How Buddy Hield became the NBA's newest sniper
There’s a wild phenomenon going on in Sacramento right now: Every player is performing much better when coming off the bench. Willie Cauley-Stein has seen his scoring and rebounding averages jump from 7.5 points and 5.2 rebounds to 15.9 and 7.3 when moving from the starting lineup to the bench. Bogdan Bogdanovic has seen a similar trend, averaging a 10 points off the bench versus 9.5 in starts. Rookie De’Aaron Fox is scoring 11.6 points per game off the bench versus 8.4 in starts.
The Kings have trotted out a plethora of different starting lineups as coach Dave Joerger is still trying to figure out rotations more than a quarter of the way through the season. The constant change has led to players jumping in and out of the starting lineup. The inconsistency has hurt any chemistry that the team could have coming out to begin games. The Kings' starters score a league-worst 46.5 points per game, which is markedly worse than Memphis, who is 29th in this category. The bench, however, is averaging a league-best 49.7 points per game — and Buddy Hield could be the biggest reason why.
The starter vs. off-the-bench splits couldn’t be more pronounced than they are with Hield. His three-point scoring jump from 10.3 to 13.4 per night isn’t huge, but it’s more so how he’s doing it. There isn’t a better way to put this: Hield is shooting the living hell out of the ball when he comes off the bench. Since moving out of the starting lineup, Hield is shooting nearly 15 percent better from the field and almost 35 percent better from three and is on the verge of shooting 50/60/90 since becoming the Kings’ sixth man.
It’s not just his shooting. Hield is rebounding at a better rate, creating for others at a better rate and creating more turnovers on the defensive end. His turnovers have jumped up, but that’s natural with the increased responsibility of leading the second unit. Hield’s offensive rating has jumped from 87 to 109, and his net rating has jumped from -19.3 to -1.5 (the Kings are still terrible).
The biggest change that has led to Hield’s resurgence has been the cut-down on the number of pull-up jumpers he’s taking and a huge increase on the number of catch-and-shoot opportunities. Hield looks much more comfortable running off screens and finding the open space within the flow of the offense to get his shot off. During the first seven games of the season, only 26 percent of his shot attempts were of the catch-and-shoot variety, and he was only making them at a 25 percent clip. Since the move to the bench, the frequency has been nearly 33 percent of his attempts, and he’s making 76 percent of those shots, 72 percent from three, which comes out to an eFG% of 102 percent.
To put that in perspective, the best at knocking down catch-and-shoot opportunities rarely even reach an eFG% greater than 70. Kyle Korver and Jeff Teague have both reached an eFG% of 72, while shooters like Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and J.J. Redick have never seen an eFG% north of 69. What Hield has been doing for Sacramento off the bench is unprecedented and otherworldly.
Take a look at his impressive 27-point performance against the Clippers that saw him knock down seven threes and score 16 in the fourth quarter. What you’ll notice in these clips, which have been consistent since his move to the bench, is his ability to become an easy target to find for his teammates. On the fast break, he runs the wing well, and after seeing the Clippers collapse to the paint, he finds a cozy spot in the short corner for an open three. On a Cauley-Stein post-up, as his man slides down to double on the block, he calmly shifts from the top of the perimeter to the wing for an easy kick-out. The game is much easier for shooters when the shots are this wide-open, but the best shooters find ways to make these passes easier for the other four players on the court.
As the game progresses, you can see his confidence rising. Check the knockdown floater off the curl, the deep three off the dribble, the catch-and-shoot in traffic off a pindown. None of these are easy shots, but Hield has become so comfortable in his role as a shooter that the same things he struggled with to begin the season are what are driving the success of the Kings’ bench unit.
There’s no telling whether Joerger will eventually move Hield back into the starting lineup, and if so there’s no telling whether that means a regression. There’s also no telling whether Hield will regress regardless of role. But right now, no one in the NBA is shooting better than Buddy, which is exactly what Vivek Ranadivé envisioned when trading DeMarcus Cousins for him last season.
The Kings will finish toward the bottom of the Western Conference for another season so Sixth Man of the Year voting won’t be kind to one of the most prolific shooting performances we’ve seen, but Hield is making the Kings worth watching — and that might be even more impressive than the shooting.
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