Immanuel Quickley hasn’t quite looked the same since joining the Toronto Raptors last month.
It’s been a strange first 20 games for Toronto’s new lead point guard. He came in as one of the league’s premiere pull-up shooters with a lethal floater game. It was that ability to be a multi-level scorer that drew the Raptors to Quickley as someone who could space the floor alongside Scottie Barnes or attack the rim out of the pick-and-roll.
But so far, Quickley’s numbers have been a little strange.
He’s shooting just 29.7% on pull-up threes with the Raptors, a steep decline from the 40.6% number he’d been at prior to the trade.
Even worse, his floater has gone from a deadly weapon to an iffy attack in Toronto.
Before the trade, Quickley was shooting 63.8% on floaters this year, a jump from 49.3% last season in a much bigger sample size. So far with the Raptors, that number has fallen to 42.3%. For context, he ranks 18th among the 25 guards who have attempted at least 20 shots from five to eight feet away from the hoop since the start of the New Year.
Part of Quickley’s falloff may just be the time it’s taken him to adjust to Toronto’s offensive systems and get acclimated to new teammates. Jakob Poelt’s ankle injury cost him precious time developing chemistry with Toronto’s primary center.
“There are reads where the floater is best available shot and I think that floater allows some other things to open up,” Raptors coach Darko Rajaković said. “When he’s shooting the floater, a lot of times the big is the one that’s coming to contest shots which is opening up a lane for (the) roller to roll to the rim, maybe for a late drop-off, also it helps with offensive rebounding.”
But Toronto also needs more from Quickley. When it’s on, the floater is a good shot, but getting all the way to the rim should be even more effective.
“You cannot just rely on that (floater) shot,” Rajaković added. “It’s definitely something we talk about for the next layer of him in player development is the ability to get all the way to the rim and be able to score, being able to play through a lot of contact, and being able to finish.”
An offseason developing within Toronto’s programs should help with that. The Raptors have already begun putting together a developmental plan for Quickley’s offseason and the hope is he can improve his attacking inside. If he does, it’ll be a lot easier to see why Toronto was so enthralled with Quickley as the long-term fit next to Barnes moving forward.
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