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Victor Oladipo one of the NBA's worst shooters, study says

The Magic rookie still has a long way to go to reach his potential as a scorer.

Victor Oladipo
Victor Oladipo
Andrew Fielding-USA TODAY Sports

As a follow-up to his story Wednesday highlighting the NBA's most efficient shooters, Grantland scribe Kirk Goldsberry posted Friday about the players on the other side of that spectrum according to his ShotScore metric.

And as Arron Afflalo represented the Orlando Magic in Wednesday's list of top shooters, rookie guard Victor Oladipo has the dubious honor of representing the City Beautiful in Friday's list of the worst. Per 100 shot attempts, Oladipo scores minus-18 on the ShotScore scale, according to Goldsberry. Among qualified players, only New Orleans Pelicans guard Tyreke Evans (minus-24) and Philadelphia 76ers guard Tony Wroten (minus-21) fare worse than Oladipo, the reigning Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month.

"So far this year, Oladipo is a below-average producer everywhere on the court, with one exception: He’s pretty decent near the right elbow, which is encouraging," Goldsberry says. "If he can develop that pull-up move, a lot of other things will fall into place." As Goldsberry notes in the shot chart which accompanies the Indiana product's blurb, Oladipo rarely drives to his left.

In 35 appearances for the Magic, including 17 starts, Oladipo is averaging 13.1 points, 4.4 rebounds, 3.5 assists, and 1.5 steals per game on 40.5 percent shooting from the field. In December, he said he's worked to shoot with the same form in practice as he does in game action. To date, that adjustment doesn't appear to have paid dividends.