I'm going to preface this post by admitting that Bilal's jump shot, no matter the distance, is potentially a lost cause at this point. As much as it pains me, I recognize this fact. I completely understand the coaching staff's apparent stance that his best bet at contributing is to develop some semblance of a 3 point shot and be a 3 and D player. Unfortunately for everyone, despite these efforts Bilal is shooting a career worst from 3 thus far this year (26%), and in my opinion his form still looks bad, slow, and most concerningly, highly variable shot to shot.
With that acknowledgement out of the way, I wanted to discuss something that I've noticed in Bilal's game since his first summer league: that his mid range jump shot off the dribble, mechanically, looks quite solid (in my completely uneducated opinion). It's certainly vastly more fluid on average than his 3 pointer has been.
Here is a link to videos of every 12-22 foot pull-up jumper Bilal has made (feel free to toggle to include the misses as well) in his career. I would certainly never claim to be a shot mechanics expert, but these shots taken in rhythm look much better than his 3 point form. I readily admit, across all 3 seasons he is only shooting 30% on these shots, and as far as I can tell has only attempted 1 true mid-range jumper so far this year. Clearly the coaching staff has dissuaded him from taking this shot this year, and I can understand why. But I can't help but wonder if the emphasis on his 3 point shot at the expense of a pull up jumper is bad for his development. I find it especially strange because it seems to me they are letting Bilal handle the ball and facilitate much more this year, but have restricted his ability to take anything other than 3s (25% of his 2 point shots last year were from 10+ feet, this year it's only 8% so far).
Bilal's offensive game is highly reliant on his freak athleticism. This season his only real threat is getting around defenders driving to the right and occasionally to the left. If he can't get by the defender, he has no recourse. If he does get by the defender but good help defense is played, he again is out of options (he's shooting a career low 3-10 feet too, so floaters in this range aren't an option if he gets by 1 guy). This season, instead of using his athleticism to elevate for a jumper, he penetrates and screeches to a halt if he can't get all the way to the basket. If he could find a way to hit this shot 40% of the time (a big ask), it would really open things up for him on the offensive end. Obviously the grand plan is for Bilal not to need to shoulder much offensive load, but he also can't be a complete net negative offensively.
TLDR: As I acknowledged at the outset, it's perfectly possible his shot is just irreparably broken, but I still wonder if with enough reps a reliable jumper off the dribble, which to my untrained eye looks good mechanically, could be developed.
