Wayne Ellington — Shooting Guard, Miami Heat
Over the course of the first nine years of Wayne Ellington’s career, he has played for seven different NBA teams. He played his first three seasons with Minnesota, but would then go through five teams in four years.It’s not as though he was playing poorly, but no team seemed to need his services much longer than one year.
During the 2016-17 season, however, something clicked, and he found team who wanted to keep him around and who would maximize his talents. Over his two seasons with the Miami Heat, Ellington has scored roughly 11 points per game, while shooting 39 percent from three.
The Jazz could desperately use another volume 3-point shooter, and Ellington not only shot the ball well, but he shot a lot of them. I mean a lot, too — 7.5 3-point attempts per game to be exact. That is roughly two more attempts per game than Joe Ingles took last season. His 227 threes made last season would have led the Jazz.
One of the greatest things you can do as a basketball player is play to your strengths. Ellington does that to the extreme. This past season, he took 82.7 percent of his shots from three. 82.7!!!
The biggest question mark with Ellington is his defense. That may be part of the reason he bounced around the league so much early on in his career. With the Heat, however, he has been much improved. The Jazz would still have to hope that the team’s defensive culture could provide an added boost to his focus and energy on that side of the ball.