Looking Into Thunder Guard Lu Dort’s Shooting Woes

Oklahoma City Thunder guard Lu Dort was once known as just a defensive-minded player. However, he’s emerged as a legitimate offensive prospect over the past two seasons.

Now that he’s a two-way threat, Dort has established himself as a cornerstone piece in Oklahoma City, which earned him a new five-year, $87.5 million deal over the summer.

Entering the 2022-23 campaign, expectations were high for Dort. However, it was known it may take some time for him to get into a groove.

The starting guard missed the last 26 games of the 2021-22 season following shoulder surgery. From there, he spent most of the summer rehabbing and working on getting back in shape. He even missed most of the preseason due to a concussion he suffered in training camp.

With that in mind, Dort was set to enter a fresh 82-game season after not playing in a regular season contest in almost 250 days. Given that amount of time away from real game action, outside of a couple of limited preseason games, should the early expectations in the 2022-23 season have been so high for Dort?

Through ten games this season, he’s struggled tremendously on the offensive end, especially in terms of shooting efficiency. To this point, he’s averaging just 12.7 points per game, down from 17.2 per contest last season. Dort is shooting 19.3% from deep and 49.3% from inside the arc. In terms of shot distribution, over 45% of his shot attempts are from distance, so his overall field goal efficiency is 35.7% on the year.

While we should have expected him to be rusty early in the season, these are some of the worst splits on volume of any player in the league.

With that in mind, Dort went through similar struggles last season as well. Through ten games in his 2021-22 campaign, he averaged just 14.9 points per game while shooting 23.4% from deep and 39.5% from the floor overall. These numbers are slightly better than they are this season, but it goes to show Dort has the ability to turn things around as the season goes on.

To ensure that happens quickly, the 23-year-old should be hyper focused on his shot selection and getting into a rhythm.

At the NBA level, the corner 3 is 22 feet, while the line extends out to 23 feet 9 inches from there.

Dort is shooting 4.2 shots per game from further than 25 feet this season, which is most on the team by quite a bit. He’s not an elite 3-point shooter as it is, so ensuring he doesn’t push the limits of his range could help fix part of the problem.

Even then, he’s shooting 11% from the corners this season, which is the most efficient 3-point shot in the game. That should naturally improve as the year goes on.

According to Synergy, Dort is in the bottom 8% of the league in long 3-point efficiency. While 68.5% of his attempts from the floor are catch-and-shoot, 44% are guarded. He’s taken 13 transition triples, which could be cleaned up as well.

Simply put, he needs to let his 3-point attempts come to him in the flow of the offense and not take highly contested looks. Forcing shots often only makes things worse.

Dort is shooting his best in rhythm and out of sets. In fact, he’s knocked down 66.7% of 3-pointers on out of bounds plays and 40% on attempts after a timeout.

Again, when he takes good looks within the offensive scheme, good things happen.

Dort isn’t shooting bad from inside the arc, so perhaps getting to his spots in the midrange and near the rim could help open things up on the perimeter. He’s shooting 49.3% on 2-pointers this season including 58.5% from inside 3 feet, 40.0% from 10-16 feet and 50.0% from 16 feet to the arc.

Between taking shots in the flow of the offense, not attempting such deep triples and getting hot elsewhere to open up better 3-point looks, Dort can make huge strides moving forward. Furthermore, he’s naturally a better shooter than his splits would indicate today, so if nothing else he should progress to the mean in the coming weeks anyways.

There’s no need to hit panic with a ten game sample size.

Clearly the staff trusts in his ability given he’s got the green light to take nearly six triples per game, so everything should balance out. Dort was 33.8% from deep the two seasons prior to the 2022-23 campaign, which is solid.

Over the next several weeks, Dort’s 3-point efficiency and shot selection will be worth monitoring. Until he gets back to being more like himself, the Thunder offense will likely continue to struggle.