![]() Of course, players like Damian Lillard and James Harden, and their superhero scoring prowess generally, are the prime reasons for those teams’ offensive potency, rather than the volume pull-up shooting specifically. The offensive efficiency ranks for those six seasons, for what it’s worth: second, fourth, fourth, first, second, and sixth. ![]() The league-wide utilization of this shot, and the increase in the number of players working to add it to their bag, is a very recent phenomenon. The Blazers and Jazz last season, the Boston Celtics in 2019-20, and the Houston Rockets for three years from 2017 to 2020. This projection of 15 team pull-ups a game isn’t only conservative - in not counting the occasional attempts by the likes of Derrick Rose, RJ Barrett, Quentin Grimes, Deuce McBride or Obi Toppin - but is also historic: only six seasons in NBA history have breached the 15-pull-up-per-game watershed. A number that would have ranked third in the league last year, behind only the Portland Trail Blazers (18.8) and Utah Jazz (16.6). Given this upgraded back court firepower, and using last year’s averages as a guide, this sizzling quintet - Walker, Fournier, Quickley, Burks, and Randle - stand to average 14.9 pull-ups a contest next season. That’s 8.6 total, and more than the whole 2020-21 Knicks roster. This season's starters, Kemba Walker and Evan Fournier, took 5.5 and 3.1 pull-ups per game, respectively, last season. Last season's starting backcourt of Elfrid Payton and Reggie Bullock took a combined 0.6 pull-ups a game. The only other Knicks on the roster to regularly take off the dribble triples were Alec Burks (two per game) and Julius Randle (1.5 per game), meaning the Knicks took just 7.3 pull-up threes a game as a team, the 24th-most in the league. These Quickley bombs were 10 pounds of fun in a five-pound bag, so fun that they regularly led to malfunctions in both body and brain, as the surprise prime attraction in a surprisingly swanky offensive theme park of a season, for a fanbase used to more understated offensive amusements: the occasional sword-sized stick a vaguely round rock the artist formerly known as Dennis Smith Jr.ĭespite playing less than 20 minutes per game, Quickley led the Knicks in pull-up attempts at 2.8 per contest. Sounds never before made escaped mouths that didn’t mean to make them. Eyeballs strained desperately to flee faces. For many reasons - the novelty of having a point guard who can take those shots, the audacity of the distance on some of his attempts, the sense of witnessing a shot that all but didn’t exist in the NBA a decade ago - these looks generated uniquely authentic fan reactions. Last season, no single play was more symbolic, more spasm-inducing, more provocative to witness as a fan of the New York Knicks than an Immanuel Quickley pull-up 3-pointer. If for some reason you’re not already subscribed to the daily musings of the man they call The Dean, please take this opportunity to add his morning words to your morning routine. Originally, this was a guest piece for the one and only Jonathan Macri’s Knicks Film School newsletter during the offseason.
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