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Blake Griffin midrange game

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Blake Griffin midrange game 

Post#1 » by stitches » Wed Dec 31, 2014 10:11 am

I was doing some research about the Jazz today and our bigs' shooting and wanted to see what some other bigs in the league are shooting. So I go to Aldridge, Horford, Davis, Nowitzki, etc. and since Blake has had that reputation of improved mid-range shooter lately and has been killing us from midrange, I decided to check on how well he is doing. Well, the stats appeared and I was shocked! He's shooting about 39% from outside of 10 feet for the season, which is not horrible and can be justified for some spacing purposes if not overused, although it is still inefficient! But I looked at the % of shots he's taking from that range... he's taking 45% of his shots from 10 to 23 feet and 37% of his shot from 16 to 23 feet! This is insane! Don't you guys have analytics people in your front office looking at those stats. This is absolutely ridiculous, it is quite possibly the worst stat I've seen from an all-star caliber player not named Kobe. This cannot possibly be good for his offensive efficiency and your team's offense. Pretty much every single advanced metric of his is down from previous seasons. Most are his worst numbers in his career(that includes his rookie year). You might think that if players give respect to his jump shot he'd be able to attack the close-outs and be more efficient on his drives to the rim, but even his % around the rim have taken a hit this season.

Now don't get me wrong. He's still a great player and in a lot of ways compensates this inefficient midrange game by being great player around the rim, but with his jump shooting % he is not justified taking so many of them. At 39%, he's not justified taking nearly 45% of his shots from midrange.

Or is there something I'm not seeing here?
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Re: Blake Griffin midrange game 

Post#2 » by kylem4711 » Wed Dec 31, 2014 6:32 pm

youre pretty much right. he is a jump shooter and a long range jump shooter at that. He loves taking the the worst shot in the game( a step of two before the 3).

I think most clipper fans are just hoping that he is saving himself from all the wear and tear.

It upsets most clipper fans that he has basically turned himself into david west
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Re: Blake Griffin midrange game 

Post#3 » by Wammy Giveaway » Wed Dec 31, 2014 7:45 pm

kylem4711 wrote:It upsets most clipper fans that he has basically turned himself into david west


Did David West always had that jumper? If yes, then Griffin is trying to be somebody he's not. He's having an identity crisis.
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Re: Blake Griffin midrange game 

Post#4 » by stitches » Wed Dec 31, 2014 8:23 pm

David West is a curious case. Right now he's shooting 65% of his shots from midrange(10-23 feet) and 50% of his shots are long 2s(16-23 feet), might be due to Indiana not having many offensive options and having to settle for bad shots or it might be just noise from small sample size. The thing is... he's never shot anything close to this before. Most season he's in the mid 20s to low 30s for long range shots. In other words - Blake Griffin right now shoots more long-range 2s than David West has ever shot in his career. And even with that said, West shoots those long range 2s at a very good 47% success both for the season and for his career.
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Re: Blake Griffin midrange game 

Post#5 » by KyletheDingbat » Wed Dec 31, 2014 8:39 pm

Tough to get into the lane and finish when you're not quick and can't jump. This is a different Blake and I hope it's just a spell.
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Re: Blake Griffin midrange game 

Post#6 » by og15 » Fri Jan 2, 2015 7:27 am

KyletheDingbat wrote:Tough to get into the lane and finish when you're not quick and can't jump. This is a different Blake and I hope it's just a spell.
We can say he has looked less explosive, but still relative to other PF's he's very quick and can jump quite well.
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Re: Blake Griffin midrange game 

Post#7 » by QRich3 » Fri Jan 2, 2015 11:18 am

It's pretty frustrating how people misunderstand "advanced" stats like these, and how some guys just equal "midrange shots" with "bad shots" without proper context, other than FG% and % of shots taken. There is a reason why Blake has been instructed to work on his midrange shot and why the team is purposely featuring those shots. I find it really funny when casual fans read a couple of numbers and believe they are smarter than coaches who actually dedicate their whole life to understanding basketball and rise to the elite of their field.

The Clippers have a top 3 offense, in many ways because of the way Blake Griffin opens up the game for his teammates, and him being a threat far from the basket is one of the biggest reasons. Blake opening up space inside and his good passing is one of the main reasons JJ Redick is having the most efficient scoring season of his career. It's one of the main reasons Barnes is always completely open, and is also having a career season efficiency-wise. Jordan is finding a lot of open space inside too, scoring at will inside, also at a career-best clip. Paul has had a couple bad shooting nights recently, but a week or two ago he was also having the clear cut best scoring season of his career (he's still having one of his most efficient seasons). The Clippers TS% and eFG% as a team this season is the best in franchise history so far, and it's more or less equal to some of the best offenses in the history of the game (Nash's Suns, Magic's Lakers, etc.) But people just hear "midrange shot" and wrongly equal that with bad shot selection.

