I want to critique him for something
It's not a guarantee that shots improve though. Some examples would be Emmanuel Mudiay, Marcus Smart, Dante Exum, and MCW. Not almost a given no matter how much of a gym rat a player is. Shooting isn't something that comes easy. Imo, it's the hardest skill to learn when you're a poor shooter which Fox was in college. He's not going to sustain his 44.2%. I wouldn't even be surprised if it even went down to 33% for the season, BUT he has dramatically improved his shot and his confidence in his 3pt shot. We have a star in the making.
If you want to go back in time, then you have to go back to highschool where Fox was a good shooter from the three. There are things you look at when a player isn't shooting the ball well from the three, and the first thing I look at is whether the ball is on line of not. If you had paid attention to all those players you just listed, almost all of them missed badly off line with their shots. Fox misses on the other hand were either a bit long, and more often than not, a bit short. His form looked pretty good. I thought he was bringing the ball back a bit too far, but it wasn't excessive.
What that told me was that what Fox lacked was overall strength. He was shooting from a bit longer distance, and as the game went on, his shots started to hit the front of the rim. He also had a habit of falling away on some of his shots, which from the three, only exaggerated his lack of strength. So if you make some minor corrections to his form, and add strength, and then repetitions, you have an improved shooter. By the same token go back and look at some film on Smart. His form is terrible, and he seldom replicates the same form from shot to shot.
I'm not going to go back and go through everyone of those players, but I never had confidence in any of them becoming a good shooter. I had hope for Exum, and he may still get better at some point if he puts in the work. But players whose shot is consistently off line scare the hell out of me. That was never the case with Fox.
Another thing to look for is quality of shots taken. For instance, I've been very impressed with Kevin Porter of USC. However he's only shooting a bit over 30% from the three. If you take a deeper look, his form isn't bad, but he takes a lot of highly contested shots. If he were to improve his shot selection, I think he could get that 3pt percentage up around 35 to 37 percent. Just my very humble opinion.
