Giannis Thread - 6 Days To Go

[ABucksFan]

Top-5 improvements he needs to make:

1) Free throws
2) Free throws
3) Free throws
4) Free throws
5) Free throws

Yep. We have a championship if he can hit FT's. I don't care about the 3 or jumpshot, just hit FT's.

[Wonka]

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Soon enough. Soon enough

[coolhandluke121]

I too would love to see Giannis progress on his post game and free throw shooting. I think Giannis surrounded by shooters makes way more sense than Giannis *as* the shooter. Giannis spending practice time behind the arc IMO makes only a little more sense than if Shaq had done that.

I like the little ~12-foot fadeaway, and he seems more comfortable with that than any other move besides a kamikaze drive to the rim in hopes of a dunk. He doesn't need a ton of moves; just a little something like Shaq's baby hook to punish people for playing him to drive so much. He gets a ton of separation on that due to guys staying so far off of him. All the movement and quick timing involved seems to save him from getting stuck in his head before shooting it. And fading away seems to help him finesse it a little instead of putting too much oomph into it. It's almost like his size and strength makes him scared to shoot freely because he's worried he'll throw it off the backboard or something. Fading away counters the forward momentum.

[PG Graveyard]

Any info you can share with us PP?

There is just a rumor running in the deep corners of the interwebs that the owners will be meeting and finalizing all of this over the next 24-48 hours. So, until something happens one way or the other, I’m going to choose to be optimistic.

What deep corners do you speak of?

[Jstock12]

Top-5 improvements he needs to make:

1) Free throws
2) Free throws
3) Free throws
4) Free throws
5) Free throws

Yep. We have a championship if he can hit FT's. I don't care about the 3 or jumpshot, just hit FT's.

As long as he's shooting a good enough FT% to not get Hack-A-Shaqd, his FT% doesn't matter. At best it's a 1 or 1.5 pt difference to his PPG.

[midranger]

It's not a hard set number because it depends on the situation. For it to be acceptable to me for Giannis to pull up for three early in the shot clock, I think he needs to be making them at about 37-38%.

League average TS% was 57% last season. Giannis had a 77 TS% at the rim on 14.3 attempts per game. When shooting 4+ feet from the rim, Giannis had a 41 TS% on 10.2 attempts per game. I see that as an issue.

Bingo.

Antoine Walker shouldn’t have shot threes. Giannis is a comfortably worse shooter than Antoine Walker. Last year he shot them at a rate similar to Walker.

Giannis shooting a three should be worst case scenario for our offense. Giannis handling the ball at all outside the arc should be a solid Plan C.

To answer the original question, 35%.

7 out of 10 players we used against Miami shot 34% and less tho, the overall % without Giannis was actually less than 34.

And we lost in 5.

Bad shooting doesn’t win games. Giannis is a terrible shooter. Following, he shouldn’t be shooting.

[LUKE23]

Giannis and the 3 ball is not the big issue. Quicker decisions against double/triple team walls is the biggest area of improvement. We should have open shooters pretty much every possession, even in the playoffs, because there are no teams that can cover Giannis with one player. Quicker decisions by Giannis + better open 3 point shooting by the supporting cast. Both are needed. An improvement in FT shooting to at least 75% would also be ideal.

[har13]

So i ask, why is he Westbrook?

Simple. Impulsive decision-making and not making any concessions to his limitations. He's much more efficient than Westbrook because he's 7 feet tall, but that just makes it all the more infuriating that he shoots 3's. And even with his all-time great finishing ability, there's no excuse for going 1-on-3 so much. The free throws are a huge issue as well. And calling him a 7-foot Westbrook is not nearly the insult you seem to think it is, as Westbrook clearly had a MASSIVE impact on the game and some all-time great stat lines before his inevitable decline. However, despite having the best box scores in the league, I have grave doubts about whether his decision-making will ever improve enough to put him among the first 5 guys you'd want on your team deep in the playoffs. He's been talking about not charging into 3 guys and getting offensive fouls for years now, but he still does it just as much.

Finally, his reliance on raw athletic gifts reminds me a lot of Westbrook. Unlike Giannis, you could debate Westbrook's MVP credentials - however, you couldn't really debate that he had a huge positive impact when he was at his physical peak. More importantly, you can't really argue that there was ever any hope of continuing to be a star, let alone a superstar, after his late 20's. Giannis seems likely to have a similar trajectory. He'll be a level above Westbrook every step of the way due to his height, but he hasn't really added any significant polish to his raw physical gifts, and it's looking doubtful that he ever will. Fortunately we probably don't have to worry about that for 3-4 years.

