Hawks player preview: Luke Babbitt

The Hawks are set to begin training camp on Sept. 26. Starting today, I'll be previewing one player each day leading up to camp (in alphabetical order).

Luke Babbitt

Position: PF/SF

Height/Weight: 6-9, 225

Age: 28 (6/20/89)

2017-18 salary: $1.97 million

CARMELO projected value: $2.7 million

How acquired: 2017 free agent (minimum)

OFFENSE

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Generated 9/4/2017.

The Hawks can use the 2016-17 Heat version of Luke Babbitt: a three-point specialist who shoots a lot of threes. The Hawks cannot use the 2015-16 Pelicans version of Babbitt: a three-point specialist who strayed from his bread-and-butter.

Babbitt, the No. 16 overall draft pick out of Nevada in 2010, has earned his keep making threes. But in New Orleans, two-point shots made up 62 percent of Babbitt’s total field-goal attempts and he made just 43.3 percent of them. His effective field-goal percentage dropped to a career-low (excluding his rookie season) 49.8 percent.

From an efficiency standpoint, two-pointers just aren't Babbitt's thing. He's shot 40.5 percent on two-pointers for his career. Since Babbitt entered the league in 2010-11, only four players who played at least 4,600 minutes during that span shot a worse percentage on two-pointers: Steve Blake, Matthew Dellavedova, Ricky Rubio and Derek Fisher.

Last season with the Heat Babbitt went back to firing 3-pointers on 75 percent of his total shot attempts, for a career-high total 210 attempts, and made 41.4 percent of them. His eFG% climbed back to 55.7, second-best of his career. Throw out Babbitt’s rookie season of 2011-12, when he was at the end of the bench for the Blazers, and he’s shot 41 percent on 3-pointers.

That’s not peak Kyle Korver-level shooting—Korver shot 45.2 percent on threes from 2009-10 through last season—but then Babbitt isn’t making Korver money ($7 million). Babbitt could end up being a reasonable facsimile of ex-Hawk Korver as a (longer) 3-point shooter who can spread the floor (though, unlike Korver, he hasn’t offered much else offensively).

DEFENSE

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Generated 9/4/2017.

Defensively, I think Babbitt will be adequate. He hasn't produced many blocks or (especially) steals but he's an OK rebounder. And Babbitt's defensive Real Plus-Minus in 2016-17 was his best mark as far back as that metric goes (2013-14).

Babbitt played the four extensively for the Heat--he's stout enough to do so and his relative lack of foot speed isn't such a liability. It’s likely that Babbitt benefited playing for a coach (Erik Spoelstra) and organization that stress defensive discipline. He will be in a similar situation with Mike Budenholzer in Atlanta.

OUTLOOK

FiveThirtyEight.com's CARMELO projection says Babbitt will provide $2.7 million of value in 2017-18 while playing 1,045 minutes. This is in spite of the fact that CARMELO puts Babbitt in the "scrub" category (harsh). That shows you how valuable good 3-point shooters are in today's NBA.