Portland Trail Blazers: 3 reasons to get excited about Tony Snell

2. Tony Snell can flat-out shoot the rock

Snell’s shooting was included in the previous slide, but it deserves a lot more attention than that. Last year for the Atlanta Hawks, he had a 50/50/100 season. You read that right, he shot 50 percent from the field and from deep and didn’t miss a single free throw in 47 games.

Granted, he only took 11 free throws, but in 2019-2020 he took 32 and didn’t miss any of those either. That’s 43 straight makes from the line. Shooting 50 percent from beyond the arc in a single game is nothing to scoff at—Snell did it for over half a regular season. He stroked 62 of his 109 attempts from deep against NBA defenses.

Breaking down his absurd shooting season last year even further, is how he got to those numbers. Snell for the Hawks hit 40 percent of his tightly contested threes, defined by NBA.com as an attempt with a defender within 2-4 feet. On open triples with defenders between 4-6 feet away, he hit 66 (66!) percent for a grand total of 29-44 attempts. He actually cools off a little when he’s wide-open, having hit a meager 53 percent of those attempts.

That made him the seventh-most accurate wide-open three point shooter in the league and he led the entire NBA in marksmanship on open treys.

Among players who appeared in at least seven games, Snell was the single most efficient spot-up player in terms of points per possession.

He knows how to move without the ball to find space and has a twitch trigger once he winds up with the rock. That quickdraw will be a welcome sight off the Blazers bench.