When Heat forward Mike Miller decided to return to Memphis this off-season, many Heat fans were disappointed. It was beyond Miller’s control though, as the Heat amnestied his remaining contract to stave off increased luxury taxes, despite our reservations. But now Dwyane Wade is saying he’ll make up for the loss of Miller’s shooting from deep.
From the Miami Herald comes word that Wade is looking to increase his three-point attempts next season after shooting just 17-for-66 all of last year and attempting even less the year before.
Of adding to his game, Wade said: “The only thing left for me to do is become Mike Miller and shoot a lot of threes.” But he shot just 17 for 66 on threes last season and said he won’t decide until during the season whether to shoot more.
Over his 10-year career, Wade has only shot above 30 percent from beyond the three-point line four times, and never higher than 31.7 percent. Coversely, Mike Miller has never shot lower than 36.3 percent over his entire 13-year career, and he’s averaged better than 40 percent from beyond the arc in eight of those seasons, including last year’s 41.7 percent and a career high 48 percent with Washington in 2010.
Last season, Miller attempted close to three times as many three-pointers as Wade and still shot more than 15 percentage points better from that distance. Miller might amble down the court like a disjointed marionette, but he can stroke it from deep. Wade cannot.
What Wade can do — and does quite frequently — is take a step or two inside the arc and shoot for a relatively high percentage on long two-pointers, which are the least-efficient shots in basketball. Last season saw Wade shoot the best percentage from that range since LeBron James and Chris Bosh came aboard, per hoopdata. Perhaps the most remarkable shooting stat from Wade last season was his performance up-close. He connected on 74.7 of his shot attempts at the rim last season after having never climbed above 70 percent in his previous six years.
But Wade can’t hit from long-range, and there were times during Miami’s series against San Antonio where the Heat almost looked better without Wade on the floor. With Wade on the bench, the Heat could spread the floor with four shooters and that space opened up dribble-drive lanes for LeBron.
Wade’s overall production has fallen off as he’s taken a backseat to ‘Bron for the team to succeed, but if he’s really serious about helping the Heat next year, he should be taking a Ray Allen amount of three-point attempts each day in an effort to improve.
Is there any way Dwyane Wade dramatically improves his three-point shooting for next season?
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