Somehow he's now at a Ted Williams-esque .406 from 3 on the season.
Early in the season when he was mired in possibly the worst slump of his career, I expected (hoped?) he would regress to his established 40-44% mean, but didn’t actually think he could shoot at the **near-50% rate over three months** that it would require to lift three months’ worth of depressing 33% three-point shooting up to 40% for the season. Welp, oh me of little faith.
Klay 3FG% by month
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Oct .313
Nov .366
Dec .337
Jan .475
Feb .467
Mar .818 (lolz)
On a related note: it always amazes me how mediocrely Klay rates by advanced stats compared to the day-to-day eye test and league-wide respect. Like, by advanced stats, Jimmy Butler perennially kicks his ass (by RPM they rate #1 and 24 among NBA shooting guards, respectively), but is there a single GM in the NBA who would take Butler over Klay?
It's interesting. On paper Butler looks like a really good player; he plays hard on both ends, has improved his three point shooting over the years, gets to the line a lot, can do some playmaking, etc. However, I think his problem is that to unlock all those aspects of his game, he needs to have the ball in his hands and be the focal point of the offense. I don't know how good of a team you can have when Jimmy Butler is commanding your offense as the primary creator. In Philly he hasn't been bad, but he isn't the same player that he was in Chicago and Minnesota, because the 76ers have better options.
Klay is the opposite, while playing in Golden State certainly is a bonus for him, I imagine that if you dropped him into any other situation he would be the exact same player. That is really his brilliance; he's the absolute perfect third-banana on a legendary team. The guy he reminds me of is Robert Parish, which is funny because their respective style of plays is so different. However they had the same role on their teams; they do a few things remarkably well, play hard, never rock the boat and ultimately gain the respect and admiration of everyone involved.
So much of the NBA is determined now on
fit and how everyone is going to play together, which makes Klay such an interesting prospective free agent. Klay can fit in on any NBA team and do well. If I had to absolutely avoid staying out of the lottery and I needed to build my team around Klay or Jimmy Butler, I would probably pick Butler because he has so many different skills. However, if I was trying to put together an actually good team that could contend, I'd pick Klay as a cornerstone well ahead of Butler.