What Could Go Wrong
Shelvin Mack’s statistical profile is not going to impress anyone. He will score somewhere near six or seven points per game, grab a few assists per game and play defense. That is more or less his role. He is a game manager for others, providing a threat from the perimeter and some driving against favorable matchups. Once he gives the ball up, Mack is a cog in the machine.
The issue with Mack is that some of those things he has a reputation for, he does not exactly provide. Specifically with his shooting.
Mack is not a knock-down 3-point shooter. He is not a typical floor spreader, and not like D.J. Augustin is, at least by reputation.
Last year, Mack shot 30.8 percent from beyond the arc. He is a 32.1 percent 3-point shooter. That is not exactly the profile of a floor spacer. And perhaps, like so many of the Magic’s other supposed shooters last year, shooting percentages can drop without proper spacing. The second unit will likely feature a shooter in Arron Afflalo, but Jonathon Simmons and Jonathan Isaac do not exactly have shooting reputations yet.
Mack makes up for this poor 3-point shooting with a really strong mid-range game. Despite shooting 30.8 percent from three last year, Mack shot 51.0 percent on 2-point shots on 4.7 attempts per game. He can take a dribble into the lane and set up his own shot. Is that enough to spread the floor?
Orlando Magic
On top of all this, Mack has a reputation as a solid defender. But the numbers do not necessarily support this.
For his career, he has a negative defensive box plus-minus. And last year, even on the defensive-minded Jazz, the team had a 104.8 defensive rating with Mack on the floor and a 101.8 defensive rating with him off the floor. That may be because he did not play many minutes with Rudy Gobert. There are a lot of extenuating circumstances to this number.
But there is plenty of data and plenty of signals Mack does not live up to his reputation.
Going to a new situation, especially one without some of the infrastructure and success the Jazz have already experienced, could put Mack in the spotlight again. It might lead to his stats regressing some.
Then again, his play is not really about his numbers. But more about how he helps others work.