EmpireFalls wrote:Again I cannot over exaggerate how bad the supporting cast has been this year, so injured, no one can create a shot but him.
I said this before, but it bears repeating: it's very rare for a team to permit a player to shoot as much as Ball has been shooting unless they have no other choice. It's literally "we're so bad, we need you to bootstrap us with crap-to-mediocre volume scoring because no one else can generate looks." AI in Philly, Jordan in his earliest days (although even he had Woolridge), 03 McGrady, 06 Kobe (although that roster had more than these Hornets, for sure). Like, it's bad strategy, which is why good teams don't do it. But when you have no other choice, then that's what you do, and Ball's giving it a go.
He's just logged three straight games with 30+ FGA. 18 times in the past 25 years have we seen that kind of shooting volume. 5x from AI, 7x from Kobe, 3x from Harden, Westbrook and Vince once each (I mean streaks of 3+ games at 30+ FGA). Bunch of other guys (including some of the same) have done it in 2 straight games, but 3+ games shooting that much is pretty exclusive territory. And there's a pretty unifying theme, with the exception of Harden (recalling that Durant played 27 games the year Westie did it).
So yeah, even independent of actually just watching how bad they are around him, I think it's pretty clear that Ball has no safety net, no support. No one else to really do anything but chuck at 3. No one else to move the defense, to draw legitimate attention, no one else to ease the burden. He just had a 20 3PA game during a 35 FGA game. THAT has happened (20+ 3PA) 30 times in league history; Lillard 2x, Steph 8x, Harden 7x, Lillard and Klay 2x.
That's... an insane number of 3s. But when you have to support huge volume, that's what happens. Kobe, of course, lofted 21 (his previous high was 18) in his very last game, that 60-point send-off against the Jazz.
That's pretty telling. At some point, you just don't have the legs to do be driving and probing and all that. 20 3s is a little nutso, but what choice does he have?
