When the Globe asked Doc Rivers about Shelden Williams’ possible role on the team, the coach reportedly said the following:
“Very similar to Baby’s role – terrific 15-foot shooter, can pop, he’s strong, can really rebound. That’s his role.”
Sorry, Doc. You lost me at “terrific 15-foot shooter.” Unless he’s improved dramatically, Shelden Williams is, to put it very kindly, NOT a terrific 15-shoot shooter. Statistically, he’s actually the opposite of a terrific 15-foot shooter. As I wrote here, Shelden has never shot higher than 34.6 percent on jump shots during any of stints with Atlanta, Sacramento or Minnesota. You can check the 82games.com links yourselves: See here, here, here, here and here.
Again, maybe Shelden has been working his butt off to become a better jump-shooter. It’s possible. We saw it with Big Baby last season. It’s a lot of work and it involves a lot of in-game bricks, but it’s possible.
And I like Shelden Williams. He seems like a nice guy. He Tweets about his wife (I think you know who she is), their dogs, their house, his daily issues—basically, the same crap you and I deal with, except Kevin Garnett yells at him during the day. I’m rooting for Shelden to be a contributor this season, and I think he will be. But not as a jump-shooter.
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If you can’t hit 40% of your wide open 15 footers, you’re not a “terrific” shooter… that includes you Big Baby (.369 last season).