The Portland Trail Blazers focused on fixing its three-point shooting this offseason, but the team’s transition offense is a more pressing problem.
Neil Olshey added four guards to the Blazers this offseason with one goal in mind: more three-point shooting.
He drafted Anfernee Simons and Gary Trent Jr., both of whom displayed their outside shooting in Summer League. Olshey then signed Nik Stauskas and Seth Curry to replace Pat Connaughton and Shabazz Napier. These “upgrades” were intended to save money and improve the team’s perimeter presence.
When looking at Portland’s playoff sweep, the need for three-point shooting becomes clear. The New Orleans Pelicans dared players besides Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum to shoot.
As a result, the Blazers made 10.8 three-pointers per game at a 33.3% rate, 3.3% worse than its regular season percentage despite the same number of makes (10.3).
Was three-point shooting the most pressing issue for Neil Olshey to address, though?
Blazers transition offense
While the Blazers were in the middle of the pack for outside shooting, it consistently ranked near the bottom of the league in transition offense.
The team only had 933 transition possessions last year, meaning they didn’t force turnovers very often. In fact, Portland forced its opponent to lose the ball on 11.7% of possessions, second worst in the league.
When a turnover did occur, the Blazers failed to capitalize on it – they scored 1.02 points per possession in transition offense. The Brooklyn Nets were the lone team with a worse PPP at 1.00.
Ultimately, the lack of forced turnovers and inability to capitalize on their infrequency led Portland to 950 total transition points in 2017-2018. The Los Angeles Lakers led the league with 1919 transition points, meaning the Blazers lost up to 11.8 points per game in one of the easiest scoring situations.
Nik Stauskas
Nik Stauskas played transition offense 17.4% of his possessions, more than any player on the Blazers did last season. However, his points per possession in these situations was 0.78, lower than any Blazers player.
He frequently floated out to the three-point line on fast breaks, leading to a poor transition field goal percentage (34.8%). Overall, Stauskas scored on 34.4% of possessions, placing him in the seventh percentile league-wide.
Pat Connaughton, who he replaced, didn’t have much more success. Connaughton bottomed out Portland’s points per possession in the transition at 0.82 and shot 34.9% from the field. He scored on 34.7% of transition plays, ranking in the league’s ninth percentile.
Stauskas and Connaughton don’t force turnovers at an eye-catching rate either. In 2017-2018, Stauskas averaged 0.8 steals per-36 minutes and Connaughton averaged 0.6.
Through an outside-scoring lens, Neil Olshey improved Portland’s backup shooting guard position. Through a transition-offense lens, he added a player with the same deficiencies as Connaughton. Stauskas also doesn’t force enough turnovers to give the Blazers more transition opportunities.
Seth Curry
The Dallas Mavericks ranked 30th in transition possessions and total transition points in 2016-2017. Seth Curry’s transition frequency was therefore 10.2%, right in the mix of Portland’s players.
Although the Mavericks ranked 27th in points per transition possession, Curry was in the 82nd percentile for scoring percentage (50.6%). He scored 1.28 points per possession and made 52.5% of his field goal attempts.
Shabazz Napier also performed well on limited transition opportunities. He scored 1.05 points per possession, 0.14 better than CJ McCollum and 0.07 worse than Damian Lillard. Napier ranked in the 41st percentile for scoring frequency (47.7%), though, due to average field goal shooting.
Both guards force more opponent turnovers than Connaughton and Stauskas, but Curry is not an improvement on Napier defensively. He averages 1.4 steals per-36 minutes, compared to Napier’s 1.7 steals.
Curry was part of a league-worst transition offense in 2016-2017. His defense isn’t an improvement on Napier’s, let alone enough to benefit the Blazers as a team. He may be more efficient and punctual on the fast break, but Portland still won’t get enough attempts for this to be a notable upgrade.
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Neil Olshey addressed the three-point shooting problem discovered during the playoff series versus New Orleans by signing Nik Stauskas and Seth Curry.
However, Portland’s three-point shooting ranks in the middle of the league while its transition offense consistently ranked among the bottom three teams.
Fast breaks are one of the easiest scoring methods, and the Blazers didn’t add the players to correct this problem.