5 things analytics say about Monte Morris’ game

It has been over a month since the Wizards traded for Monte Morris and, like all transactions, the initial narratives were quickly established. The Wizards hope he can solve their starting point guard position, he’s reuniting with head coach Wes Unseld Jr., etc.

But now that the dust has settled, let’s take a deeper dive to learn more about Morris’ game and what to expect when he takes the floor in red, white and blue… and at some point blue and bronze.

Great at protecting the ball

The No. 1 thing to know about Morris’ game is probably his ability to limit turnovers. Will Barton, who played with Morris in Denver and came to Washington in the same trade, mentioned it when asked to describe Morris as a player during his introductory media availability. It also shows up in the numbers, as Morris was 5th among all qualified players last season in assist-to-turnover ratio (4.27).

In fact, Delon Wright, who is slated to back him up at point, was right behind him in 6th (4.18). Based on that, the Wizards should be able to count limiting turnovers as a collective strength for their point guard rotation, at least when either of those two is on the floor. 

Very efficient off screens

The Wizards ran a ton of off-screen plays last season in the first year under Unseld Jr. — 9th-most in the NBA per Synergy (7th-highest percentage of offense) — but they were 22nd in efficiency on those actions (0.89 points per possession). Morris should help that cause, as he was 8th in efficiency off screens (1.33 PPP), ranking in the 95th percentile. 

For comparison, the only Wizards player who ranked in the top 95 among NBA players in efficiency off screens was Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and he’s now gone. Deni Avdija was next, ranking 96th at 0.87 PPP and in the 32.4 percentile. If Unseld Jr. wants to stick to using a lot of screens, Morris could move them towards counting it a strength. He was also top-50 in efficiency on spot-ups, handoffs and cuts, shooting a sky-high 78.8% on cutting layups.

Long range shooter

One of the biggest selling points for Morris is his 3-point shooting, as he shot 39.5% from deep last season on 4.2 attempts per game. No one on the Wizards shot threes at a higher clip last season on more than 3.0 attempts per game. The Wizards also made the fewest threes of any team in the league. Having a 3-point threat at point guard alongside Bradley Beal could be beneficial for many reasons.

Morris doesn’t just knock them down hugging the 3-point line, either. He shot a higher percentage (41.5%) on attempts from 25 feet or further out. He has also shown a knack for making them off-the-dribble, hitting 38.2% of those shots in 2020-21. The Wizards were 26th in the NBA last season with a 30.2 3-point percentage on pull-up plays. Of all the 3-point shots Morris made last year, however, 93.5% of them were assisted. That was a product of him playing in a unique offense where the Nuggets’ center, Nikola Jokic, operated as the primary facilitator.

Defensive analytics like him

Defensive adjusted real plus-minus, at least as calculated by ESPN, reflects very well on Morris. He was way in the positive last year at 5.89, 9th-best among all NBA players and best at the point guard position. While Morris brings some questions about his defense to a team with questions about its defense, this one metric suggests he’s quite good on that end of the floor. Whether he can carry that over in a new defensive structure without Jokic behind him, however, remains to be seen.

The defensive analytics are worth noting, but if we’re going to cite the stat, we need to include the fact that the offensive end told a much different story. Morris was 74th among all NBA point guards in offensive real plus-minus, meaning he rated as a third-string player in this particular category. That stat itself is debatable in its usefulness as it is ultimately an estimate of value, but the Wizards do pay attention to real plus-minus, as team president Tommy Sheppard has noted in the past.

Balanced shot profile

Morris’ shot selection is fairly evenly spread out between around the rim, in the midrange and from deep. According to Basketball Reference, he shot 40.6% of his attempts last season from three and 59.6% of his attempts inside the arc. That broke down to 15.5% of his shots within three feet, 13.7% from 3-to-10 feet, 13.2% from 10-to-16 feet and 16.9% from 16 feet to the 3-point line. Beal, Caldwell-Pope and Rui Hachimura were the only Wizards players last season to shoot at least 10% of their attempts from each range.

There are some quirks to Morris’ shot profile worth mentioning. For one, he shot a nearly identical volume from both corners last season, yet he made 49.1% from the left corner and just 28.8% from the right. Also, he didn’t dunk a single time and has only dunked four times in five seasons. That may be a result of him being 6-foot-2 and not particularly tall in terms of NBA players, but also he may opt for layups to save his legs, which is not an uncommon strategy for players his size. He happens to be really good in the lane, making 62.1% of his shots within 10 feet last season.