Philadelphia 76ers: How good is Landry Shamet?

The Philadelphia 76ers took Landry Shamet with the 26th pick in the 2018 NBA Draft. Through 29 games, Shamet has been one of the Sixers’ best 3-point shooters players off the bench, but can he survive the playoffs?

The selection of Landry Shamet by the Philadelphia 76ers on draft night didn’t get a lot of media attention, but his play over 29 games has made him the Sixers’ most important rookie. Shamet is averaging 7.9 points, 1.3 rebounds, and 1.0 assist per game while making 38.6 percent of his shot from behind the three-point line.

Great college shooters often struggle in their first season in the NBA, so Shamet shooting 5.6 percent worse from the three-point line in the NBA than his final year at Wichita State isn’t bad. The player Shamet is supposed to replicate, J.J. Redick, made 38.8 percent of his three-pointers during his rookie season, despite making 42.1 percent of them during his final year at Duke and 41.1 percent of them over his NBA career.

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Shamet was the Sixers’ sixth-best scorer during the month of November, averaging 9.4 points per game while making 41.3 percent of his shots from behind the three-point line. Unfortunately for the Sixers, Shamet’s production has slipped this month, and his recent play explains coach Brett Brown’s decision to start Furkan Korkmaz over him in the Sixers’ 127-124 lost to the Brooklyn Nets.

While Korkmaz’s 5.2 points per game and 32.1 percent 3-point shooting for the season is worse than Shamet’s, he has been playing better than Shamet in the last five games. Korkmaz is averaging 2.2 more points per game and is making 16.7 percent more of his 3-pointers while playing 1.3 fewer minutes pre game than Shamet over the last five games.

Markelle Fultz missing time to injury not only hurt the Sixers’ chances of getting a mediocre return for him, but also hurt Shamet’s ability to be a good bench scorer. Shamet received his highest amount of playing time in a lineup with Joel Embiid, Fultz, Mike Muscala, and Redick. He played 31.09 minutes in this line and this lineup is a plus 7.1, which is only behind a lineup of Shamet, Jimmy Butler, T.J. McConnell, Muscala, and Ben Simmons, for best lineup featuring Shamet.

Shamet isn’t ready to be the Sixers’ seventh or eighth best player, and has been struggling to adjust to the new defensive attention he gets from the opposing team viewing him as the Sixers’ biggest three-point threat coming off the bench.

Even before former Sixer Robert Covington turned himself into a great defensive player, Covington could put up his best stats while being the only player capable of making a three-pointer in the lineup, and the same can’t be said for Shamet.

Hopefully Shamet has hit a rookie wall that he’ll climb over before the playoffs, because the Sixers will need the November version of him to make it past the second round of the playoffs.