Tyler Herro has made gains on the Shot Chart Diet
Forget taking your talents to the South Beach diet, it’s all about the shot chart diet this holiday season
The Miami Heat have, by many metrics, been a mediocre team this season. They’re 10-10 and only own a +2.4 net rating because of their 41-point drubbing of the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday night. Needless to say, the Heat have been mild. Tyler Herro, on the other hand, has been extra spicy.
Through 20 games, Herro is off to the best start of his career. His 24.1 points per game, 58.9% effective field goal percentage (eFG%), and offensive box plus/minus of 4.2 are easily career bests, and he has largely kept the Heat’s offense afloat as Jimmy Butler struggled through absences and ineffectiveness to start the season. The Heat are by no means a sleeping giant, although they have the potential to be more than middling, but Herro’s breakout should give the franchise the impetus to upgrade ahead of the trade deadline.
This early in the season, there are plenty of false positives of breakoutitis. NBA players are exceptionally good at basketball (who would have thought) and more than half of the league can parlay a hot shooting stretch into a cascade of “Player-X has broken out,” “Player-Y is an All-Star,” and “Player-Z has finally lived up to my irrational optimism” takes.
Many false positives center around a player hitting a higher percentage of shots than you would expect. Fundamentally, the only change they’ve made is their shot is now falling. Sometimes, they’ve actually improved as a shooter and it sticks, but generally, their shooting regresses toward their career average, and the breakout levels out to a slight improvement. However, Herro’s breakout, while aided by improved shooting efficiency, is being powered by positive changes to his shot diet.
One of the more maddening parts of Herro’s game early in his career was his penchant for hoisting mid-range jumpers. For his career, 24.7% of his field goal attempts have come in the mid-range (10ft to 3-PT), and before this season, that figure was above 26.2%. However, Herro has almost completely eliminated mid-range jumpers from his shot diet, with middies comprising only 6.5% of his field goal attempts.
The driving force of his improved shot chart has been an explosion in 3-point volume. Herro is attempting a career-high 10.3 3-pointers, converting a career-best 42%, and the shot now accounts for 58.1% of all of his shots. Before this season, only 44.3% of his shots were threes, but the improvements don’t stop there. Herro is attempting 15.6% of his shots 0-3 feet from the basket, well above his marks from the prior two seasons, and he is taking a career-high 19.8% of his shots 3-10 feet from the basket.
Looking at Herro’s career points per shot attempt from different ranges, he hasn’t suddenly become a more lethal shooter (“I understand now”). In fact, his efficiency is almost exactly in line with where he has been throughout his career. The notable exceptions are shots 16 feet to the 3-point line, which account for 1.4% of his shots this season, and 3-pointers.
In essence, Herro trimming the fat from his shot diet– mid-range jumpers– is powering most of his breakout. While his career-best 3-point shooting seems like the obvious reason he is averaging 24.1 points per game on an eFG% of 58.9%, it’s not as overwhelmingly important as you would think. If we regress Herro’s shooting to his career averages but maintain this current season’s shot profile, we’d expect him to be averaging 23.03 points per game on an eFG% of 55.9%. Both of those figures would easily be the best of his career.
The improvements to Herro’s shot diet don’t stop there. The differentiator between most high-volume scorers is their free throw attempt rate. High shot volumes inevitably drag shooting efficiency toward the league average, but a bushel of free throws is what separates the SGAs of the world from the Ants. While Herro hasn’t suddenly become prime-James Harden, he is sporting a career-best free throw attempt rate of 0.218 compared to a career average of 0.173, which is made all the more impressive considering he has jacked up his 3-point attempt rate.
3-point attempt rate and free throw rate have an inverse correlation league-wide. The reason for this phenomenon is quite simple, you get fouled more often closer to the basket where shots are worth two. Many of the most dynamic offensive players buck that trend, and Herro doing so is an encouraging development. If we look at his free throw attempt rate in comparison to his 2-point attempt rate, we can see how much of a jump he has made in this department.
Prior to this season, Herro had averaged 0.304 free throw attempts per 2-point field goal attempt. This season, he’s averaging 0.520. So while his improvement in free throw attempt rate looks modest, when viewed in conjunction with his 3-point volume increase, it’s actually a significant improvement.
Herro’s improved shot diet isn’t as easy as deciding to take better shots. It’s hard to generate quality threes off the dribble, teams don’t just give you layups, and free throws have free in the name but are earned. His improved shot diet is a combination of skill and decision-making development. It’s important to never lose sight of the fact that it takes hour of work honing your craft to seize the low-hanging fruit on the spreadsheets.
Tyler Herro isn’t a perfect player. He’s a mediocre playmaker for a high-usage perimeter option, is targeted on defense, and somehow has an on/off net rating of -11.2 this season. That being said, the main thing is now really the main thing. Herro has always been able to score, but now he’s doing it at an All-Star level. Instead of just riding a hot shooting stretch, Herro has made real changes to the way he scores the ball. So even when regression hits, Herro has made the necessary adjustments to weather the storm and remain a highly effective scorer. That sounds like a real breakout to me.