Coach Green needs to rein-in Nickeil Alexander-Walker’s 3-pointers

Nickeil Alexander-Walker went 1-of-7 from 3-point range in the New Orleans Pelicans’ loss to the Utah Jazz last night, something that has pretty much become the norm.

NAW is launching the most 3-point shots of his career, just under seven per game, which would be great if he could actually make them.

He is hitting just 31 percent for the season, lowest of his career, and something has to change.

I have praised coach Willie Green all season for his ability to get his young players to buy-in to his vision, but he needs to do something to rein NAW in from behind the arc, as his poor shooting is hurting the Pelicans chances of winning games.

If you look at the numbers, it is even worse than his percentage might indicate.

A closer look at Nickeil Alexander-Walker’s shooting numbers

Nickeil Alexander-Walker is shooting 6.9 three-pointers per game, which ranks 37th in the entire NBA.

However, he is just 60th in makes per game and his percentage ranks well outside of the top-100 in the league.

You could deal with the lower percentage if he weren’t chucking so many, but there is not another guy in the league who shoots this many and makes so few.

Nearly 50 percent of his total shots have been from 3-point range, and this is a guy who is meant to have a mid-range game and be able to finish at the rim, which he can’t do if he is shooting 3-pointers like he’s Stephen Curry.

Just under 25 percent of his shots are corner 3’s and he is hitting 38.6 percent of those, so if he is going to shoot them, it should mostly be from the corner. I would love to see coach Green try to get him more shots from there and tell him the corners are the only place he should really be looking for them at all.

NAW is shooting just 32.6 percent on catch and shoot 3-pointers and even worse on pull-ups, hitting 27 percent of those. So it doesn’t really matter what “type” of shot it is, Nickeil Alexander-Walker is not making them.

I don’t know what the Pelicans need to do to get through to NAW, who looks like an All-Star at times and clearly has an offensive bag inside of the arc, but at this point, trading him as part of a package seems like a possibility.

They don’t really have the option to bench him at the moment, as their bench is horrible anyway and he at least plays decent defense.

The Pelicans have to come up with some type of offensive game plan for NAW that doesn’t include shooting seven 3-pointers a game, as his inefficiency from behind the arc is submarining the offense.