Actual analytics people are gonna be the first to tell you that midrange shots are necessary for a good offense to work properly. If you don't have the threat of any offense happening from that area it'll be much easier for opposing teams to close on the "efficient" areas like corner 3's and the rim and make you shoot awful percentages. For instance, the Rockets actively try to avoid working from the midrange zone and they have an awful bottom 10 offense. And that's having 2 of the best guys in the league at drawing a ton of fouls. The Blazers and Lamarcus Aldridge are another good example of misunderstanding how midrange shots work. A lot of fans starting to learn how stats work get on Aldridge for shooting too many midrange shots and not being generally very efficient, but the Blazers offense is rooted in him creating stuff from that area, and it wouldn't be nearly as good if he wasn't such a threat from there.

People want Blake to only score at the rim, but they don't realize that if he does that, the paint is gonna be way more packed and the whole team's offense is gonna suffer from a lack of spacing. Barnes and Redick's men are gonna be able to close on them when they're open, DJ is gonna be useless on offense, and Paul and Blake are gonna have a lot less space to work the P&R. I'm glad Blake scores less or worse, if the team's offense is working better than ever. The goal is to win games as a team in the end.
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Re: Blake Griffin midrange game 

Post#8 » by Wammy Giveaway » Fri Jan 2, 2015 4:09 pm

So does this mean the end of Blake Griffin the highlight reel guy? Giving up what made him him in order to better his teammates, even if his stats go down because of refusing to posterize, slam dunk, and lob-jam? I like that he's given up rebounding to help get his buddy DeAndre Jordan into the All Star Game, but he may end up falling out of the race because of focusing on his mid-range jumpers. He's basically making himself an open target to guard, and possibly a weakest link to help opposing teams defeat the Clippers easily.
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Re: Blake Griffin midrange game 

Post#9 » by og15 » Fri Jan 2, 2015 4:51 pm

QRich3 wrote:It's pretty frustrating how people misunderstand "advanced" stats like these, and how some guys just equal "midrange shots" with "bad shots" without proper context, other than FG% and % of shots taken. There is a reason why Blake has been instructed to work on his midrange shot and why the team is purposely featuring those shots. I find it really funny when casual fans read a couple of numbers and believe they are smarter than coaches who actually dedicate their whole life to understanding basketball and rise to the elite of their field.

The Clippers have a top 3 offense, in many ways because of the way Blake Griffin opens up the game for his teammates, and him being a threat far from the basket is one of the biggest reasons. Blake opening up space inside and his good passing is one of the main reasons JJ Redick is having the most efficient scoring season of his career. It's one of the main reasons Barnes is always completely open, and is also having a career season efficiency-wise. Jordan is finding a lot of open space inside too, scoring at will inside, also at a career-best clip. Paul has had a couple bad shooting nights recently, but a week or two ago he was also having the clear cut best scoring season of his career (he's still having one of his most efficient seasons). The Clippers TS% and eFG% as a team this season is the best in franchise history so far, and it's more or less equal to some of the best offenses in the history of the game (Nash's Suns, Magic's Lakers, etc.) But people just hear "midrange shot" and wrongly equal that with bad shot selection.

Actual analytics people are gonna be the first to tell you that midrange shots are necessary for a good offense to work properly. If you don't have the threat of any offense happening from that area it'll be much easier for opposing teams to close on the "efficient" areas like corner 3's and the rim and make you shoot awful percentages. For instance, the Rockets actively try to avoid working from the midrange zone and they have an awful bottom 10 offense. And that's having 2 of the best guys in the league at drawing a ton of fouls. The Blazers and Lamarcus Aldridge are another good example of misunderstanding how midrange shots work. A lot of fans starting to learn how stats work get on Aldridge for shooting too many midrange shots and not being generally very efficient, but the Blazers offense is rooted in him creating stuff from that area, and it wouldn't be nearly as good if he wasn't such a threat from there.

People want Blake to only score at the rim, but they don't realize that if he does that, the paint is gonna be way more packed and the whole team's offense is gonna suffer from a lack of spacing. Barnes and Redick's men are gonna be able to close on them when they're open, DJ is gonna be useless on offense, and Paul and Blake are gonna have a lot less space to work the P&R. I'm glad Blake scores less or worse, if the team's offense is working better than ever. The goal is to win games as a team in the end.

