Suns’ Markieff Morris looks to improve 3-point shooting

PHOENIX — Markieff Morris is only 26 years old, but he’s trying to have himself a throwback season. With spacing and analytics sweeping through the NBA, the ability to shoot threes from non-traditional positions has become more important.

Morris wants to get back to the success he had early in his career from behind the arc. As a rookie, he shot 34 percent from three on 124 attempts. According to basketball-reference.com, he is one of 15 forwards six-feet-nine or above who attempted more than 100 threes and shot over 34 percent in their first season.

Since then his shot from deep has trended in the wrong direction.  In year two, Morris dipped to .336 on 134 attempts, while he fell all the way to .315 on 108 attempts in his third season. Last year, Morris took a career-high 179 threes, but shot only .318.

With the addition of center Tyson Chandler it makes sense to have a floor spacing big share the floor to open up his dives in the pick & roll game. For Morris to be that guy, his shooting needs to trend back towards what he did as a rookie.

“A big man like that, 35-36, would be a good percentage,” said Suns head coach Jeff Hornacek. “If he can bump it up higher than that than I think it really puts pressure on teams. I think they’ll still give him that shot, and if he’s shooting 35 we want him to take them all day. If he gets it up to 37-38 percent, now they’ll probably  be shutting him off a little bit more, which is even better because he’ll drive by them, and create a play. That’s the big key is try to get in that, especially for that size, 35, 37, 38 range.”

Morris wasn’t around his teammates leading up to training camp, but that didn’t stop him from working at expanding his game.

“I worked with Sheed (Rasheed Wallace!!!!!!!!) a lot,” said Morris. “Main thing is don’t shoot quick, take your time. Always catch and fix the ball first, when you’re comfortable is when you shoot.”

A quick timeout to appreciate great moments in Rasheed Wallace and Suns history.

Back to our regularly scheduled article.

Morris was unusual compared to most NBA players last season because he shot jumpers better off the dribble from two than off the catch from three. According to numbers from Seth Partnow of Nylon Calculus, on 39 jump shots from 12 feet or farther (small sample size alert), Morris knocked down 46 percent, which was seven-percent higher than league average. Morris only made 33 percent of his 166 catch and shoot threes — three-percent lower than league average.

“I shot a lot more off the dribble than I did spot up (this is factually correct if you play around with the numbers in a different way than I listed above),” explained Morris. “Focus is more catch and shoot, spot up threes.”

Not all of Morris’ catch and shoot numbers were bad in 2014-15. He shot 46 percent on 166 attempts between 12 feet and the three-point line, six-percent above the league average. The key is to expand his range on a more consistent basis.

If the experiment of Morris raising the volume of threes he’s going to attempt doesn’t work (2.5 per 36 minutes), it’s not something the Suns are going to force.

“We’re not just going to have him out there shooting it just to open something up,” said Hornacek. “We still got to use his strengths. When he’s open we want him to make them, but we’re not going to say keep firing them up cause we don’t want to get away from his strength.”