When I met Rodney Hood at the NBA Draft after he was selected by the Utah Jazz I was floored by his sincerity and fearlessness. He recounted a story of his past, and explained how he felt and how he fit within the greater continuum of basketball. He's a smart guy. He's also a shooter. One thing that he's not is day-to-day reliable right now. I know, I'm the bad guy here -- even the Utah Jazz go out there and add a section called "Reliable Rodney" in their press notes for each game.
But I don't see that at all. I see him being the guy we saw in Las Vegas years ago. He's super streaky. One game he'll take good shots that fall some of the time. The next game he'll take bad shots that don't fall. The next game he'll take good shots that don't fall. And then the game after that every single shot will fall. Hood is highly volatile (Wayback machine to 2012: SB Nation's Tom Ziller on Scoring Volatility, AllThatAmar on Jazz Scoring Volatility). If you go beyond just PPG / (PPG STDEV) and look across the offensive scoring board you get this:
M | S | Time | M | A | FG% | M | A | 3PT% | M | A | FT% | PTS | PPS | MPS | |||||
1 | 29 | 25 | 29.42 | 6 | 15 | 40.00% | 0 | 7 | 0.00% | 0 | 0 | -- | 12 | 0.80 | 1.96 | ||||
2 | 22 | 37 | 22.62 | 6 | 14 | 42.86% | 3 | 6 | 50.00% | 2 | 2 | 100.00% | 17 | 1.21 | 1.62 | ||||
3 | 28 | 43 | 28.72 | 8 | 13 | 61.54% | 1 | 3 | 33.33% | 0 | 0 | -- | 17 | 1.31 | 2.21 | ||||
4 | 23 | 9 | 23.15 | 4 | 10 | 40.00% | 0 | 3 | 0.00% | 2 | 2 | 100.00% | 10 | 1.00 | 2.32 | ||||
5 | 22 | 47 | 22.78 | 3 | 7 | 42.86% | 2 | 5 | 40.00% | 0 | 0 | -- | 8 | 1.14 | 3.25 | ||||
6 | 30 | 54 | 30.90 | 2 | 5 | 40.00% | 1 | 3 | 33.33% | 2 | 2 | 100.00% | 7 | 1.40 | 6.18 | ||||
7 | 29 | 43 | 29.72 | 4 | 10 | 40.00% | 2 | 7 | 28.57% | 6 | 6 | 100.00% | 16 | 1.60 | 2.97 | ||||
8 | 38 | 26 | 38.43 | 4 | 14 | 28.57% | 1 | 5 | 20.00% | 1 | 2 | 50.00% | 10 | 0.71 | 2.75 | ||||
9 | |||||||||||||||||||
10 | 36 | 46 | 36.77 | 8 | 17 | 47.06% | 4 | 9 | 44.44% | 0 | 0 | -- | 20 | 1.18 | 2.16 | ||||
11 | 34 | 35 | 34.58 | 5 | 10 | 50.00% | 2 | 4 | 50.00% | 4 | 4 | 100.00% | 16 | 1.60 | 3.46 | ||||
12 | 36 | 3 | 36.05 | 5 | 14 | 35.71% | 0 | 4 | 0.00% | 3 | 4 | 75.00% | 13 | 0.93 | 2.58 | ||||
13 | 20 | 26 | 20.43 | 3 | 6 | 50.00% | 0 | 2 | 0.00% | 3 | 5 | 60.00% | 9 | 1.50 | 3.41 | ||||
14 | 30 | 36 | 30.60 | 4 | 6 | 66.67% | 0 | 0 | -- | 5 | 6 | 83.33% | 13 | 2.17 | 5.10 | ||||
15 | 33 | 30 | 33.50 | 5 | 15 | 33.33% | 2 | 5 | 40.00% | 4 | 4 | 100.00% | 16 | 1.07 | 2.23 | ||||
16 | 34 | 20 | 34.33 | 4 | 12 | 33.33% | 2 | 7 | 28.57% | 2 | 2 | 100.00% | 12 | 1.00 | 2.86 | ||||
17 | 24 | 50 | 24.83 | 1 | 8 | 12.50% | 1 | 5 | 20.00% | 0 | 0 | -- | 3 | 0.38 | 3.10 | ||||
18 | 20 | 43 | 20.72 | 2 | 5 | 40.00% | 0 | 1 | 0.00% | 2 | 2 | 100.00% | 6 | 1.20 | 4.14 | ||||
19 | 33 | 56 | 33.93 | 6 | 12 | 50.00% | 5 | 8 | 62.50% | 0 | 0 | -- | 17 | 1.42 | 2.83 | ||||
20 | 29 | 3 | 29.05 | 2 | 7 | 28.57% | 0 | 4 | 0.00% | 1 | 1 | 100.00% | 5 | 0.71 | 4.15 | ||||
