Memphis Grizzlies: The Addition of Shelvin Mack Provides Stability

Weaknesses

Shelvin Mack has had some issues offensively throughout his career. We start there as we discuss three weaknesses in his game.

Free-Throw Shooting

Shelvin Mack hasn’t shot a lot of free throws over the past two seasons but nonetheless, it’s an area you’d like to see him improve in. He did improve to 71.1% after shooting just 68.8% the year before.

That’s not a terrible number but you’d like your main guard players to be shooting a higher percentage. If he can get that up to 75% next season that would be good enough with the other really good free-throw shooters they have on the team.

Mack has had better years shooting from the line. He shot over 80% in 2013-14 and 2014-15 with the Hawks. He has shown he can do it. If he gets to the line at a consistent rate we will hopefully see the percentage rise.

Three-Point Shooting

Mack isn’t a terrible shooter from deep but he is just a 32.6% three-point shooter in his career. That is well below the league average today.

He has shown he can hit an open look, he just doesn’t seem to be a guy you can rely on to hit shots for you on a consistent basis. He did shoot 34.5% from deep last season. If he can continue to improve on that number he three-point shooting will no longer be a weakness.

Guards in today’s game have to be able to knock down shots. If Mack struggles to do so his role in Memphis could be limited as it has been throughout his career.

Speed:

This doesn’t mean that Mack is a slow player by any means. It just means that he can struggle to defend some of the quicker players. He can get to them physically but he just isn’t quick enough to keep up with some guys.

He can get going in the open floor for sure still but it’s more than that. His lateral quickness isn’t as good as some other NBA guards.

You can still trust him to get up and down the floor fine. If he has to guard a quick, shorter guard for an extended period of time, he may struggle.