Probably not fair about the Rockets. They have been injured all season, and last season with the same approach they were 4th in the league in Ortg.

There's a balance. Blake is a bit too far on one side of that balance. The Clippers offense is helped by Blake taking mid-range jumpers, but Blake didn't need to increase the percentage of his FGA from 16-<3PT by 10% to help the Clippers offense. His rate last season was perfectly fine.

The Suns maintained Amare taking about 65%+ of his FGA inside 10 feet and a top 3 offense whether he was paired with Marion, Diaw, Shaq or Frye. Of course it is easy with Frye, but he did it even with Shaq. Blake needs to be able to knock down those shots and be willing to take them. Does he necessarily need to take so many? No, he really doesn't, but with the offense being still being so good, it isn't the worst thing in the wold and we can focus more on the defense. I don't think it would be accurate for us to imply that to have such good offense you need a PF taking high volume mid-range shots.

The league leading Raptors offense takes one of the fewest amounts of shots from 10 - <3PT in the league and they have maintained that league leading offense without their high volume mid-range shooter (50%+ attempts from 10-<3PT), DeRozan. He also gets to the line a ton, so it isn't like he just shoots high volume three's and does nothing else. So I don't agree with the Rockets idea of almost ignoring the shot, but on the other hand, you can overuse it, and LMA has overused it in the past, and Blake really shouldn't be attempting mid-range jumpers at the same rate as LMA unless he's going to be making them at a similar rate, and even then, it might be a bit much.
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Re: Blake Griffin midrange game 

Post#10 » by mj_shoefanatic » Sat Jan 3, 2015 2:04 am

BG needs to attack the paint and/or go back to the basket more in 2015. Tired of the seeing him fallback on that jumper in close games.
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Re: Blake Griffin midrange game 

Post#11 » by QRich3 » Sat Jan 3, 2015 7:47 pm

og15 wrote:Probably not fair about the Rockets. They have been injured all season, and last season with the same approach they were 4th in the league in Ortg.

There's a balance. Blake is a bit too far on one side of that balance. The Clippers offense is helped by Blake taking mid-range jumpers, but Blake didn't need to increase the percentage of his FGA from 16-<3PT by 10% to help the Clippers offense. His rate last season was perfectly fine.

The Suns maintained Amare taking about 65%+ of his FGA inside 10 feet and a top 3 offense whether he was paired with Marion, Diaw, Shaq or Frye. Of course it is easy with Frye, but he did it even with Shaq. Blake needs to be able to knock down those shots and be willing to take them. Does he necessarily need to take so many? No, he really doesn't, but with the offense being still being so good, it isn't the worst thing in the wold and we can focus more on the defense. I don't think it would be accurate for us to imply that to have such good offense you need a PF taking high volume mid-range shots.

The league leading Raptors offense takes one of the fewest amounts of shots from 10 - <3PT in the league and they have maintained that league leading offense without their high volume mid-range shooter (50%+ attempts from 10-<3PT), DeRozan. He also gets to the line a ton, so it isn't like he just shoots high volume three's and does nothing else. So I don't agree with the Rockets idea of almost ignoring the shot, but on the other hand, you can overuse it, and LMA has overused it in the past, and Blake really shouldn't be attempting mid-range jumpers at the same rate as LMA unless he's going to be making them at a similar rate, and even then, it might be a bit much.

Well I'm not trying to say that the Rockets are bad on offense strictly because they avoid midrange shots. I'm just trying to highlight that believing analytics tell you absolutely not to shoot those kind of shots is dumb. And purposely go out of your way to avoid them is no guarantee you're gonna be better on offense. It's all about finding a right fit for the talent you have, and it's pretty rare that fit involves avoiding those shots. Most analytics people usually say that when asked about the "bad" kind of shots, equating midrange with bad is more of a fans thing, like believing RAPM or PER are simple rankings of the best players in the league.

Of course you're right that it's all about finding a balance and our team's better balance might be with Blake trying to get a bit closer to the rim, since he's one of the best ever at that. All I'm saying is, that balance is very fragile and it's easy to f*uck it up when you try to mess with it, and since by nearly every metric, we have the best offensive numbers of any season in the history of the Clippers franchise, I don't think trying to aggressively change Blake's approach is a good idea. It might mess up spacing, it might get Barnes into another shooting slump, it might make DJ having trouble again finding space to position himself in the offense, a lot of things might go wrong if we drastically change any one of the things we're doing so well right now.