21 | 33 | 15 | 33.25 | 4 | 12 | 33.33% | 1 | 6 | 16.67% | 0 | 0 | -- | 9 | 0.75 | 2.77 | ||||
22 | 37 | 36 | 37.60 | 8 | 17 | 47.06% | 4 | 9 | 44.44% | 3 | 4 | 75.00% | 23 | 1.35 | 2.21 | ||||
23 | 23 | 13 | 23.22 | 2 | 8 | 25.00% | 0 | 2 | 0.00% | 0 | 0 | -- | 4 | 0.50 | 2.90 | ||||
24 | 20 | 40 | 20.67 | 4 | 5 | 80.00% | 1 | 1 | 100.00% | 0 | 0 | -- | 9 | 1.80 | 4.13 | ||||
25 | 32 | 43 | 32.72 | 4 | 10 | 40.00% | 1 | 5 | 20.00% | 3 | 4 | 75.00% | 12 | 1.20 | 3.27 | ||||
TOTAL | 695 | 779 | 707.98 | 104 | 252 | 33 | 111 | 43 | 50 | 284 | |||||||||
AVG | 29.50 | 4.33 | 10.50 | 41.27% | 1.38 | 4.63 | 29.73% | 1.79 | 2.08 | 86.00% | 11.83 | 1.13 | 2.81 | ||||||
STDEV | 5.85 | 1.95 | 3.87 | 13.97% | 1.44 | 2.48 | 25.25% | 1.79 | 2.06 | 17.01% | 5.17 | 0.42 | 1.04 | ||||||
VOL | 19.82% | 44.97% | 36.83% | 33.85% | 104.65% | 53.65% | 84.94% | 100.09% | 99.00% | 19.78% | 43.71% | 36.89% | 37.14% |
Yeah. He's kind of all over the place. The most stable thing is his minutes per game (29.50 mpg average +/- 5.85). One of the LEAST reliable things about him right now is his three point shooting. He is shooting 29.73 3PT% this season, with a standard deviation of +/- 25.25%. So, that's a STDEV that's almost as large as the 3PT% value to begin with. He's reliable in playing and shooting, and thus he'll get his 10+ ppg. But how he gets it is not reliable right now.
It got me thinking -- what other players in the modern era had the green light to shoot at least 10 times a game while shooting .42 FG% or less, and shooting at least 4 threes a game while shooting .30 3PT% or less. As always, Basketball-Reference had the answer. Besides Rodney this season, historically we've seen the following guards do the same:
- Allen Iverson (three times)
- Gilbert Arenas, Kobe Bryant, and Jason Williams (twice)
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Michael Adams, Mookie Blaylock, Vander Blue, Jordan Crawford, Monta Ellis, Lester Hudson, Vernon Maxwell, O.J. Mayo, Tracy McGrady, Paul Pierce, Quentin Richardson, Derrick Rose, Latrell Sprewell, Jerry Stackhouse, John Starks, Damon Stoudamire, and Tony Wroten (once)
So these are all players who had stable minutes and a green light each game they played. They were not always reliable with their shot (of course they were not, they shot worse than .420 / .300 for an NBA season), but they were if nothing else, relentless with their shot.
A shooter's gotta keep shooting. That's one of the big things about the shooter's mentality. And Rodney Hood is a shooter. He's not a maker right now, but with a streaky guy like Rodney he needs to keep shooting. He has scored 16 points or more in eight of 24 games. That's one in three he goes off. That's not great for a starting shooting guard. But the historical group of cohorts he is a part of tell me that maybe that's just the way it is for some guards during parts of their careers.