We hear it all the time: “Player X needs a change of scenery.”

Typically, this statement is made when a player performs beneath his potential as a result of his constrictive environment.  It could be that his skill set is unfit for the team’s style or that the organization has collapsed into rebuilding mode while an innocent veteran loiters in the background.  Whatever the particular circumstances may be, the idea is that the player would benefit from a contextual makeover.

The question is: when the scenery does change, does the player change as well?

A trade provides a dream scenario for us NBA pseudo-scientists, a real life experiment in the form of a jersey swap.  Maybe the player had a hidden jump shot waiting to be unlocked by a new team.  Perhaps his past surroundings forced a player into a suboptimal shot distribution.  With that in mind, today’s post looks at how five player’s shot selection were affected after being traded during the 2009-10 season.

To illustrate a player’s shot distribution, I use spider charts to display Hoopdata’s shot location data.  Each player’s shot selection is separated into five zones: at rim (layups, dunks, and tip-ins), short (shots within 10 feet excluding at rim shots), mid (10-15 feet), long twos (16-23 feet), and 3-point shots.  The cited percentage is the percentage of a player’s shots within that zone, not the field goal percentage.

The following chart illustrates the shot selection change of the biggest name traded to a contender this year: Antawn Jamison.

Jamison was acquired from the Wizards to spread the floor and provide the Cavaliers with a veteran All-Star who can knock down threes.  Funny thing is, he’s played closer to the basket than he has in years.  As you can see in the spider graph, the former Tar Heel has taken more shots at the basket alongside LeBron James in Cleveland and he has experienced a slight uptick in field goal percentage from there as well.  Playing next to LeBron, who is the size of Karl Malone but the distributing power of John Stockton, has it’s benefits.  Jamison was assisted on 76.3 percent of his makes at the rim which ranks as one of the highest rates in the league for a regular (only Anthony Tolliver was set up more).  Over on the perimeter, he’s still taking threes and long twos about as often as he did in Washington so he’s still bringing those goods to the table.  What he’s lacked in the mid-range, he’s picked up around the rack.

Interestingly enough, Jamison’s offensive efficiency has plummeted to levels he hasn’t seen since 2000-01.   Why? Perhaps this is nothing more than a harmless fluke but Jamison has shot a putrid 50.6 percent from the free throw line, a far cry from his 72.8 percent career mark.  Luckily, he shot better from the line than Shaq has in Cleveland. Otherwise, his effective field goal percentage, which strictly looks at how he shoots from the floor, has risen in Cleveland to .525 from .491 as a Wizard, so the rest of his shooting is still in tact.

Let’s switch gears for a bit and take a look at a rookie forward who switched jerseys this year: Jordan Hill.

Plucked from the Rockets rookie farm that is Manhattan, Jordan Hill joined the Rockets along with Jared Jeffries and Kevin Martin as part of a blockbuster midseason trade.  In Houston, the former ninth pick enjoyed a longer leash, getting 16.2 minutes per game after barely averaging 10 minutes in New York.

He may have shot the ball like a stretch four in New York given how many long twos he took, but he’s anything but that as a Rocket.  The former Arizona Wildcat has cut out most of the long two portion of his shot selection, going from 42.4 percent of all shots down to just 18.3 percent.  Perhaps the statistically-inclined Houston front office recognized how inefficiently Hill made an inefficient shot; he made just 33.3 percent of his 16-23 footers as a Knick.

He played closer to the rim on offense in Houston and his efficiency soared as a result (his Offensive Rating jumped from 102 to 115) and with it, he posted an Offensive Rebounding Rate nearly twice the average for a forward.  If Knicks fans treated Hill like a big bust, the Rockets saw a big ready to bust out.

As Jordan Hill experienced a bit of a makeover in Houston, Kevin Martin’s shot selection has been more of the same.

Martin received the same amount of run in Houston (35.1 MPG vs. 35.8 MPG), shouldered comparable offensive responsibility (25.31 USG% vs. 25.32 USG%), and his shot palette remained nearly unchanged.  He’s been slightly more aggressive with the ball, attacking the basket more frequently.  As a result, he’s generating more shooting fouls in Houston which is just about a lock for two points every trip.  Martin was a 92.4 percent free throw shooter which boosted his True Shooting Percentage from 53.5 to 58.6.  He may not be as successful knocking down 3-pointers in Houston (just 31 percent) but with more shots from the charity stripe, he’s been more efficient.

Normally, we would expect a Houston scorer to shy away from long twos but Kevin has upped dosage just inside the 3-point line while shooting a robust 45.6 FG%.   He likely won’t maintain that level of success from there but the Rockets have to love having a dynamic scorer back in the fold.

Next, we’ll take a look at another scorer who rejuvenated his status as among the game’s better shooting guards: John Salmons.

He’s not a 3-point specialist that’s for sure.  While John Salmons represented the Chicago Bulls’ main, and often times lone, 3-point threat, he has exhibited a much more diversified appetite on the offensive end.  Like Kevin Martin, Salmons has been as deadly from 16-23 feet as anyone, shooting 46.1 percent and converting just as many long twos as he did in Chicago earlier this year in 37 fewer attempts.

Salmon’s assisted percentage (percentage of makes that were assisted on) has dipped to 44.9 percent from 61.3 percent in Chicago, indicating he’s less of a spot up shooter these days.

In addition to an incrase in long twos, Salmons has attacked the basket more, getting 4.2 shots per game which makes up for 28.3 percent of his shot repertoire.  If anything, Bucks GM John Hammond has acquired the Sacramento Kings version of John Salmons and not the watered down Bulls one.

Speaking of Sacramento, let’s take a look at their newest cog, Carl Landry, who was acquired in the Kevin Martin blockbuster.

After seeing his minutes rise gradually from 16.9 mpg in 2007-08 to 21.2 in 2008-09 and 27.2 mpg in the first half of the season in Houston, Carl Landry has finally reached the status of a full-time player. Averaging 37.5 minutes in Sacramento, Landry has morphed into a more perimeter-oriented post player as opposed to a banger, getting over 30 percent of his offense off of isolation or spot ups according to Synergy (these two play types only made up for 14.8 percent of his repertoire in Houston.)

Consider that the Purdue alum has about doubled his taste for long twos (18.1 percent to 35.4 percent) and as a result, he has taken less layups in his purple garb.  Whereas Jordan Hill benefitted from curtailing his penchant for long twos, Landry has displayed a superb 44.0 percent conversion rate in the zone he used sparingly in Houston. Surely, one would rather Landry shoot more at the rim where he’s a career 70 percent shooter than stroking it from the mid-range even if he’s shooting about average from there.

Has he suffered in other areas because of his newfound perimeter orientation? His rebounding certainly has.  His Offensive Rebounding Rate has plummeted from 15.5 percent in his rookie season down to just 7.1 percent in Sacramento.  To be sure, today’s Carl Landry is a different player than the high-energy man off the bench that Houston fans grew to love. But his evolution into a more conservative full-time player may have been inevitable.  Instead of burning all his energy in shorts spurts, Landry has to cut back his aggressiveness now that he plays almost 40 minutes night in and night out.

Of course, we’d like more than a 25 game sample to make more concrete conclusions about each player’s shot selection in their new outfits but in certain cases, there’s more than just shot selection differences to suggest that their respective games have changed.  There’s still a high degree of random variation when we consider any player’s statistics over a two month span so it’s best to reserve complete judgment about the player.

Curious about the spider charts for Caron Butler, Flip Murray, Tyrus Thomas, Marcus Camby, Steve Blake, and Al Thornton? Well you’re in luck.  Click.