National Basketball Association

Mo Williams and the evolving role of the volume scorer

Published Apr. 3, 2015 1:43 p.m. ET

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By Sam Quinn

For your consideration, here is a list of statistics in which the playoff periphery Charlotte Hornets trailed the projected 67-loss New York Knicks prior to the Mo Williams trade:

None of this is overwhelmingly surprising. Offenses that are built around 11th year big men with significant injury histories and 24-year-old guards who inexplicably decide to stop attacking the basket a year after making 69 percent of their shots at the rim tend not to do particularly well. But the fact remains; this Charlotte offense was not just bad in the early part of the season, it was historically inept. And then, Kemba Walker went down in late January and the team found new life.

Mo Williams should not be a savior in 2015. He is the practical antithesis of the model point guard in 2015. His three-point percentage has fallen in each of the last four seasons. He takes a whopping 8 percent of his shots at the rim. Only three point guards in all of basketball (Pablo Prigioni, Jameer Nelson, and D.J. Augustin) have created fewer points off of assists per 48 minutes than Williams has in Charlotte. But if you want mid-range jumpers? Williams is your guy. A whopping 33.6 percent of his shots are the dreaded “long two” (two-pointers beyond 16 feet). They are the bane of the analytics mafia, shots with similar relative difficulty to three-pointers without the extra point.

And yet, the Hornets are scoring almost three more points per game with Williams without a marked increase in pace factor. Their field goal percentage has increased despite Al Jefferson battling nagging knee injuries. Their three-point percentage has shot up by 3 percent and their offensive rating is creeping closer to respectability. The Hornets’ offense is still bad of course, but the infusion of Williams as a 19 points per game scorer has helped them reach a point where they can at least use their top-seven defense to remain competitive in the decidedly uncompetitive Eastern Conference.

Let’s key in on that points per game number, because without context it’s an oft-ignored number. Since joining the Hornets, Williams has been the dreaded “volume scorer,” someone who only racks up points because he takes too many shots and doesn’t play efficiently. It is why anyone remotely analytically inclined hated Rudy Gay before he turned it around in Sacramento and why the community openly wondered whether pre-injury Derrick Rose was secretly overrated. It’s an easy assumption to make with a player shooting 40.5 percent from the field and 35.5 percent from three, but it treats the idea of efficiency as if it existed in a vacuum.

Yes, Williams falls under the “volume scorer” umbrella. But the ways in which he gets those points have a tangible impact on the rest of his team. Remember how Williams takes only 8 percent of his shots at the basket? Well Kemba Walker takes over 26 percent of his shots there. That number isn’t inherently a bad thing. James Harden nearly reaches 31 percent. But Harden’s teammates are mostly three-point shooters. Of players who take at least five field goals per game, Marvin Williams leads the Hornets by making 36.6 percent of his threes. Four non-Harden Rockets top that with several others coming close, but besides Marvin Williams, only Mo Williams presents a realistic three-point threat on the Hornets. Instead, they are loaded up with close-to-the-rim players (Al Jefferson, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist) and mid-range shooters (Lance Stephenson, Gerald Henderson). There is almost no spacing on that team. That lack of offensive diversity depresses how efficiently everyone on the team can shoot. Imagine an NFL team with five Wes Welkers and you’ll get the idea. Not everyone can go to the same spots.

Williams adds diversity to the equation. He is either an average or above-average three-point shooter from every spot on the floor except the right corner (per shotanalytics.com), and is downright deadly from the left (46 percent) and right (44 percent) mid-range wings. The fact that he can make these shots is actually less important than the fact that he’s willing take them.

Williams has taken 7.4 threes per game in Charlotte, a career high by a country mile. Almost 80 percent of his shots are at least 16 feet away from the basket; that’s over 10 attempts per game. Even if the percentage of those shots he makes is lower than it would be if he were the type of point guard who attacked the basket ferociously, it wouldn’t benefit the team in the same way. How do we know that? Because Kemba Walker IS that type of point guard, and most of the Hornets have played better with Williams on the floor.

Kidd-Gilchrist’s field goal percentage is up over 3 percent since Williams joined the team. Stephenson is up 2 percent. Henderson’s three-point percentage is up nearly 5 percent, and Marvin Williams’ has jumped by over 9 percent. This all becomes possible because of the sheer amount of long shots Mo Williams is slightly above average at making. The fact that he is something of a threat, even if he’s not a great one, changes the way teams defend Charlotte. It makes it harder to pack the paint or use the defenders of poor shooters as rovers. He creates space without being a great passer, becoming the rare guard who can elevate the play of his teammates by shooting a lot of shots. He himself is not close to an efficient player, but by playing inefficiently the right way, he has created opportunities for the rest of his team to be more efficient.

This has been my argument in regards to Russell Westbrook for several years. It is one of the driving forces behind James Harden’s MVP candidacy as a player shooting less than 44 percent from the field. It is a sort of new-age tactic of maximizing a team’s scoring potential: sacrifice one player to boost the other four. It is the hidden value of Mo Williams and the reason he has been something resembling a star for the Hornets: every shot he misses is one somebody else might make later.

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