Still believing in Landry Shamet after a tough start

Although the Nets lost to the Grizzlies on Friday night, there was good news and it wasn’t just limited to Caris LeVert’s 43-point explosion. Landry Shamet, the Nets big prize in their three-team trade on Draft Night, had the kind of game the Nets had hoped for. He scored eight points on 3-of-7 shooting overall, 2-of-5 from deep, recorded four assists, two steals and two offensive boards, all in 22 minutes — his second highest number this season.

It was his best game of the season or at least his most well-rounded. On December 30 he went 5-of-5 and scored 14 points against the Hawks.

Landry Shamet hasn’t had the best start to the season. He’s averaging 4.9 PPG while shooting 28 percent from deep. Shamet is even attempting fewer threes than what he’s used to. He attempts about three per game and before this season, the fewest attempts he ever had was 4.5, which was the year he played for the 76ers in 2018.

The Kansas City native is averaging career lows across the board although it is quite early. He has always been a streaky shooter who grew up primarily playing point guard. He played point guard at Wichita but shot an amazing 44% from downtown. .

It wasn’t until he played for the Clippers at the end of 2018-19 that he was utilized more for catch-and-shoot opportunities, which meant he didn’t need to be responsible for handling the ball or creating plays for others.

In limited minutes, it’s going to be hard for a streaky shooter to get into rhythm. Because of this, it’s easy to see why many don’t believe Shamet is the same guy he was before arriving in Brooklyn.

Now, with this decreased role that he’s taking on, he’s just adapting to how Brooklyn plays. Playing alongside Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving has brought a lot of pressure on him considering his job is to open things up for them. Still, with his Friday night game adding to his confidence, it would seem It’s just a matter of time before Shamet breaks this slump.

Despite the slump — and moving out of the rotation against the Jazz, playing only seven minutes, Shamet has continued to provide effort,

“My teammates won’t ever have to question if I’m playing hard.” he said in an interview before the season.

In another interview after his 5-of-5 shooting vs the Hawks, he addressed the media on missing pieces like Spencer Dinwiddie who had just gone down with an ACL tear.

“We got a group of really capable guys. It’s a next man up league.” Back then, he also noted that he had been aggressive, something that he showed Friday night as well.

“I tried to be aggressive and I made a few changes up top mentally and came in the game. I’ve been working my (butt) off all offseason. It was two games into, two or three games in the regular season, and I wasn’t going to make a big deal out of it. Just let my work prevail, like I said. Make a few changes up top, mentally, and shots went in tonight.”

So does he deserve more minutes? Would that heat him up? It looks might we might get a chance to find out, particularly if Irving and Tyler Johnson, who moved ahead of him in the Jazz game, remains unavailable.