Ranking the NBA's 5 Best and Worst Shooters This Season

As the 2022-23 NBA season winds down, it's time to take stock on who the best shooters in the league have been over the course of this campaign.

It's the game's most important skill, and proficiency at it (or lack thereof) can make or break a team's offense.

Today, we're looking at those who've had the biggest impact on both sides of that ledger, and we'll use a formula from Basketball Reference to help.

Field Goal Points Added shows "how many points each player scored above or below what a league average player would have scored given an equal number of field goal attempts."

To get the number, you take a given player's points per field-goal attempt, subtract the league-average points per field-goal attempt and multiply that answer by the number of field-goal attempts the player took.

The final answer rewards a player for both efficiency and volume, and Nikola Jokić is unsurprisingly dominating this season. The distance between his plus-236.8 and second-place Nic Claxton is about the same as the distance between second and 16th place.

But that leaderboard doesn't really answer the question at hand, since plenty of Jokić's makes have come inside 10 feet.

That'll be our somewhat arbitrary dividing line in an effort to narrow the sample just to our traditional understanding of the word "shooter."

When you apply the exercise above to all shot attempts from 10 feet and out during the 2022-23 season, you get the following top and bottom five.

Three-Pointers: 100-of-327 (30.6%)

Two-Pointers from 10+ Feet Away: 79-of-205 (38.5%)

When available, LeBron James has been phenomenal this season, particularly for a player in his age-38 season. His averages of 29.3 points, 8.4 rebounds and 6.9 assists were previously unheard of for a player in this stage of his career (a stage most don't even reach).

But his outside shooting has fallen off a cliff, as evidenced by his below-average marks from both of the ranges listed above (average on threes is 36.1, while average on twos from 10-plus feet out is 40.0). And the struggles haven't really deterred LeBron from taking those shots.

When you combined both ranges, he's 54th in total attempts, despite missing 27 games.

The fact that he's still above average on all shots taken this season, and the Los Angeles Lakers are scoring 5.5 more points per 100 possessions when he plays, is a testament to the rest of his offensive game (including all the shots he's hit within 10 feet of the hoop).

Three-Pointers: 149-of-353 (42.2%)

Two-Pointers from 10+ Feet Away: 25-of-48 (52.1%)

As you can see, Isaiah Joe hasn't dabbled much in the mid-range, which could be the key to his level of hyper-efficiency overall.

When Joe is on the floor, it's all about off-ball movement and the catch-and-shoot opportunities often created by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Josh Giddey.

As you can see, he's taking advantage of more than his share.

And, as is usually the case with shooters of this caliber, the threes and spacing Joe provides are having a real impact on the Oklahoma City Thunder's bottom line.

When he's on the floor, OKC is plus-7.1 points per 100 possessions, compared to minus-2.6 when he's off.

Three-Pointers: 61-of-207 (29.5%)

Two-Pointers from 10+ Feet Away: 51-of-161 (31.7%)

There are certainly outlier players like Kevin Durant, who's shooting 58.4 percent on the twos in question this season, but generally speaking, mid-range shots are among the game's least efficient right now.

League-wide, players are scoring 0.8 points per two-point attempt from 10 feet and out. They're just shy of 1.1 for a three-point attempt.

That's a big part of why shot charts have homogenized over the last several years, with the bulk of attempts coming at the rim or from beyond the arc.

But all that math hasn't scared Scottie Barnes away from the middle of the floor. He's 63rd in the league in total two-point attempts from 10-plus feet away. And as you can see, he's way below average from there.

That might not hurt so bad if he was making up some ground from three, but he's just not. Among the 158 players who've attempted at least as many triples, he's 153rd in three-point percentage.

Three-Pointers: 110-of-227 (48.5%)

Two-Pointers from 10+ Feet Away: 22-of-53 (41.5%)

It's only right that the league leader in three-point percentage for each of the last two seasons made his way onto the list, despite limited playing time and the sporadic role he had before joining the Memphis Grizzlies.

Luke Kennard is 226th in minutes played and 137th in three-point attempts this season, but he's undeniably a bucket from beyond 10 feet. And the efficiency has more than made up for his disadvantage in volume.

It's a product of the lefty's consistent shooting motion, readiness off the ball and willingness to let it fly when he gets his opportunities.

Like Joe, there isn't a big mid-range sample here, but he's still above average from that range too. And if given the freedom to explore his game a bit inside the arc, there's little doubt he'd hit plenty of two-point jumpers too.

Three-Pointers: 47-of-165 (28.5%)

Two-Pointers from 10+ Feet Away: 72-of-209 (34.4%)

It's a good thing for the rest of the NBA that Giannis Antetokounmpo has a weakness, because outside of jump shooting, there really isn't anything he can't do with excellence.

