One of the things most painful about Mikki Moore's exhibition season to date has been his inability to finish around the rim. (He robbed Quincy Douby of a smooth assist last night with a blown layup; he missed one other shot under the rim as well.)
Is this a problem Moore's had in the past, or is it fluky? (And just to put this in perspective, he's missed four very close shots in about eight close tries.)
From 82games, here are Moore's percentages by range last season:
Shot %Att. eFG% Ast'd Blk'd Pts
Jump 42% .547 90% 2% 2.9
Close 32% .500 71% 22% 2.1
Dunk 22% .902 79% 4% 2.6
Tips 4% .500 0% 0% 0.2
(22% of close shots blocked? That seems extraordinarily high... but a full 9% of all Moore's shots were blocked. He still ended up with the best FG% in the league. Hmm.)
50% from 'close' range (which is everything within about eight feet which isn't a dunk or tip) is not very good. For comparison, here's Shareef Abdur-Rahim last year:
Shot %Att. eFG% Ast'd Blk'd Pts
Jump 52% .378 65% 10% 3.2
Close 34% .522 38% 14% 2.9
Dunk 10% .908 71% 6% 1.5
Tips 4% .286 0% 0% 0.2
Slightly better despite a far lower percentage of them coming off assists. How about Brad Miller, who is also known to have problems in the deep post?
Shot %Att. eFG% Ast'd Blk'd Pts
Jump 76% .406 87% 3% 4.8
Close 22% .606 52% 12% 2.1
Dunk 2% .889 75% 0% 0.3
Tips 1% .333 0% 0% 0.0
Much better -- and Miller had a down year while Moore's performance was a career high across the board.
What's this tell us? Mikki Moore's lackluster performance around the rim on offense isn't a fluke -- it's liable to be a problem all year.