 49.3% of all of his attempts. From beyond the 3-point line, he’s hitting 43.2% of his 3.1 tries per game over that span, too.

And he’s converted a whopping 90% of his free throws. In fact, on Tuesday, in a road match against the Charlotte Hornets, Giddey found himself at the line seven times and knocked down a career-high seven free throws.

Perhaps the Thunder’s sixth overall pick’s recent shooting success can be credited to the addition of renowned shooting coach, Chip Engelland. Prior to the season, the front office acquired the former San Antonio Spur perhaps in an attempt to help along players like Giddey, Aleksej Pokusevski, and even Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

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