The NBA game has slowly come around to be a shooter's league once again, including the power forward and center positions, as the “stretch-four” is no longer a commodity, but a necessity.
Washington Wizards forward Markieff Morris has taken notice of that, and after an 0-for-3 outing on three-point shots on Thursday night against the Philadelphia 76ers, he knows he has some work ahead of him.
“It's kind of like you have no choice now with the way the league is,” Morris told the Washington Post's Candace Buckner. “You got to be able to make that shot at the four. I've been working all summer trying to get better at it, continuing to get better at it.”
Morris was already taking a career-high 2.4 three-point attempts per game last season as a member of the Phoenix Suns, but it quickly jumped to 2.9 attempts after he was acquired by the Wizards before the trade deadline.
Having acquired a reputation as a volatile player throughout his short NBA career, Morris said he spent the summer working on drills that included pick-and-pops. His new head coach Scott Brooks is optimistic he can become a reliable weapon from beyond the arc.
“I've been around a lot of players that have that edge, but they don't have the skill that goes with it,” Brooks said. “They're like the bully on the team… he has the quality of having good skill along with that edge and toughness.”
If he can keep his fiery ways along with a versatile game to back it up, the Philadelphia native can become this era's Rasheed Wallace, standing at 6-foot-10 and weighing 245 pounds. The mercurial forward shot 31.6 percent from deep last year in 27 games played for the Wizards.
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