Can He Bounce Back? Roger Mason
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.
After a strong 2007-2008 season with the Wizards (shooting 39.8% from the three point line), Roger Mason established himself as one of the best three point shooters in the NBA for the San Antonio Spurs in the 2008-2009 season. Mason was the guy who the Spurs looked to in any situation when they needed a three pointer. In nearly 400 attempts (394 to be exact) Mason knocked down 166 for a shooting percentage of 42.1%. Mason, who started 71 of 82 games also was able to reach career highs in assists and rebounds as well.
2009-2010 was a completely different story however. Mason saw his number of minutes decrease significantly as the Spurs started to give his playing time to George Hill. After playing over 30 minutes per game in 2009 (30.4), Mason didn’t even reach 20 minutes per game in 2010 (19.2). Despite the steep decline in minutes, Mason didn’t really see his usage take a hit, as it dropped from 18.91 to 17.21. That means the Spurs were still using him in a similar manner as they did two years ago and it showed when you see he got up 264 threes while only playing under 20 minutes a game. The problem? He only made 88 of them for a shooting percentage 33.3%.
Where He Struggled
Unlike post “Can He Bounce Back?” posts, Roger Mason only really struggled in one area, three point shooting. However, that is much of Mason’s game. The bulk of Roger Mason’s shots always came from the three point line (over his career 51.4% of his shots came from behind the arc). Mason isn’t the most athletic guy, doesn’t have the best handle, and he isn’t the strongest so he turned himself into a three point shooter out of necessity. Doing so is great when you are hitting 42.1% of your threes, not when you are shooting just 33% (which was below the NBA average of 35% last year). So why the sudden drop?
Shot Locations
Using NBA.com’s HotSpots tool (which is still sponsored by NBA Live 08), you see that some of Mason’s struggle was due to where he is shooting the basketball from. Here is Mason’s 2009 breakdown:
| 2008-2009 | ||
| Location | % of Attempts | Shooting % |
| Left | 36% | 43.5% |
| Center | 18.5% | 36.1% |
| Right | 45.5% | 44.6% |
Looking at this chart, you notice a few things. The first is that even when Mason was at his best, he really struggled shooting from straight-away center. Mason was strongest from the right side of the court, and he was able to use that to advantage. 45.5% of his attempts came from that side, and he was able to hit 44.6% of those threes that came from the right. So if Mason wanted to continue his success, he would try to lower his attempts from the center and up them on the right. That isn’t what happened though:
| 2009-2010 | ||
| Location | % of Attempts | Shooting % |
| Left | 35.2% | 32.2% |
| Center | 22.3% | 22.0% |
| Right | 42.5% | 41.3% |
As you can see, Mason actually raised his attempts at the center and lowered them from the right side. Maybe it was the defense, but I think some of that has to do with Mason himself. Mason was still shooting over 41% from the right side, but what really hurt his is that he just shot 22.0% from the top of the key.
Shooting Form
Where Mason was shooting the basketball from is only partly responsible for his struggles. If you look at those two charts again, you see that his shooting is down all the way across the board in 2010. That tells us that something else is wrong with Mason. And that something else seems to be his shooting form (or more specifically the finish of his shot). Before we look at what Mason did differently in 2010, we have to look at his 2009 form:
Look at how easy Mason’s shooting stroke was two years ago. Catch, rise, shoot, and land. No extra motions, nothing wasted. The thing I want you guys to focus on when watching those clips is Mason’s feet. Look at how he jumps and lands in the same area every single time.
Now, let’s take a look at some of his misses from last year (again, let’s focus on the feet):
In this clip, Mason gets the ball in transition and fires up a shot. Mason kicks out one leg, and lands almost in a split position with his feet spread wide.
On the above attempt, Mason brings the ball up and eventually pulls a three off of the dribble. Mason takes off about five feet behind the three point line, but instead of jumping straight up, he jumps out and actually lands on the three point line.
The reason I including the following clip is because it is exactly the same court position as one of his makes (even against the same team!), so you can really compare what is different. To make things easier, here they are right next to each other (the make from two years ago is on top and the miss from last year is on the bottom):
Notice in the make, Mason jumps straight up and down with his feet in the same exact position as when he took off. In the miss, Mason jumps out instead of up, but that isn’t even the biggest difference. Notice how he brings his feet together in the air, landing with them right next to each other (instead of shoulder’s width apart).
(Note: I couldn’t include every single Roger Mason three point shot over the past two years – After watching a bunch of shots from each season I was able to hand pick the certain themes I noticed)
Why is all of this important anyway? Well, shooters want to try and do the same thing every time they shoot the basketball. The best are able to do that (Chris Ballard’s fantastic book “The Art of a Beautiful Game” goes into detail about the lengths that Ray Allen goes to so he can jump the same exact height each and every time). Roger Mason was so successful shooting one way, but he changed that over the course of one offseason. That little change in his lower body seems (at least to me) to be the thing throwing his shot off.
Can He Bounce Back?
It depends. I haven’t seen Roger Mason shoot the basketball since the the playoffs last year (in fact the final miss video was the final three of his season), so I don’t know if he has figured things out or not in terms of his lower half. He also needs to stay away from the top of the key and get over to the right side of the court. If the coaching staff can figure out that the right side is his personal hot spot and start designing plays for him to get over there, he could start shooting the ball better.
UPDATE: Something that I initially forgot to mention was his injury to a ligament in his shooting hand. This makes you want to believe that Mason’s poor shooting season was a fluke. It really is hard to tell, because (at least in my opinion) Mason’s lower body was off all season. Here is a shot from the first game of the year last year:
Another example of seeing Roger Mason jumping out instead of up and down. Now there are shooters that do in fact jump out instead of up, but that is what they are comfortable with. The results tell me that Mason isn’t successful doing this, and he should try to revert to his old way of shooting.
Again, I really think we need to wait until we see Roger Mason shooting this year to determine whether or not he can bounce back or not.
