RealGM

You can get away withno arc on your shot for midrange jumps or if you have an incredibly high release point like jordan...but no arc means you have no room for error and if u don't have the finger strength to shoot a high arc shot off the dribble coaches shouldn't let u play until u do. We have had serious coaching problems for a while.

Not one player on this team shoots with a high arc when shooing off the dribble. Blatche, Wall, Crawford, Young, McGee, and Lewis. If you look at Lewis's old Supersonic days he shot the ball with a much greater arc.
I think Lewis is a pretty horrible shooting model for the young players.
Watching these guys shoot in warm ups will make you wanna rip out your chair and throw it on to the court.
You watch how they shoot and not of the players thumbs touch together on the ball when they release their shot. No one seems to have flexing in their off arm to actually hold the ball. These guys seems to have never heard of a "unique shooting fork" which they sell on amazon or even the arm shooting bandit.

the only person who seem to be interested in defense and getting his team mates ready was singleton. Every time he put pressure on mcgee or young they would airball or brick the shot. the professionalism of this team is alarming. I think it has to do with their not being a respectable bigman coach on this league with a proven track record of success to set the tone. Gene upshaw isn't getting it done.
Bring in a ewing, pay hakeem a huge amount of money for him to consult. Do something. I like Turiaf he clearly is the only big that seems to know what to do during clunch.
I am sick of Blatche shooting jumpers with no arc and watching the shot cling of the back board. How many times does he lose a rebound and lets a guard steal it away.
Blatche just isn't that athletic and he has no arc whenever he has to step into a shot. You don't see any of these post players explode vertically with power into a elevated high arcing jumpshot. when you have crappy low basketball bigman coaches, you should expect new traditions.
Bring in a bigman coach who was a dominant basketball player in his day. Flip didn't make Garnett great, he was already great when he came into the league.
Cassel has always been a shooting point guard so don't expect him to transform wall into a jason kidd or chris paul type player mentally.
where is gary payton as the assistant coach. Jerry Sloan. these are the drastic moves u make if u want new tradition. john stockton---these are the people u overpay to change your teams culture.

Offensively our guards probably have the lowest baskebtall iq in the league as well. How many of washington wizards plays by flip saunders ever designed a point guard or a shooting guard to set a screen for a powerforward or center. A point guard has to have a high basketball iq in order to set an effective pick for a big and has to know the basketball advantage that pick sets in the grand design of a play. Our coaches and guards completely lack this very important aspect of basketball. Leonsis better get a coach in here who forces these point guards and shooting guards to set a picks or there will never be a winning tradition here in washington. Blatche, even though he is in my avatar is a back up powerforward on a good team. he isn't athletic and he doesn't set strong picks. He isn't explosive off his feet and he doesn't shoot with a high arc whenever he has to put the ball on the ground and then shoot a jump shot.
Rashard Lewis legs are gone, he can't gather himself off the dribble anymore and shoot a high arc shot, i assume because his knee is gone. crawford has decent shot but the guy doesn't have a quick first step or body strength to finish with contact. He also has poor shooting form not a 45 degree angle in his shot.

"arm shooting bandit" "unique shooting fork" bring in gary payton or john stockton to mentor wall because he is completely lost and cassell is turning him into a shooting guard mentally.

Even bring back Unseld to teach these bigs some toughness.

Email this to Leonsis.

Ted is going to realize very quickly that his method of building in hockey will not translate to the NBA.

Not like his hockey team is doing great anyways. He has an incompetent GM (Grunfeld), and another one who has a crush on soft Europeans and poor defenders.

I don't think we need the "off the dribble" qualifier. I think the Wizards could easily be the worst shooting team in the NBA, period.

Michael Jordan never shot with a high arc. He didn't seem to have a problem.

Very few players shoot off the dribble with a high arc. Generally, off the dribble shots are off balance and fading away. Players don't have the strength to get the ball there with a high arc.

The real problem is that we have too many off the dribble shots in the first place. If we could run a decent offense that got the ball in the post for easy shots, in the lane for layups, or kicked out to the three point line for open catch-and-shoot shots, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

[off-topic]The "flattest-but-still-effective" jumper I can think of belonged to Clyde Drexler. He had a line drive arc, but he was fairly accurate - especially from three. In fact, I remember commentators citing Drexler's superior three-point range as his one advantage over Jordan during the Bulls/Blazers Finals. Jordan, of course, responded with the "shrug" game. [/off-topic]

Of course, Drexler won't be walking through the Verizon Center tunnel any time soon. His J might have been effective for him, but a flat arc in general doesn't leave much margin for error.

the further away you are from the basket, the more arc your shot needs to be successful, jordan was a horrible long range shooter, he was never a three point shooter because he didn't change his shooting motion when shooting three pointers versus shooting shots in the paint. When you are below the free throw line, you only need a lil bit of arc on your shot if you have explosive vertical.
as you drift further and further away from the free throw line, the ball travels in the air longer so you need more launch power from your fingers. Jordan didn't have launch power in his fingers, he mainly shot his jumpers using his amazing hang time and would float longer in air than his defender and could release his shot while they were falling back to the earth.

