Joseph Reading: God Mode

[kucoach7]

One story line from this past season that only I cared about was the wide margin by which Joseph Reading won the field goal percentage title. His field goal percentage was .037 higher than that of the player in second place, Erik Haynes. In other words, the gap between first and second place was the same as the gap between second place and 11th place. As usual, this got me wondering how rare this achievement was, which inspired an article.

The Achievement

Joseph Reading shot an absurd 63.4% from the field. He did this by shooting 71.4% on 6.2 inside shots per game and 41.5% on 2.3 jump shots per game. This amounted to a very respectable 1.49 points per shot on 530 attempted field goals over the course of 63 games for the Portland Trail Blazers. He was crucial to the Blazers this year as they went 33-30 with Reading on the court and an abysmal 4-15 during his time on the IR. His plus/minus of 2.7 points per game actually led the team, beating out All-league and All-defense selection, Ronald Small. He did all this in only his second year on the league.

How rare is it?

So is this actually impressive? To determine this I started just looking at the League Leaders page on all of the past seasons. The initial results were conclusive, this is very impressive and very rare. So I went to my database of every player’s stats from every season and discovered that Reading is only the second qualifying player to ever post a field goal percentage over 63%. The other player was Amare Stoudamire, who posted field goal percentages of 63.9 and 65.1(!) in 2010 and 2013 respectively. In fact only one player other than Reading and Stoudamire has ever posted a qualifying field goal percentage over 62% and that was the destroyer of worlds himself, Anthony Davis, in 2017. Well, you say, what does “qualifying” really mean anyway? I don’t know what the game’s actual qualifications are but I do know this, no other players have ever posted field goal percentages over 62% and attempted more than 100 shots and Reading attempted over 500. In other words, Reading didn’t just barely qualify, he emphatically joined this rare elite group. Moreover, the other guys did this in their primes, Joseph Reading is 23 years old and just finished his second year in the league.

How can he do such things?

Why is Joseph Reading so good at dunking on people? There are essentially four reasons. First and foremost (and the reason I was most excited to trade for him) is that he is 7’2”. Everyone that supported editing the height file can expect a thank you card in the mail. In my previous article “Height Matters” I showed that increased height is associated with improved scoring and you can’t teach (or train) height so this guy has a real advantage here. Second, he combines this height with a respectable 52 in jumping, which is quite good for a 270 pound seven-footer so if the height advantage isn’t enough, he can probably jump over you. Third, he also has a 100 in strength so he can play bully ball in the post and just move smaller, weaker dudes out of his way. Fourth and finally, he has a 70 rating for inside scoring, which ranks in the top quarter or so of the league. There is an additional reason why Reading’s shooting percentage is so high that has nothing to do with his post scoring abilities, he has a zero in three point shooting rating. This is an underestimated attribute. Because he has a zero, he has never attempted a single three pointer in his career. A low but not zero score in three point shooting leads to a few low percentage shots but a zero is a thing of beauty.

What can we expect in the future?

The big question after all this boasting is can he repeat it? There are a few things to consider. First, Reading has A potential inside, meaning he has at least 10 points of room to grow there. Based on his blue potential and limited room for growth in other areas (he had blue potential before I trained blocking) I expect (okay, well, hope), that he actually has more on the order of 20 points room to grow in inside scoring. That would seem to spell uh-oh for the rest of the league but there are a few reasons to expect his efficiency to drop. Most importantly, Reading shot an absurd 41.5% on jump shots this season. He has 23 rating for jump shots with D potential so the 31.9% from his rookie season seems much more realistic moving forward. He may have just been super lucky this season. Another issue is usage. With such an efficient weapon on their team, the Blazers are likely to use it more often, even with other great scoring options on the squad. The Blazers initially listed Reading as key player but his efficiency was terrible to start the season so they removed him as a key player. If he can’t be efficient at higher volumes, his dominance down low may not end up mattering all that much. The final issue is foul trouble. Presumably the Blazers will want to train his foul rating so he can play more than 27.8 minutes a game (they probably should have done that this year…). As he plays more and shoots more, it is likely his efficiency will fall off. The other big question about Reading is his defense. He will need to be a better shot blocker if he is going to be a difference maker on that end and the Blazers have already taken steps in that direction. He is also underachieving in rebounding. A seven footer with his athleticism should be snagging more boards, even with modest attribute ratings. Whether the Blazers can scrounge up enough points to train his blocking, post defense, and/or rebounding and turn him into an elite two way player is a serious point of concern.

Joe Reading looks like he will be able to become everything the Blazers wanted him to be when they traded for him and passed on drafting Udoka Azubuike (who will also be great, we just already had Reading). Here’s to hoping that his growth in training camp will allow him to remain ultra efficient while still ramping up his usage.

[Darth Vegito]

Points czar awrds you 5 points! 1080 words