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Stat Leaders: Ja Morant, Donovan Mitchell among best pick-and-roll scorers

Examining which players have excelled as pick-and-roll scorers thus far in the 2022-23 season.

Brian Martin, for NBA.com

Ja Morant leads the league in pick and roll points, at 14 points per game.

Each Tuesday throughout the season, we’ll break down the leaders in a specific statistical category — digging into player tracking, play-type and shot-type data to go beyond the box score to highlight some of the game’s top performers.

This week we’ll focus on the league’s most prolific and effective scorers in pick-and-roll ball handler plays, a list that includes Ja Morant, Donovan Mitchell, Stephen Curry and Luka Doncic.

Note: All stats through games played on Sunday, Nov. 27 with data provided by Synergy play type data, which can be found on NBA.com/Stats for both players and teams.

Top 10 pick-and-roll scorers (Points per game)

PLAYER TEAM PPG PPP FG% EFG% FREQ%
Ja Morant MEM 14.0 0.93 43.4 46.2 53.2
Donovan Mitchell CLE 12.7 1.17 52.6 63.2 40.3
Trae Young ATL 11.9 0.86 39.1 43.1 47.2
DeMar DeRozan CHI 10.9 1.14 53.6 55.0 41.1
Cade Cunningham DET 10.8 0.96 47.9 50.4 47.9
Darius Garland CLE 10.7 0.95 44.6 49.6 47.2
Luka Doncic DAL 10.4 1.07 52.3 58.3 31.7
Stephen Curry GSW 9.5 1.28 52.2 65.7 29.5
Tyrese Haliburton IND 8.6 0.94 43.4 50.7 48.5
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander OKC 8.6 1.03 53.2 54.1 29.7

No player runs more pick-and-roll ball handler plays than Memphis’ Ja Morant. His 15.1 pick-and-roll possessions leads the league and accounts for 53.2% of his offensive repertoire. Morant currently ranks eighth in the league in scoring at 28.5 points per game, with nearly half of those points (a career-best 14.0) coming on pick-and-rolls.

Morant has ranked in the top 10 in pick-and-roll possessions each season of his career, but his efficiency on those plays has been a bit up and down. He is currently shooting 43.4% on pick-and-rolls, which is down 4.2 percentage points from last season’s career-best 47.6%. If Morant can combine this year’s pick-and-roll frequency with last season’s efficiency, watch out.

Morant is in position to take the title of top pick-and-roll scorer from Atlanta’s Trae Young, who has finished at the top of the rankings in each of the past two seasons. He currently ranks third behind Morant and Mitchell at 11.9 points per game off the pick-and-roll. Not only would that be Young’s lowest scoring output on pick-and-rolls since his rookie season, but his 39.1% shooting on those possessions is on pace to be a career-low.

As a team, the Hawks are tied for first (with Detroit) in pick-and-roll ball handler frequency at 22.4% of their offensive possessions, and tied for second (with Memphis) in pick-and-roll ball handler scoring at 22.6 ppg. A key to this is the offseason addition of Dejounte Murray, who ranks 14th in the league in pick-and-roll scoring at 8.0 ppg. Last season, Young was the only Hawks player to average at least 3.0 ppg on pick-and-rolls.

Top 10 pick-and-roll scorers

Points Per Possession (Min: 50 possession, 87 players qualify)

PLAYER TEAM PPP PPG FG% EFG% FREQ%
Stephen Curry GSW 1.28 9.5 52.2 65.7 29.5
Giannis Antetokounmpo MIL 1.21 3.9 57.6 62.1 10.7
Donovan Mitchell CLE 1.17 12.7 52.6 63.2 40.3
DeMar DeRozan CHI 1.14 10.9 53.6 55.0 41.1
Kevin Durant BKN 1.13 3.8 52.8 55.7 13.2
Desmond Bane MEM 1.10 4.8 53.7 64.6 19.7
Brandon Ingram NOP 1.09 5.5 50.0 54.6 24.6
Spencer Dinwiddie DAL 1.09 3.3 48.0 57.0 19.2
Jaylen Brown BOS 1.08 4.1 56.5 62.0 15.2
Luka Doncic DAL 1.07 10.4 52.3 58.3 31.7

While Morant and Young have used high volume to climb to the top of the pick-and-roll scoring leaderboard, players like Curry, Mitchell, DeRozan and Doncic have been far more efficient in their pick-and-roll possessions.

Stephen Curry

Among the 87 players that have run at least 50 pick-and-roll possessions as the ball handler, Stephen Curry tops the list in efficiency as he is scoring 1.28 points per pick-and-roll possession. He is shooting 52.2% from the field and has an effective field goal percentage of 65.7% on pick-and-rolls as he ranks eighth in scoring on this particular play type (9.5 points) and second overall (31.4 points).

Curry’s points per possession and effective field goal percentage on pick-and-rolls are the highest he’s posted on record, with data going back eight seasons to 2015-16. Curry is both a master at scoring off screens while off the ball as well as utilizing on-ball screens to create open looks like this one from Sunday against Minnesota.

Donovan Mitchell

Mitchell’s efficiency as a pick-and-roll scorer has never decreased since he entered the NBA: 0.81 points per possession as a rookie (2017-18), 0.95 (in ’18-19 and ’19-20), 0.96 (’20-21) and 1.03 (’21-22) in his final season in Utah. This season, his 1.17 through 18 games is a career best.

Mitchell ranks second in pick-and-roll scoring average with a career-best 12.7 points and third in points per possession as he has the best combination of high frequency and high efficiency of any pick-and-roll ball handler through the first quarter of the season. Check out this move as Mitchell fakes as if he’s going to use the screen, then rejects it with a quick crossover to free up space for an open 3-pointer.

DeMar DeRozan

DeRozan ranks just behind Mitchell in both scoring (10.9 points) and efficiency (1.14 points) on pick-and-rolls this season, and he ranks fourth in both categories. The only real separation between Mitchell and DeRozan comes from shot selection on their pick-and-roll possessions.

DeRozan is shooting slightly better from the field (53.6% to Mitchell’s 52.6%), but Mitchell has a significant advantage in effective field goal percentage (63.2% to DeRozan’s 55%). This is due to Mitchell shooting 3-poitners when coming off on-ball screens while DeRozan prefers to move into the mid-range or drive all the way to the basket (as you can see below).

Luka Doncic

Seeing as how Doncic leads the league in scoring overall (33.1 ppg), there was a good chance he’d be near the top of the scoring leaderboards in a number of play types. Doncic leads the NBA in scoring on isolations (9.2 points), is tied for first in scoring on post-ups (5.4 points) — with centers Joel Embiid and Jusuf Nurkic — and ranks seventh in scoring as the ball handler in pick-and-rolls (10.4 points). Those three play types account for 25 points per game — good for more than 75% of his offensive production, with the other 8.1 points coming at the free throw line.

Here’s a highlight of Doncic’s 35-point game against the Raptors earlier this month that showcases most of his offensive arsenal.

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