6’9″ Serbian Peja Stojakovic had the ability to catch and shoot or create his own jumper over most small forwards in his prime from virtually any spot in the half court.
He particularly excelled at using screens by Chris Webber, or Scot Pollard just to get enough space to launch his shot from over his head.
While his shot has little rotation as it’s released with his right hand and looked unorthodox at the time, he hit his marks with high accuracy, regularly.
While his career came to an early halt later in the 2000s, we can still take away the one thing from his game: he never gave a damn about the picture-perfect shooting form.
“I learned the way I liked to shoot it the best, and that’s what I did,” Stojakovic said with a shrug. “For me it works, because I can shoot the outside shot quickly the way I do it.”
Steph Curry recently just got coverage for hitting 77 3s in a row and making 94/100 shots in practice. Back in primetime Kings’ days, reports of Peja achieving similar feats in practice came out too.
When Stojakovic first came to the NBA, he was soft taking contact so as defenders got more and more physical guarding him, he worked hard to develop his driving game, and once he had both of those options, he was able to free himself up for more open shots.