Phoenix was a totally different team than us, they were a high pace team that had 5 guys who could score from anywhere on the court and put the ball on the floor, we have two guys that can't really do that. And even when they had Shaq, they played at a much higher pace than we do, almost 2 more possessions per game. A lot of the shots Amare was scoring inside, I bet Shaq hadn't even crossed half court. Lots of different things were happening back then, teams weren't loading the strong side like they do now etc. I don't think we should make Blake into any sort of reflection of Amare.

Another thing that Blake has over Amare and Aldridge and most PF's, is that he's a much better playmaker, and him receiving the ball in the high post a lot opens up a lot more opportunities than just shooting, and for those opportunities to be open he needs to keep shooting well from there.
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Re: Blake Griffin midrange game 

Post#12 » by og15 » Sat Jan 3, 2015 9:15 pm

QRich3 wrote:
og15 wrote:Probably not fair about the Rockets. They have been injured all season, and last season with the same approach they were 4th in the league in Ortg.

There's a balance. Blake is a bit too far on one side of that balance. The Clippers offense is helped by Blake taking mid-range jumpers, but Blake didn't need to increase the percentage of his FGA from 16-<3PT by 10% to help the Clippers offense. His rate last season was perfectly fine.

The Suns maintained Amare taking about 65%+ of his FGA inside 10 feet and a top 3 offense whether he was paired with Marion, Diaw, Shaq or Frye. Of course it is easy with Frye, but he did it even with Shaq. Blake needs to be able to knock down those shots and be willing to take them. Does he necessarily need to take so many? No, he really doesn't, but with the offense being still being so good, it isn't the worst thing in the wold and we can focus more on the defense. I don't think it would be accurate for us to imply that to have such good offense you need a PF taking high volume mid-range shots.

The league leading Raptors offense takes one of the fewest amounts of shots from 10 - <3PT in the league and they have maintained that league leading offense without their high volume mid-range shooter (50%+ attempts from 10-<3PT), DeRozan. He also gets to the line a ton, so it isn't like he just shoots high volume three's and does nothing else. So I don't agree with the Rockets idea of almost ignoring the shot, but on the other hand, you can overuse it, and LMA has overused it in the past, and Blake really shouldn't be attempting mid-range jumpers at the same rate as LMA unless he's going to be making them at a similar rate, and even then, it might be a bit much.

Well I'm not trying to say that the Rockets are bad on offense strictly because they avoid midrange shots. I'm just trying to highlight that believing analytics tell you absolutely not to shoot those kind of shots is dumb. And purposely go out of your way to avoid them is no guarantee you're gonna be better on offense. It's all about finding a right fit for the talent you have, and it's pretty rare that fit involves avoiding those shots. Most analytics people usually say that when asked about the "bad" kind of shots, equating midrange with bad is more of a fans thing, like believing RAPM or PER are simple rankings of the best players in the league.

Of course you're right that it's all about finding a balance and our team's better balance might be with Blake trying to get a bit closer to the rim, since he's one of the best ever at that. All I'm saying is, that balance is very fragile and it's easy to f*uck it up when you try to mess with it, and since by nearly every metric, we have the best offensive numbers of any season in the history of the Clippers franchise, I don't think trying to aggressively change Blake's approach is a good idea. It might mess up spacing, it might get Barnes into another shooting slump, it might make DJ having trouble again finding space to position himself in the offense, a lot of things might go wrong if we drastically change any one of the things we're doing so well right now.

Phoenix was a totally different team than us, they were a high pace team that had 5 guys who could score from anywhere on the court and put the ball on the floor, we have two guys that can't really do that. And even when they had Shaq, they played at a much higher pace than we do, almost 2 more possessions per game. A lot of the shots Amare was scoring inside, I bet Shaq hadn't even crossed half court. Lots of different things were happening back then, teams weren't loading the strong side like they do now etc. I don't think we should make Blake into any sort of reflection of Amare.

Another thing that Blake has over Amare and Aldridge and most PF's, is that he's a much better playmaker, and him receiving the ball in the high post a lot opens up a lot more opportunities than just shooting, and for those opportunities to be open he needs to keep shooting well from there.
Agreed, I've always said that the difference between Blake and Amare is that Amare is a scorer. Blake on the other hand is a player that you can run an offense through.

Phoenix did do a lot of secondary break action
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Re: Blake Griffin midrange game 

Post#13 » by madmaxmedia » Mon Jan 5, 2015 8:56 pm

Great post QRich3- it's a great example of how analytics (advanced or otherwise) only present 1 side of the game. All sports depend on interrelationships between players, coach, strategies, etc. but basketball the most IMO because it's the most unstructured and has the most freedom within its play. So there are a lot of things going on that aren't well-represented by analytics alone.

I think a legit quality starter SF would help maximize the balance in Blake's game, but right now we don't have that.

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