The narrative was set by the start of the 2026 NBA draft. Caleb Wilson was unquestionably an elite athletic talent. However, most viewed him as a slight tick below the other top three prospects for one reason. He wasn’t a proven shooter. He was 44.4% on mid-range field goals and 25.9% on three-pointers for his freshman season. Not consistent enough to justify taking him ahead of A.J. Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, and Cameron Boozer. So you can imagine the shot when Wilson went 7-of-11 on three-point shots in his Summer League debut, some of them high-difficulty.
His stroke looks far more fluid and technically sound than what people remembered. Wilson admitted after the game that he could always shoot. He’d done it plenty in high school with success. That just wasn’t his role at North Carolina. It didn’t stop him from putting up 2,000 to 2,500 shots every day in practice. He believes people will change their opinions on him quickly now that he’s free to fire away in Chicago. However, the secret doesn’t stop there. It appears the rookie has been getting some help from a notable source.
Caleb Wilson got good advice when seeking out Lethal Shooter.
The man known as Chris Matthews has become one of the most renowned shooting coaches in basketball. He’s worked with several high-profile NBA players, including Dwight Howard, Jaylen Brown, and Anthony Davis, as well as WNBA players like Candace Parker and Skylar Diggins. His work is praised almost universally. Davis alone can say Shooter’s efforts helped him put together one of the best seasons of his Hall of Fame career in 2019-2020, helping Los Angeles to an NBA championship.
| Shooting Metric | Before (2018–19 Pelicans) | After (2019–20 Lakers Regular Season) | The Peak (2020 NBA Bubble Playoffs) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free Throw % | 79.4% | 84.6% (Career High) | 83.2% |
| Mid-Range (15-19 ft) | 36.2% | 41.1% | 49.6% |
| True Shooting % | 59.7% | 61.0% | 66.5% |
Is it a coincidence that Brown had arguably his best season the year he and Shooter started working together, then won an NBA title the next season? The evidence is out there. Shooter gets results. We’re already seeing it with Caleb Wilson. If he sticks to the lessons he’s been learning thus far, the improvement should be noteworthy across the board. Davis’ mid-range game improved by 5% with Shooter’s help. If that holds true with Wilson, he’ll be knocking on the door of 50% from the floor.
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This will not be a rapid process.
Improving as a shooter takes time. Wilson is still a rookie. He will have stretches of the season where he is simply off the mark. It happens to everybody. The trick will be to keep putting in the work and fine-tuning his form. Once he has that down, the baskets will come. Shooter understands this better than most. It’s all about trusting the process. Get it to where everything is muscle memory. That is what separated Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Larry Bird, and others from the rest of the players of their eras.
Wilson already understands the first part, which is the work. Shooter is there to help him with the second, which is the mechanics. It will be fun to see how this thing develops in the coming months. It took Derrick Rose until around January before you started seeing improving his in field goal percentage as a rookie. Jordan got going around late December. That is probably the timeframe fans should be looking at for Wilson.
