The other day, while working on our New Orleans Pelicans’ all-time 3-pointers made post, something interesting caught my eye. Despite only playing 6,900 minutes across four seasons, beloved role player E’Twaun Moore is currently eighth all-time in franchise history in 3-pointers made (344). And even more interesting, Moore was only 35 3-pointers behind franchise icon Chris Paul, who had played nearly 9,000 more minutes with the organization than Moore.
That all got me thinking about this tweet I had recently seen from my buddy Mark Schindler.
E'Twaun Moore was honestly pretty nice
— Mark Schindler (@MG_Schindler) July 24, 2023
Imagining a world where he shot 7+ threes per game for those two years where he started in NOLA
While it hasn’t been that long since his tenure with the Pelicans (2016-20), one must wonder what kind of player he is if he’s playing basketball in 2023 (it’s crazy to think, but the game has changed substantially over the last couple of years).
So, I figured it would be a fun little exercise to see what his numbers would look like if he was taking rates at the same frequency a player of his usage would normally launch those types of shots in 2023.
To do this, we’re going to need to do some quick math. Let’s start by picking one of his seasons with the Pelicans. In this case, we will use 2017-18 because it is the year he played the most minutes for New Orleans. Then, we’ll look at his 3-point attempts per 100 possessions, which was 5.6 threes per 100 during that time.
According to Basketball Reference, that was 140th out of 259 eligible players (54th percentile). In 2022-23, a player in the 54th percentile in 3-point attempts per 100 possessions took 6.7 threes per 100 (right around Schindler’s prediction).
That would mean that, in today’s game, Moore would be taking 1.1 more threes per 100 possessions. And given that he was a 42.5% shooter in 2017-18, if he can keep that average up, that would mean he’s hitting .47 more threes per 100. So, he’s scoring 1.4 more points per 100 possession.
Since starters usually play about 75 possessions per game, we can say that Moore would be adding about 1 point to his points per game average, which would take him from averaging 12.5 PPG to 13.5 PPG. So, not a massive difference, but a difference nonetheless.
Regardless of that, just imagine how beneficial it would be to this current iteration of the Pelicans (one that struggles with shooting/spacing) to have a guy who could give you 13.5 PPG on 42.5% 3-point shooting. I’ll give you a hint: it would be insanely beneficial.