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By John DentonApril 4, 2016
ORLANDO – The curious case of Jason Smith could give the Orlando Magic fits this summer when free agency rolls around, but as for now there’s no doubting how valuable the sweet-shooting, 7-footer has been to the team.
On the one hand, Smith is as deadly a mid-range shooter as there is in the NBA, hitting 49.2 percent of his shots from 15-to-19 feet (first among all reserves and 10th overall in the league) and 48.3 percent of his shots from 20-to-24 feet (second in the NBA among players with at least 80 attempts). On pick-and-roll/pop plays where he’s the shooter, Smith is again first among reserves and 16th in the NBA in scoring (225 points). On catch-and-shoot plays, his 314 points are the third-most of any non-starter in the NBA. And because he possesses a nasty streak and has a willingness to hand out hard fouls from time to time, Smith has given the Magic a much-needed physical presence at the rim in his limited playing time.
On the other hand, devotees to the analytics of basketball – which include all 30 front offices in the NBA now – struggle to quantify Smith’s true worth because he’s a “tweener” when it comes to his shooting range. Today’s NBA is based largely off stockpiling players who can make 3-pointers or get to the rim for layups and/or free throws – the best shots in basketball when it comes to points-per-possession probabilities.
That’s where the rub comes in with Smith. An NBA-most 66.7 percent of his points come on mid-range jump shots, statistically the worst shot in basketball because of the usually low make percentage, but not in Smith’s case. Also, Smith has just 41 field goals this season within 5 feet of the rim, only 2.3 percent of his points come on 3-pointers and just 9.9 percent of his scoring has come from the free throw line.
“You can’t deny the numbers, and in the game today you win from three or at the basket,” said head coach Scott Skiles, whose Magic (33-44) have won four of five games and don’t play again until Wednesday when they host the Detroit Pistons. “But that’s because very few guys can make the mid-range shot anymore. Jason can take it and make it. And he has been incredibly valuable on the other end of the floor, too. (Recently against Sacramento) he had three blocks, he’s taken charges for us, he’s gone vertical (to change shots) and he knows everything that we’re doing. He’s bought in, so he’s been very valuable for us.”
Whereas foes sometimes balk at Smith because of the screens that he sets or the hard fouls he hands out, he is as well-liked as any player in the Magic locker room because of his quick wit and self-effacing humor. Smith takes great pride in being a professional and an exemplary teammate – things he thinks often get overlooked by basketball’s numbers crunchers.
“I feel like I do the little things, a lot of things that are overlooked in games. The communicating on defense, the encouragement of guys who are out there and just being a good teammate on and off the floor,” said Smith, who is averaging 7.2 points and 2.7 rebounds a game in 15.4 minutes a game off the Magic bench. “There are a lot of things in this game that can be a positive and negative for any player, but I think you sometimes have to look through that and see what is valuable to a coaching staff and a team.”
Undoubtedly, Smith’s shooting has been valuable to the Magic. Overall, he’s made 49.6 percent of his shots and 47.7 percent of his jump shots. Of the 10 players in the NBA this season with at least 200 shot attempts on pick-and-pop plays, Smith’s accuracy (52.5 percent) trails only that of Atlanta’s Al Horford (53.7 percent). To put that into perspective, Smith is more accurate on those tries than Anthony Davis (50.3 percent), Karl-Anthony Towns (47 percent), Pau Gasol (48.2 percent), LaMarcus Aldridge (43.8 percent) and Dirk Nowitzki (43.4 percent). Why, Smith’s stroke on pick-and-pop shots is even better than that of teammate Nikola Vucevic (49.7 percent), who has been on a tear the past three games by making 68 percent of his shots and averaging 23.7 points.
Smith’s catch-and-shoot rate and his pick-and-pop accuracy have been so good that seven Magic teammates have wracked up at least 16 assists passing to him, led by Victor Oladipo’s 50 assists.
“The pick-and-pop system is really my forte,” Smith said. “But I really just like it here because the coaching staff does a good job and the system here really fits me.”
Added Skiles: “Vooch and Jason, in particular, are very good mid-range jump shooters. We’re foolish not to take advantage of it because they do shoot it (well). Now, if they were shooting 40 percent, we obviously wouldn’t be doing it.”
What Smith and many of his teammates marvel at is how often the 7-footer is left wide open on jump shots. It’s understandable that other 7-footers don’t want to leave the paint, but it’s another factor all together when Smith is constantly left free on pick-and-pop plays when a guard is switched to him. Skiles points out that Smith is good at reading defenses, drifting to open spots and he has an exceptionally quick release for a big man, but not even that can explain how 32.2 percent of his shots come with no defender closer than 6 feet and another 42.1 percent come with the defense at least 4 feet apart from him.
“You’d think that teams would know that I can shoot and they wouldn’t let me do it,” joked Smith, who has 19 double-digit scoring games on the season and a 25-point effort on March 15 versus Denver. “Some of the high-level teams do that, switching on defense and not letting me catch the ball. But it really puts an onus on the defense when you can space them out. As long as we continue to move the ball, that will work in our favor.”
Smith, a ninth-year pro who recently turned 30, is hopeful that free agency works out in his favor this summer so that he can remain in Orlando. He turned down an offer from the powerful Oklahoma City Thunder last summer so that he could sign a one-year deal with the Magic. Now, he’s hoping that a solid 2015-16 season will allow him to stick long term with the Magic.
“(Free agency) is so far away right now and I just try not to focus on the too-distant future. For me, I want to focus on the here-and-now and do my job,” said Smith, who has played with four NBA teams. “Then, when the season is done, I can make those tough decisions. But I love it here in Orlando because it’s a great city with a great organization and we’re building toward great things. I think we have a lot of potential here.”
Smith also has a bit of breaking news to the analytics honks who feel that his value is decreased by his lack of 3-point shooting: He feels that, in time, he can extend his range out to where he can consistently stroke 3-point shots similar to the way he does shots from 15-to-19 feet. Not that he totally wants to get away from the lost art of the mid-range shot, but he’s confident by next season he’ll be a better 3-point shooter than the four-of-15 (26.7 percent) he’s connected on this season.
“It’s a lost art, but I just like to keep it simple and stay with what works,” Smith said of the mid-range jumper. “But I’ll be expanding the range. I did it last year and I’ve just got to get comfortable with the system and the coaching staff and prove that I can make that (3-point) shot. Other than that, it’s just about me working on it every day. I’ve still got to work on it and that’s an art I’ve been trying to tinker around with, but I like to make my shots at a high rate and I’m not quite at that consistency yet.”
