3 Goals for Houston Rockets power forward Gary Clark

1. Become more of a scoring threat

The biggest knock on Gary Clark’s game during his short time in Houston is his inability to shoot the ball. It’s not that he doesn’t have natural shooting talent, it’s just that he hasn’t quite shown it for the Rockets yet.

Clark showed an ability to hit the outside shot at Cincinnati, but even then showed inconsistency. A look at the numbers gives a little more detail:

2014-15: 0 percent (only shot five total)
2015-16: 52 percent (13-of-25)
2016-17: 28.6 percent (14-of-49)
2017-18: 43.5 percent (27-of-62)

The first thing that jumps out from these numbers is the fluctuation in his shooting percentages by season. As time passed, he also increased his attempts from the outside, which is positive when on a team like the Rockets. Even breaking down his last two preseasons, you see something similar, as he shot 10-of-18 from downtown last preseason followed by 2-of-13 this preseason.

Breaking it down further to field goal percentage, Clark shot an impressive 52.5 percent in his four years as a Bearcat but hasn’t been able to translate that to the NBA yet. Last season Clark shot just 33.1 percent overall and this past preseason was just 4-for-16 for 25 percent. Clearly that’s not enough shot attempts to get an accurate feel for where his shooting is at now, but those things are noticed by the coaching staff.

The bottom line for Gary Clark is this: To earn time with the Rockets, you need to be able to put the ball in the hole. Gary has shown he’s a capable scorer in the past — this season is the time to prove it if he wants to earn real minutes in Coach D’Antonio’s system.