Year after year, season after season, one question persists regarding Tyreke Evans’ game.
Can he develop a consistent jumper?
It’s a facet and ability that Evans has spent significant time working on in the last year. Around this time last season, the Kings’ starting shooting guard flew in shooting coach Keith Veney to help tweak his jumper. Known around league circles as the “shot doc”, Veney was confident that Evans could get his outside game back on track.
”Right now it’s about the repetition,” Veney told Cowbell Kingdom last March. “Getting his confidence back and doing the things that he did when he was a youngster. And I’ve been watching Tyreke since he was in high school and he was scoring 30 points a game back then and he could really shoot the ball.”
In the offseason, Evans received guidance from Geoff Petrie. Last June, the Kings president of basketball operations took time out of his schedule to personally work with the 23-year-old swingman on his jumper.
“The big thing now is that he continues throughout the rest of the summer and into fall camp on a fairly regular basis of maintaining and working like he did the two weeks he was here,” Petrie said of Evans following last year’s NBA Draft. ”I was really proud of him the way he came in here and applied himself. He has plans to come back here periodically over the summer and work out in various places.
“If he can maintain and keep working on the things we were working on here, I think there’ll be some really positive results there,” the Kings GM added.
Based on this season, it seems the Kings guard has taken some steps forward in the development of his jumper. But has the progress been significant and how does it compare to his previous three years?
[chartboot version= ‘2.2’ code= ‘E006’ border= ‘1’ width= ‘580’ height= ‘400’ attribution= ‘0’ jsondesc= ‘{“containerId”:”visualizationE006″,”dataTable”:{“cols”:^{“id”:””,”label”:”Year”,”pattern”:””,”type”:”string”},{“id”:””,”label”:”FG%”,”pattern”:””,”type”:”number”}|,”rows”:^{“c”:^{“v”:”2012-13″,”f”:null},{“v”:29,”f”:null}|},{“c”:^{“v”:”2011-12″,”f”:null},{“v”:26.4,”f”:null}|},{“c”:^{“v”:”2010-11″,”f”:null},{“v”:30,”f”:null}|},{“c”:^{“v”:”2009-10″,”f”:null},{“v”:30.9,”f”:null}|}|,”p”:null},”options”:{“legend”:”right”,”curveType”:””,”vAxes”:^{“title”:”Field-Goal Percentage”,”minValue”:null,”maxValue”:null,”viewWindow”:{“max”:null,”min”:null},”useFormatFromData”:true},{“viewWindow”:{“max”:null,”min”:null},”minValue”:null,”maxValue”:null,”useFormatFromData”:true}|,”animation”:{“duration”:500},”booleanRole”:”certainty”,”lineWidth”:2,”hAxis”:{“minValue”:null,”maxValue”:null,”viewWindow”:null,”viewWindowMode”:null,”useFormatFromData”:true,”title”:”Season”},”domainAxis”:{“direction”:-1},”series”:{“0”:{“color”:”#674ea7″}},”title”:”Tyreke Evans Field-Goal Percentage on Jumpers”,”titleTextStyle”:{“color”:”#000″,”fontSize”:”14″,”bold”:true}},”state”:{},”view”:{},”chartType”:”LineChart”}’ ]From year to year, the graph above charts Evans’ field-goal percentage from shots deemed jumpers according to Basketball-Reference. After a steep decline in his two seasons following his rookie year, it’s trended upward in 2012-13. [chartboot version= ‘2.2’ code= ‘2C84’ border= ‘1’ width= ‘580’ height= ‘400’ attribution= ‘0’ jsondesc= ‘{“containerId”:”visualization2C84″,”dataTable”:{“cols”:^{“id”:””,”label”:”Year”,”pattern”:””,”type”:”string”},{“id”:””,”label”:”% of FGA”,”pattern”:””,”type”:”number”}|,”rows”:^{“c”:^{“v”:”2012-13″,”f”:null},{“v”:48.3,”f”:null}|},{“c”:^{“v”:”2011-12″,”f”:null},{“v”:49.3,”f”:null}|},{“c”:^{“v”:”2010-11″,”f”:null},{“v”:61.5,”f”:null}|},{“c”:^{“v”:”2009-10″,”f”:null},{“v”:47.2,”f”:null}|}|,”p”:null},”options”:{“legend”:”right”,”curveType”:””,”vAxes”:^{“title”:”Percentage of shots attempted that were jumpers”,”minValue”:null,”maxValue”:null,”viewWindow”:{“max”:null,”min”:null},”useFormatFromData”:true},{“viewWindow”:{“max”:null,”min”:null},”minValue”:null,”maxValue”:null,”useFormatFromData”:true}|,”animation”:{“duration”:500},”booleanRole”:”certainty”,”lineWidth”:2,”hAxis”:{“minValue”:null,”maxValue”:null,”viewWindow”:null,”viewWindowMode”:null,”useFormatFromData”:true,”title”:”Season”},”domainAxis”:{“direction”:-1},”series”:{“0”:{“color”:”#674ea7″}},”title”:”Tyreke Evans Jump Shot Percentage”,”titleTextStyle”:{“color”:”#000″,”fontSize”:”16″,”bold”:true}},”state”:{},”chartType”:”LineChart”}’ ]
Based on the number of jump shots he’s taken in proportion to his field goal attempts, Evans is taking about the same percentage of jumpers this season as he did in years past. Of the 400 shots he’s attempted this year, 193 of them have been of the jump shot variety.
There are other circumstances to consider when examining the progress of his jump shot. Staying healthy is one such setback that’s stunted the growth of Evans’ jumper in his first four seasons. He battled plantar fasciitis as a sophomore and a knee injury earlier this year sidelined him for most of December.
Evans’ jump shot is getting better. It’s not yet where it should be perhaps at this point in his career, but his past hesitance and tentativeness is slowly being replaced with more confidence and self-assurance.
Statistical support provided by Basketball-Reference.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
