Nik Stauskas Has Been Really Good Lately

Nik Stauskas, despite a slow start to his career and this season, is really starting to pick things up with an improved 3-point shot.

Nik Stauskas had an awful start to his NBA career with the Sacramento Kings, and most thought right away that he was one of the biggest draft busts in recent memory. Coming into this season, “Sauce Castillo” was determined to prove his doubters wrong with a new team and a new offensive scheme, but was unable to do so for the first several months. Stauskas struggled from beyond the arc, as well as inside it, and failed to do much at all that convinced Sixers fans that the trade with the Kings over the summer truly was a steal like they thought.

Nik appeared in a podcast before this season saying that a lot of the shots he took in Sacramento were forced, and made it seem as if the Kings were trying to make him become a range shooter in the NBA like he was in college, rather than letting it occur organically. It looked like the Sixers’ system would allow him to do it organically at first, but as the months went on, he kept missing shots in transition, and was seeming to take more and more forced shots. His statistics and missed shots showed that he was struggling to find his sweet spot, and struggling to fit into the Sixers’ high-paced system. But it wasn’t all his fault. The Sixers didn’t have a guard with great court-vision to see where the best shots were located in transition until late December, when they traded for Ish Smith, a point guard who they let explore other options over the offseason.

Quickly, fans were growing to hate Sauce Castillo, since he wasn’t living up to the expectations set for him. But especially as of late, Nik has been playing some very good basketball.

Looking at his entire season stats, he’s scoring 7.6 points per game while shooting 38.2 percent from the field and 34.3 percent from the 3-point line, all improvements over last season, but nonetheless not impressive for what we would have been looking for from someone who was a range shooter in college.

Before Ish Smith came to the team, Stauskas was doing terrible, scoring just 7.0 points per game, shooting 34.5 percent from the field and 28.3 percent from beyond the arc. After Ish came, he has done much better, scoring 8.5 points, 43.3 percent from the field and 43.0 percent from beyond the arc.

That takes into account the end of December, and all of January as well, though. What we must consider is the fact that Stauskas needed a bit of time to hit his groove, and has since found a really nice rhythm in the past few weeks.

Considering just games in 2016, he’s scored 8.8 points while shooting 45 percent from the field and 45.2 percent from beyond the arc. If we look at just February games, he has scored 10.0 points per game, has shot 52.3 percent from the field, and 51.7 percent from beyond the arc, sharpshooter-type numbers for sure.

One of the most impressive parts of this is that he’s now scoring — in February — double digit points per game. But it must be considered that he’s been consistently getting more minutes in each of the discussed categories. When his scoring is looked at per 36 minutes, he’s still showing considerable improvement in the scoring realm.

Some have been quite frustrated that although Stauskas is shooting much better, he’s not really adding much more to games because his points per game, even in February, are not much higher than his points per game for the entire season. What has to be considered, though, is Stauskas is taking smarter shots, and maybe not chucking up 3-pointers that he would have before. So he may be scoring around the same amount as he was before, but smarter basketball and a wiser shot selection can promote better ball movement and less wasted possessions as a whole with the team. I have no problem with Nik scoring the same amount but shooting better. That’s showing progress and player development.

Overall, I’ve been impressed with how Stauskas has totally climbed out of the hole he found himself in last year and throughout this season. I look forward to seeing what his future in the league is, and with the Sixers.