What is going on with Caleb Martin’s jump shot?

Caleb Martin might’ve broken out of his slump a bit Friday, but his shooting struggles to start the season have been a big part of the Sixers’ early-season woes.

In case you hadn’t heard, the Philadelphia 76ers are struggling to shoot the basketball, especially from long range. As the league continues to trend towards hoisting up as many threes as possible, the Sixers rank 26th in three-point percentage and 17th in three-point attempts per game. A big reason for their 1-7 start is just how badly they are losing this math battle.

Obviously this team will generate much better three-point looks when their former MVP returns to the lineup. It’s also evident they have no chemistry together with 11 new players on the roster. Still, the start without him has been alarming. No one has had a tougher time from beyond the arc so far than newcomer Caleb Martin.

Martin, a career 35% shooter from deep, came to the Sixers with a weird reputation as a decent shooter with the ability to turn into Ray Allen in the playoffs. He’s a career 40% in the postseason.

With what the Sixers have in mind, they’re all for Martin continuing that trend now that he’s signed in Philadelphia, but the results so far have been troubling.

Martin, who’s second on the team in minutes per game, is off to a 29.3% start from three-point range this season. Despite being an integral, albeit overcast, part of this offense so far, he’s only averaging three three-point attempts per game.

An even more worrying sign is that he appears to be playing with his shot form, never a good sign for a player to be doing during the season and certainly a scary sight around this particular team. This shot against the Clippers last week sounded some alarm bells.

His form has never been exactly textbook—his elbow has never been quite tucked right and he’s always released the ball on the way down, but it hasn’t been this inconsistent.

It’s not clear exactly when he started tweaking with his shot, but the changes have been noticeable as this young season has progressed. It’s also been there since at least opening night. He gets the shot up pretty quickly in this clip below but there is a hitch.

It was a lot more apparent, at least at the beginning of the season, on catch-and-shoot opportunities. For the most part, he’s a lot smoother when he’s pulling up off the dribble like this weird one-legged runner. As an aside, watching all of his three-point attempts this year was an interesting project because Martin has taken a bizarre amount of jumpers with his foot on the line this year.

The hitch is becoming more apparent on pull-up jumpers as well. It’s most pronounced when he’s just rising up over a defender, like that shot against the Clippers. It looks like he’s trying to hoist a medicine ball at the rim.

Perhaps the most concerning aspect of Martin playing around with his form is that you can see the gears turning when the ball gets swung to him. He’s waited long enough on plenty of wide open looks this year for the defense to finally get over and contest or chase him off the line altogether.

That kind of hesitation wasn’t there even on opening night. More evidence that he’s overthinking his shot is that the form looks a lot better on less open catch-and-shoots. When he doesn’t have time to load up, he often gets it off somewhat quicker.

An old cliche is that the best way to evaluate someone as a shooter is to evaluate them from the free throw line. Like his three-point shooting, Martin has been perfectly fine in his career at 75%. This year he is only at 64.3% and if the Clippers game is any indication, the hitch has followed him there as well.

Tinkering with the shot isn’t necessarily the end of the world either. Mikal Bridges is right back at 37% at 6.7 attempts this year. That’s pretty much the norm for him so far his career after playing with his form in the preseason.

His night against the Lakers Friday highlights how much of a work in progress it still is. The first catch-and-shoot three he gets up without incident.

The one he takes the very next trip down the floor though, not so much.

Perhaps that’s the turnaround he needs. It doesn’t really matter what it looks like as long as it goes in.

Everyone anticipates the three-point shooting will get easier for this team if they ever get healthier. The spacing was already much better last Monday when Paul George made his return to the lineup alongside Tyrese Maxey.

Martin’s form however, is not something that will change because of Embiid’s return to the lineup. It’s possible that does make him more comfortable. The best shots he’s gotten up this year are the ones he has to get up quickly — an offense with actual rhythm can help that. It’s just not the start anyone wanted for one of the floor spacing wings around this team’s Big 3.