Dwyane Wade was unbelievable during the postseason. So many of us seem to have written him off in the post-LeBron James era, but he nearly had the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference finals. Had the Heat not been missing their two best big men Hassan Whiteside and Chris Bosh, we'd have narratives for days before the Cleveland Cavaliers enter the NBA Finals.
Part of Wade's incredible postseason run is that all of a sudden he started hitting 3-pointers. It's not an exaggeration when someone says Wade is one of the worst 3-point shooters we've ever seen. He's taken 1,357 3-pointers in his career and has made just 28.4 percent of them. The best he's ever shot from distance in a season is 31.7 percent (league average is usually around 35 percent). Prior to this postseason, Wade was 32.6 percent from 3-point range in his playoff career.
Then he went 12-of-23 over the course of 14 games against the Charlotte Hornets and Toronto Raptors. Now with this sudden improvement in 3-point shooting, Heat president Pat Riley thinks Wade is at a place where he can be not just an average 3-point shooter but somewhere in the 38-40 percent range moving forward thanks to Erik Spoelstra's program. From the Miami Herald:
"The threes I saw him make, every time he lifted and released, I said, 'This has got a chance,'" Riley said. "And the ones before, when he was jacking them up, they had no chance. He is going to need that a little bit, too, next year.
"Maybe he could become a 40 percent, 38 percent three-point shooter. I wouldn't give him an open look. Once he went to work with the coaches on it, that shot, if he had to take it, was normal. That would be a big added part of his game next year because nobody ever thinks he can do that.
"When you work in a program like (Spoelstra) has for our three-point shooters, if you did it for 20 minutes a day, you are going to improve. He has a release point and he has a shot that will allow him to move at least two or three feet back without throwing the ball out there.
On the surface, this sounds insane. Only nine players in NBA history have taken more than 1,000 3-pointers while hitting lower than 30 percent over their careers. Only Charles Barkley has a lower percentage (26.6 percent) than Wade does. Is Riley overreacting to a very small sample of success from Wade during this postseason? Possibly. The gold standard for the "Hey, this guy could become a good 3-point shooter" suggestion is Jason Kidd. Kidd had early success from the 3-point line in his career because the league moved the line in during his first three seasons. After that, Kidd struggled from beyond the arc.
Over his first 13 seasons in the NBA (as long as Wade has played), Kidd shot 33.3 percent from downtown. That's almost light years ahead of what Wade has been able to do. But following Kidd's return to Dallas, the future Hall of Fame point guard made 37.8 percent of his 3-pointers over the final six seasons. And it's not like he was shooting just a couple every week. He almost took 2,000 3-pointers during those final six seasons. So how does Wade replicate that kind of unlikely improvement?
Riley mentions Wade's release point and shooting motion allowing him to move back a couple of feet. It's a little tough to buy that considering he's been historically anemic from behind the 3-point line. It looks like he's more comfortable shooting the mid-range jumper (38.9 percent for his career) because that's the comfort zone of his release. When he shoots a 3-pointer, it's often flat, and that was the difference during the postseason. His jumper had much more arc than it normally would.
The good news for Wade moving forward is it will probably take a long time for defenders to respect his 3-point shot. If he's going to shoot more of them (he's taken 300 total over the past five seasons), he'll likely have more room to get the shot off with the defense living with those attempts. If Wade is able to add that to his arsenal, it will only add to his longevity and effectiveness. He just has a lot to improve upon before he's even a decent 3-point shooter and 23 attempts isn't going to convince anybody outside of Miami that this is actually a thing.
