The Miami Heat are having a resurgent season & Duncan Robinson has a ton to do with it. It’s due to Robinson being 1-man spacing &… the NBA’s best shooter.
The Miami Heat are in the middle of a comeback year of sorts, surpassing last season’s win total in their most recent win against the Orlando Magic. Even more impressive, they have managed to win more games in 20 fewer games while they are also on pace to finish with 14 fewer losses than last season as well.
The Miami Heat were able to make it to this point based squarely around the acquisition of Jimmy Butler this past summer. While Butler has been a beast in his own right since coming over to join the Miami Heat, one of the other real gifts of his presence is the fact that it has made those around him exponentially better.
Bam Adebayo has flourished into an All-Star, while a player like Goran Dragic has taken his offensive game to a completely different level. Rookies like Kendrick Nunn and Tyler Herro have come in and carved out substantial roles on this team as well.
One of the most influential bumps in production though has come from second-year NBA player, Duncan Robinson. He has not only come in and dramatically helped to change the dynamic of this Miami Heat offensive attack, but he has become the absolute best distance shooter in the league at the moment.
When you look at the NBA three-point shooting statistics, your top five list as far as three-pointers made to be specific, you will see James Harden, Buddy Hield, Damian Lillard, Davis Bertans, and Duncan Robinson. When you look at the list for top three-point shooting percentages, however, the list looks just a bit different or at least somewhat. It reads Duncan Robinson, George Hill, Seth Curry, JJ Redick, and Doug McDermott.
The only common name among those lists is Duncan Robinson. We also aren’t talking about a guy in Robinson who hasn’t shot a ton of shots from deep either. We are talking about a guy ranked sixth in total attempts at 505 and third in total makes at 225.
When you look for the other top five guys in made three-pointers on the three-point percentage list, you only have to get down to number nine to find Davis Bertans but he has made almost 20 percent fewer threes than Robinson has this season. After Bertans though, you have to go on quite the trek to find the next name that corresponds to each list. It reads this way: Damian Lillard ranks 38th, Buddy Hield ranks 50th, and James Harden ranks 96th.
While there may be guys that seem as though they are better, they don’t hit it at as high a clip, they don’t hit as many as he does, or they aren’t nearly as efficient and accurate. The efficiency and accuracy quip points to guys who take a ton of attempts from deep, which means that they sort of should rank high in the three-point categories but because of sheer volume, not accuracy.
So, while there may be guys that you enjoy watching take the shot more, for some reason or another such as James Harden, there isn’t a guy in the NBA right now shooting it better from deep than Robinson is. That is why he is currently the best three-point shooter in the NBA.