One of the reason i believed young Giannis was his basketball iq, this version of him right now is someone who is trying to understand what the team wants from him, if you believe that Giannis cant play a team basketball or that he is selfish (more than an average superstar i mean) and he cant play with other superstars (Westbrook cant) then you will found when that happens...

[jschligs]

Top-5 improvements he needs to make:

1) Free throws
2) Free throws
3) Free throws
4) Free throws
5) Free throws

Yep. We have a championship if he can hit FT's. I don't care about the 3 or jumpshot, just hit FT's.

As long as he's shooting a good enough FT% to not get Hack-A-Shaqd, his FT% doesn't matter. At best it's a 1 or 1.5 pt difference to his PPG.

All I ask is for him to return to his career average. 72%. I mean in 2016-2017 he was 77% and 2017-2018 he was 76%. He hits that amount we have a much, much better chance at the title.

[emunney]

Bingo.

Antoine Walker shouldn’t have shot threes. Giannis is a comfortably worse shooter than Antoine Walker. Last year he shot them at a rate similar to Walker.

Giannis shooting a three should be worst case scenario for our offense. Giannis handling the ball at all outside the arc should be a solid Plan C.

To answer the original question, 35%.

7 out of 10 players we used against Miami shot 34% and less tho, the overall % without Giannis was actually less than 34.

And we lost in 5.

Bad shooting doesn’t win games. Giannis is a terrible shooter.

He's also a great offensive rebounder, and can't do that from so far away. It's great for the transition defense to have him halfway down the court when the ball is rebounded, but that's a mitigation not an actual good.

[midranger]

7 out of 10 players we used against Miami shot 34% and less tho, the overall % without Giannis was actually less than 34.

And we lost in 5.

Bad shooting doesn’t win games. Giannis is a terrible shooter.

He's also a great offensive rebounder, and can't do that from so far away. It's great for the transition defense to have him halfway down the court when the ball is rebounded, but that's a mitigation not an actual good.

Yes. We left many points on the court last year by having no focus on offensive rebounding. The Heat won the first few games in large part due to second chance opportunities.

[emunney]

And we lost in 5.

Bad shooting doesn’t win games. Giannis is a terrible shooter.

He's also a great offensive rebounder, and can't do that from so far away. It's great for the transition defense to have him halfway down the court when the ball is rebounded, but that's a mitigation not an actual good.

Yes. We left many points on the court last year by having no focus on offensive rebounding. The Heat won the first few games in large part due to second chance opportunities.

A lot of those bounced first, it was ridiculous, like we were in quicksand.

[paulpressey25]

Going back to that lob that DJ Augustin tossed the other night. DJ and Jrue seem far better suited to feed Giannis. Make Giannis into a super mobile version of Shaq. NBA title awaits.

[Matches Malone]

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[coolhandluke121]

He's also a great offensive rebounder, and can't do that from so far away. It's great for the transition defense to have him halfway down the court when the ball is rebounded, but that's a mitigation not an actual good.

Yes. We left many points on the court last year by having no focus on offensive rebounding. The Heat won the first few games in large part due to second chance opportunities.

A lot of those bounced first, it was ridiculous, like we were in quicksand.

Cough cough *Slowpez* cough cough.

[emunney]

Going back to that lob that DJ Augustin tossed the other night. DJ and Jrue seem far better suited to feed Giannis. Make Giannis into a super mobile version of Shaq. NBA title awaits.

That was good, and I liked how he fought for the spot. A lot of good things happened in the first half.

[BucksRule18]

If Giannis shot 33% on semi contested 3's I'd be happy with it. The problem is that he has a hard time making them, even if the defense sags off of him by 10 ft. If you can't hit a 3 with no one guarding you, then you shouldn't take them. If Giannis can hit those consistently, that by itself would open a lot a lot of holes in the wall defense. For instance, Lebron is a 34.4% career 3 point shooter, but 98% - 99% of his attempts are at least semi contested. If defenses consistently sagged off him, then those numbers would go up.

[har13]

7 out of 10 players we used against Miami shot 34% and less tho, the overall % without Giannis was actually less than 34.

And we lost in 5.

Bad shooting doesn’t win games. Giannis is a terrible shooter.

He's also a great offensive rebounder, and can't do that from so far away. It's great for the transition defense to have him halfway down the court when the ball is rebounded, but that's a mitigation not an actual good.

Yes but also Lopez is a great post player, why we dont use him more there? Is maybe coach decision? also does Lopez ever pass the ball?
When Giannis didnt play did we play a team basketball or a completely iso game with Khris doing what ever he could? It was Khris buying selfish or that was what coach told him to do, cause if we didn't win that game and Khris was playing like he did against Magic most in here would called him a selfish ****...
I dont say you wrong, i ask questions.

[LUKE23]

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Uhh, yeah, he isn't signing.

[All The Bucks]

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Lesson learned