I’ve noticed something weird about Andres Nocioni in the last 2 games… 

When he came here from Chicago, his reputation was that of a “knock ‘em down” three point shooter who played aggressive defense. 

In his first 23 games with the Kings last season, he averaged 13.7points, 6 rebounds 1.6 assists, .448 FG% and .441 on 3PT’s. 

This season, Nocioni came off the bench, became a starter, was relegated to the end of the bench, and has swung back and forth from 5mins/game to 24mins/game. 

His season averages are at their lowest since his rookie season: 8.9points, 3.1rebs, 1.1 assists, .402 FG% and .372 3PT’s. 

Something needed to be done and it seemed to me like Nocioni has changed his game recently to try and contribute in a different way.

 HOW?

By trying to shift from a three point shooter to a slasher/shooter.

Here are the figures:

In his 23 games with the Kings last season, 102 of his 252 shots were 3pointers. That’s a whopping 40% of all the shots Nocioni took. 

In the last 3 games, he has attempted a total of 27 shots, of which 9 were three pointers. That’s only .33% of all the shots he took. 

In fact, he has taken an average of 2.1 3pointers/game in the last 8 games, shooting 17 threes and making 9 of them (that’s about 53% from 3 point land!) More importantly, he shot just 17 threes in 48 attempts, a 35% clip. 

Contrast that to Nocioni’s 40 3point attempts in 96 shot attempts (42%) in January, his 58 3point attempts in 128 attempts (45%) in December and his 52 3point attempts in 130 tries (40%) in November. 

How successful has he been in his attempt to become a slasher?

Well, it’s been a bag of mixed results. In the Knicks game, he went 1-5 on 2pointers, while in the Toronto game, he was more respectable with 3-7 on 2pointers. In last night’s Pistons game, he was absolutely spectacular, making 5-6 2pointers. 

So, is this recent trend of slashing instead of shooting from 3 Nocioni’s new game style? We’ll see, won’t we?