Clyde was never a good three point shooter either. He basically leap into air like jordan and waited for everyone to fall back to the earth while he was still in the air, and since he was floating it's easier to shoot a flat arc line driver than to arc a ball after you have floated in the air for a while. Also this technique doesn't work as you go further and further from the basket because the ball has to float in the air longer and gravity has more of an effect.
our players shoot their midrange jumpshots with the same mechanics as they do their free throws using the same arc. the problem is that shooting off the dribble always throws you off balance and if you can't jump high you don't have alot of time to recalibrate your shot. Dre with his 4 inch vertical jumpshot and low release point doesn't give his brain enough time to recalibrate for when his body floating forward or sideways after pulling up his dribble. The closer he is to basket, the less arc he needs to put on the ball but as he goes around free throw line, he has to add additional arc because he doesn't get high in the sky on his jumper and he small moves while he is in the air are magnified because he doesn't get much vertical on his shot from his pure leg strength exploding upwards. If Dre actually exploded off the ground and was way higher than his opponent in the sky on a jumpshot, he could always count feeling where his momentum was taking him and adjust his shot mid air but because he doesn't get off the ground he has very little time to adjust for slight off balances ---aka if his moving sideways while in the air trying to shoot a jumper. So hte longer you are in the air, the more you can stabilize and account for you movements to your momentum while shooting your shot.
A guy like mcgee would have been unstoppable if he had the coordination to dribble pull up, explode and at the top of his jump shoot an arc elbow pointing toward ceiling nowitski style while in midair, but obviously that takes alot coordination and finger strength.
Anyway, Dre doesn't have the vertical lift to consistently shoot the ball off the dribble from the free throw line so he should stick to shooting his jumper below the free throw line.
Rashard Lewis should retire. The highest point of his shot barely goes over the backboard on three. Either you force him to shoot a shot with an apex well above the top of the backboard on just don't let him shoot any more unless its close to the basket.
YOung shot is decent mainly because he feet are normally set when he shoots and no one is his face.
the problem with young is that he doesn't make anyone better. He doesn't set picks to open anyone up, he doesn't rebound in traffic, he doesn't really get steals or charges, and he can't draw fouls at will. He forces everyone to play watch nick young on offense and all that does it keep your team from feeling unity. Now if Nick were michael jordan and can score in the paint at will, that's fine, but playing one on one and shooting jump shots 90 percent of the time and expecting your team play blood and guts defense just so that you can launch up another one on one jump shot each tiem down the court kills the spirt and defensive intensity of the team.

Defensive players give up their bodies, rebounders off catch elbows to recover rebounds and all you do is reward them by hoisting up another low percentage jumpshot.
Arenas and Jordan were loved in their heyday because they took it to rim and executed high percentage shots.
wall and especially young have not showned a high aptitude for this yet they still want to play on one one basketball. You can't be a one on one basketball player unless you can get to rim and score through contact. Jordan and arenas could do this so they were granted a pass for one on one basketball. Young, Wall, and Blatche can't get to the free throw line at will so you don't get a pass from playing one one basketball.
Secondly if you don't shoot over .45 percent on your jumpers when a defender is guarding you closely, you don't get a pass. '


anyway the point of this post is that if you pay attention to each players shot on the team, you will notice that the apex or the highest point of the arc of their shot is almost never well above the highest point of the backboard. Any decent coach would bench a professional player for this but not in wizards culture unless Leonsis does something about it.
Wall and Young ha

Arenas was way better than wall at playing shooting guard. the problem is, we thought Wall would be alot brainer in the chris paul mold than run and gun hurl myself into a defender without thinking about who is going to be open once i get into the paint.

So wall looks like a very very poor mans arenas==same poor basketball iq and looking to shoot first as opposed to setting up his scorers easy scores in the half court.

larry hughes and nick young===hughes was smarter but even slower footed. YOung has better jumpshot and post game but completely lacks bbiq when it comes to team defense. Hughes better.

Caron Butler vs vesely Singleton-- extremely slow footed and couldn't challenge shots. Decent jumpshot when wide open but was a shot jacker. I like Vesely Singleton more.

Powerforward--Jamison vs Blatche. as much as we hate blatche, he is a way better defender perimeter and post than Jamison. Jamison was a rebound theif but Blatche shows poor hands when fighting for rebounds. Blatche commands double teams in the post, Jamison didn't. Blatche.

Center. Haywood---Decent bulk put slow feet, couldnt get off the ground. show some nastiness but very clumsy. He often fouled whenever someone drove the lane. McGee bulked up, better shot blocker and rebounder. Still doesn't move people around with body while haywood could do this.

I see wall as shooting guard unless we get a coach who knows how to develop a point guards instincts and fundamental skills like handle, playing pick and role defense, and shooting with both your thumbs touching on the release of a basketball, using hesistation dribbles while in the paint and be able to design plays without the coaches help.

You're either a shooter or your not, arc has fairly little to do with it. There are great shooters with flat arcs and great shooters with high arcs.

i can't think of any great long range shooters who could shot with a low arc off the dribble. you can shoot a flat shot with your feet set...but not off the dribble at a high percentage. I would love to know which great shooters shot off teh dribble long range with a flat arc?

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