Thunder guard Lu Dort’s shooting woes | Media Pyro

Oklahoma City Thunder guard Lou Dort was known as a defensive minded player. However, he has emerged as a legitimate offensive prospect over the past two seasons.

Now that he’s a two-way threat, Dort has established himself as a cornerstone in Oklahoma City, which earned him a new five-year, $87.5 million deal over the summer.

Entering the 2022-23 campaign, expectations were high for Dort. However, he knew it would be a while before he fell into a hole.

The starting guard missed the final 26 games of the 2021-22 season following shoulder surgery. From there, he spent much of the summer working to rehab and get back into shape. He missed most of the preseason with a concussion suffered in training camp.

With that in mind, Dort decided to enter a new 82-game season after not playing a regular season game in nearly 250 days. With so much time away from real game action, outside of two limited preseason games, should early expectations for the 2022-23 season be high for Dort?

Through ten games this season, he has struggled greatly on the offensive end, especially in terms of shooting efficiency. At this point, he’s averaging just 12.7 points per game, down from 17.2 last season. Dort is shooting 19.3% from deep and 49.3% from inside the arc. In terms of shot distribution, 45% of his shot attempts are from distance, so his overall field goal efficiency is 35.7% on the year.

While we should have expected him to be rusty early in the season, those are some of the worst splits in volume of any player in the league.

With that in mind, Dort went through similar struggles last season. Through ten games into his 2021-22 campaign, he’s averaging just 14.9 points per game while shooting 23.4% from deep and 39.5% from the floor. These numbers are a little better than they have been this season, but show that Dort has the ability to turn things around as the season goes on.

To ensure that happens quickly, the 23-year-old must hyper-focus on his shot selection and getting into rhythm.

At the NBA level, the corner 3 is 22 feet and the line extends from there to 23 feet 9 inches.

Dort is shooting 4.2 shots per game from 25 feet this season, slightly more on the team. He’s not an elite 3-point shooter as such, so making sure he doesn’t overshoot his range should help solve part of the problem.

Still, he’s shooting 11% from the corners this season, the most efficient 3-point shot in the game. It will naturally improve as the year progresses.

Dort is a league-bottom 8% in long-range 3-point efficiency, according to Synergy. 68.5% of his attempts from the floor are catch-and-shoots, while 44% are guarded. He has taken 13 transition triples and can clean them up.

Simply put, he needs to let his 3-point attempts come to him in the flow of the offense and not take too many contested looks. Forced shots often only make matters worse.

Dort is at his best on and off set. In fact, he knocked down 66.7% of his 3-pointers on out-of-bounds plays and 40% of his post-timeout attempts.

Again, when he looks good within the offensive scheme, good things happen.

Dort doesn’t shoot badly from inside the arc, so getting to his spots in the midrange and near the rim might help open things up on the perimeter. Shooting 49.3% on 2-pointers this season, including 58.5% from within 3 feet, 40.0% from 10-16 feet and 50.0% from 16 feet to the arc.

Between taking shots in the flow of the offense, not attempting such deep triples, and getting hot elsewhere to open up great 3-point looks, Dort could make big strides. Plus, he’s naturally a better shooter than his splits today suggest, so if nothing else he should move up to average anyway in the coming weeks.

No need to panic with a ten game sample size.

The staff believes in his ability as he’s been given the green light to take about six triples a game, so everything has to balance out. Dort was 33.8% from the two seasons prior to the 2022-23 campaign, which is solid.

Over the next few weeks, Dort’s 3-point efficiency and shot selection will be worth watching. Until he gets back to being himself, the Thunder offense will continue to struggle.