Can He Bounce Back? Is a new series here at NBAPlaybook, and in it we will be looking at players that had a rough 2010 and determine whether or not it was a fluke or a start of a trend.

This past season, Richard Jefferson had one of the worst years of his career.  His 12.3 points per game was his lowest since his rookie year in 2001 (when he averaged just 24 minutes per game) and his PER of 13.18 was the lowest of his career.

Where He Struggled

Three Point Shooting

Richard Jefferson’s shooting percentage actually increased from 2008-2009 (43.9%) to last season (46.7%), but his shooting accuracy dropped from a few key locations, and his True Shooting percentage reflects that.  This past season, Jefferson’s True Shooting percentage was 55.1% (Compared to 55.4% two years ago).

The most important location where Jefferson saw his shooting percentage drop from was the three point line.  Jefferson’s 31.6% from behind the arc was the lowest of his career since the 2002-2003 season (and a steep decrease from his 39.7% clip last year).

Getting To The Rim

While Richard Jefferson’s three point shooting declined, his FG% on shots at the rim actually increased by a pretty wide margin.  Jefferson went from 57% two years ago to 67.7% this past year.  The problem though is that he wasn’t able to get to the rim like he used to.  Jefferson’s attempts at the rim dropped from 4.0 a game two years ago to 3.1 last year.  I know it doesn’t seem like much, but extrapolate that over the course of a full season, and that is a pretty big dip in attempts.

The reason Jefferson’s attempts are down is that he just doesn’t have the same athletic ability that he had in the beginning of his career:

In the above video, Jefferson grabs the rebound and brings the basketball up the court.  Jefferson basically has an one on one situation here.  In the prime of his career, Jefferson takes that ball to the rim strong, but instead he pulls it out.  This forces him to pick up his dribble, and leads to a turnover.

And here, Jefferson gets the ball on the wing, and bobbles it a bit.  He recovers and tries to take it to the rim, but just doesn’t have the ability to get on the hip of his defender and create separation.  He is forced to take a pull up jumper, but he doesn’t even have enough space for that and he throws out his arm to try and create the space.  He gets called for a foul and it gets chalked up as a turnover.

Problems Spotting Up

I don’t know if the Spurs brought Richard Jefferson in to be the team’s spot up shooter, but that is what ended up happening last season.  The problem is that Jefferson isn’t comfortable as a spot up shooter, it simply just isn’t his thing, and the numbers prove it.  Jefferson’s 0.91 on Spot Up Plays (as describe by Synergy) was 189th in that category individually.  The big problem was that Jefferson only shot 36.4% on these type of plays.  Despite how bad he was on Spot Ups, it still somehow accounted for 33.9% of his offense:

During the possession above, Jefferson is just standing in the corner for the entire possession. Then he gets the ball and takes a shot.  In my opinion, Jefferson is not the type of player who is comfortable standing around in one spot then taking a shot when the ball gets to him.

Will He Bounce Back?

In my opinion, Richard Jefferson has the potential to bounce back from one of the worst seasons of his career.  The first reason I think this is because the drop in Jefferson’s three point shooting percentage seems more of a fluke than anything to me.  His form is still the same that it has always been:

The shots just didn’t seem to fall last year.  Also, if his three point shooting returns to where it has been for most of his career, it helps another aspect of his game where he really struggled, spot up shooting.  Jefferson isn’t a spot up shooter, never was, but if he makes his threes (48% of his spot up shots were threes) you will see an increase in his spot up shooting.

Jefferson can also see his game improve over last year if the Spurs recognize what Jefferson does well and takes advantage of it.  Instead of having Jefferson spot up so much, the Spurs would be smart to start moving him around and letting him cut off the basketball.  Jefferson can’t get to the rim using his dribble anymore, but when he cuts off the basketball, he can still be as effective as ever.

In fact, last year Jefferson had 1.61 points per possession (6th in the NBA) while shooting 83.8% on plays labeled as cuts by Synergy Sports.  The reason Jefferson is so successful when cutting off the ball is that it allows him to get to the rim easily without being defended:

Jefferson no longer has the quickness to get by his man, but when he makes a catch near the rim and can take one step and jump, he still has enough athletic ability to finish with a dunk. The problem was that it was only 8% of his total offense (88 plays in total) last year.

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Both Richard Jefferson and the Spurs need to focus on getting Jefferson moving off the ball more and spotting up less. If that happens, and Jefferson’s three point shooting returns to form, I fully expect Richard Jefferson to have a bounce back season.