And, like LeBron, even with a ton of misses as a jump-shooter, Giannis is still above average overall from the field.

The trick may be getting him to pull up short of the paint, but that's been a pretty difficult task for any defense over at least the last half decade.

Three-Pointers: 134-of-295 (45.4%)

Two-Pointers from 10+ Feet Away: 7-of-24 (29.2%)

As you can see, Al Horford has stretched the moneyball concept about as far as it can go this season.

He's made 59 appearances, which means he's taken 0.4 of the subject two-pointers per game, and they represent less than 6 percent of his total shot diet.

That, of course, has something to do with his spot on this list. When you take fewer of the game's least efficient shots, your numbers are bound to look a little better. But Horford also deserves a ton of credit for how consistent he's become from the three-point line.

After shooting 33.6 percent from deep in 2021-22 (his lowest mark since 2014-15, when he only took 36 threes), Horford is up to a blistering 45.4 percent this season, a mark that trails only Kennard's.

Three-Pointers: 72-of-256 (28.1%)

Two-Pointers from 10+ Feet Away: 103-of-254 (40.6%)

As you can see, Killian Hayes is barely above average on the twos we've been talking about, but that dreadful three-point efficiency sinks him down to the second-lowest mark in the exercise.

It's pretty remarkable that Hayes has attempted more total threes than Kennard, but here we are. And that willingness to let it fly has had a real impact on the Detroit Pistons offense.

Despite Hayes being first on the team (and 14th in the league) in assist percentage, Detroit scores 4.4 fewer points per 100 possessions when he is in the game.

Three-Pointers: 271-of-643 (42.1%)

Two-Pointers from 10+ Feet Away: 47-of-113 (41.6%)

Perhaps it's because he's spent much of his career in smaller markets and has yet to make a playoff appearance, but Buddy Hield has to be among NBA history's more underrated sharpshooters.

He's making 3.6 threes per game while shooting 42.1 percent from deep this season. And his career marks of 3.1 threes with a 40.1 three-point percentage are matched or exceeded only by Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson.

For 2022-23, specifically, he's fourth in total three-point attempts and in the top 20 percent of the league for two-point attempts from 10-plus feet from the rim. His efficiency is slightly above average on the latter and way above average on the former.

That was a recipe for a huge number that just barely missed out on the top honors for this exercise.

Three-Pointers: 77-of-267 (28.8%)

Two-Pointers from 10+ Feet Away: 102-of-269 (37.9%)

Paolo Banchero is almost certainly going to win Rookie of the Year.

He's first (by a healthy margin) in the class in points per game. That's traditionally a pretty reliable indicator of who'll win the award, and the overwhelmingly-in-his-favor betting odds back that up.

But just based on the numbers, Banchero has been the worst shooter in the NBA this season. And that hasn't made him shy.

He's 23rd in the league in total two-point attempts from 10-plus feet and 109th (out of 513) in total three-point attempts. His percentage is comfortably below average on the deuces, but not cripplingly so. The real issues are the volume of twos and the three-point percentage that's over seven points shy of the league average.

In February, Banchero was an eye-popping 1-of-33 from deep, but even if you lopped that month off his totals, the season-long three-point percentage would still be 32.5.

Fortunately, the soon-to-be Rookie of the Year checks plenty of other boxes, including size, playmaking and defensive versatility. He's also only 20 years old, so there's plenty of time to develop.

But if the first, second and third items on his offseason agenda aren't finding some consistency with his jumper, someone might need to help him reevaluate.

Three-Pointers: 242-of-569 (42.5%)

Two-Pointers from 10+ Feet Away: 70-of-144 (48.6%)

I'm guessing you're not surprised to see Stephen Curry, but remember that this exercise places a pretty big emphasis on volume.

Curry missing 26 games and still finding his way to the top of this list is pretty amazing.

But again, maybe not all that surprising.

For the heck of it, I ran this same exercise for the entirety of Curry's career (2009-10 through now). And his lead over the field is absurd.

Curry's career mark for field-goal points added on shots from 10-plus feet from the hoop is plus-2,471.2. Kyle Korver is in second place on that list at plus-1,294.5.

That massive gap between first and second is about the same size as the gap between second place and 162nd.

You probably didn't need any more convincing for Curry's "greatest shooter of all time" case, but that number makes it even more obvious.

And just in case you're curious, the bottom five of that 2010-to-2023 list is LaMarcus Aldridge (minus-702.7), Dwyane Wade (minus-839.2), John Wall (minus-897.2), DeMar DeRozan (minus-1,060.0) and Russell Westbrook (minus-1,244.2).

Stats via Basketball Reference and up to date entering Tuesday's games.