FWIW, Barkley was at LEAST 6'6; he wasn't 6'4, not at all.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but..
Now, even if that thing is wrong and you don't want to measure by the crest of his head or you're worried about the shoes he's wearing, he's basically 6'6, 6'7, not 6'4. That's as much a myth as Olajuwon being 7'0 when he was really 6'10.
ss_maverick wrote:Somebody really needs to get Bargs to stop chucking 3s.
But that's all he's good at... if you stopped him from doing that, he'd be totally worthless on offense. OK, almost totally worthless, since he could still peel off of screens for 20-footers... but his jumpshot is the reason he's in the NBA.
I look at big men with a shot like this:
You want a big's shot to be a complementary ability, not a focus skill.
Dirk Nowitzki
Dirk?
Dirk can pull it off because he's had only 3 seasons (including this present season) under 37.9% from downtown; his rookie year, this year and the 03-04 season. He's an astonishing shooter.
He can spot-up and shoot, he can take a shot in transition, he can shoot off the dribble, he can turn-and-fade in the post... those off-balance shots he and Nash hit? Those are flipping hard to convert and they both hit them routinely, yet another in a long line of indicators that show Dirk's shooting ability to be elite.
He's so far above the average level of shooting that he can pull off his style of game; remember, he was a SF in Europe and earlier in his career, not a big man. He's more comfortable facing up, handling, shooting from range, etc. That's his game. And for him, it works, because he's elite.
But he's an outlier, not a good model.
Kevin Garnett
Garnett is another example of an outlier; he's a product of Magic and Bird, tall guys who could do a little of everything.. and he's not as good as those guys (despite being a better defender and rebounder than either) because his offensive game isn't at the same level. He doesn't take advantage of his height and length well enough and he likes that over-the-shoulder fade too much, moves away from the rim rather than towards it too often.
Other Bigs With Jumpers
This section is long, you can skip it if you want to get to the analysis
Bigs with jumpers... who's a good example of how to properly exploit a jumper? Tim Duncan. Big men really come back to him, he's as fundamentally sound as you get. He takes less than two shots a game from 15 feet or beyond (1.89 and change) but he can go out as far as 20 feet if he has to.
Tim Duncan is a beautiful example of why a jump shot is really valuable to a big man.
Karl Malone is another spectacular example and so are both Amare Stoudemire and Carlos Boozer.
Why?
The pick-and-roll. If your big man is not confined to just rolling to the basket and getting a quick dribble-and-dunk or an alley-oop ala Dwight Howard, Tyson Chandler and the other hyperathletes in the frontcourt with no range, then you open up your offensive possibilities because the defense has another eventually to prepare for AND because that range gives the big the ability to score even when the D is actively denying his other spots.
Malone as a young guy rolled a lot more often than he popped but as he developed his J, he was able to become a more dangerous scorer because he was able to stretch the D and open things up for different plays to develop. Amare's jumper is actually about as good as Malone's was, if you're looking for a point of comparison. Malone was, of course, a superior iso player below the foul line and much stronger but yeah, money from 17 feet in, pretty much.
Another good example of a PF using a jumper is Chris Webber, pre-surgery. That man was freaking dynamite before the microfracture surgery; he had the strength to pound around, the athleticism to blow by you and the jumper to make him a nasty threat from 15-18 feet, where he preferred to operate because of his passing abilities.
Malone and Webber are great examples of how a high-post jumper can let a big man be a really dangerous passing weapon.
That's just a couple of guys at the 4. Touching on 5s, you come back to Duncan, who's really a center and has been his entire career. David Robinson is the reverse, a PF who was called a center (although with him, it's a bit tougher because he was a classic C on defense and a PF on offense and Duncan's pretty much pure 5).
Other 4s and 5s who use[d] their jumper properly...
Robert Parish... he was never a stupendous post scorer, that's what the Cs had McHale and Bird for but he was a fine center and he had a mid-range jumper that was just nasty. He played the PnR well, he moved around the post well to open things up for whoever had the ball or to whomever the ball was going on that play... didn't play too far from the basket, stayed within the scope of his role as a center... Parish was never TOO far from the rim because his role was to score what he could but otherwise get boards and bomb outlet passes to the Cs backcourt to open up the transition game. I can't count how many buckets I saw him feed to Ainge and DJ that way.
Zydrunas Ilgauskas is a good contemporary example; he's no 20 ppg scorer but he's a good example of a well-skilled and versatile 5. He takes about 3.4 shots a game from 15+ feet, which is more than Duncan but that's fine. He also shoots about 39.8% on those jumpers, which is a pretty good percentage to be hitting for a big guy at that range. He happens to be particularly deadly from the left wing and the right baseline, shooting about 46 and 44% from those spots, respectively. He has some nice footwork, a good touch on his hook shots and good range on his squared-up jumper, something like 20 feet. He's a guy who you can count on to score effectively anywhere inside that range. This is a guy who is, remember, a roughly 48% career FG shooter and about 78% from the line in any given year. And he had to deal with some major foot issues, too; he's got three seasons over 50% from the floor and is working on his third consecutive season at 80%+ from the line (4th consecutive season at 79.9%+).
Yao Ming?
Another contemporary example of how to be a low post banger and still use the J well; he's got the height thing going but Yao makes excellent use of his jumper and, with the exception of this year's All-Star game, is almost never seen taking shots that are ridiculously outside the range you'd expect from a player with the scope his role entails. Yao takes about 1.7 shots a game from 15+ feet, a little less than Duncan. He's been over 50% from the floor every year since his rookie season (in which he shot 49.8%) and he's a career 82.6% FT shooter. He's got the range and he uses it to take advantage of his height but you see him routinely setting up as close to the basket as possible, which is smart. He exploits his range when he comes out to set screens, mostly, and that's classic basketball and very fundamentally sound. Yao's a great example of how a jumper can benefit a big man.
I'm inclined to point to Chris Kaman as another example, but with a caveat; Kaman takes a hair over 1.1 shots a game from 15+ feet. He's got the range but he's smart and doesn't use it all that often. Also, the Clippers don't really scheme to exploit the shot and that's really for the better. But Kaman's also shooting 46% in his limited sample, so you can generally trust that the shot's a good one, since it goes in nearly half the time and it's a shot from range. Doesn't do so well from straightaway (2-7) but he's actually been quite effective otherwise (again, in limited samples).
That's how you use a jumper, though; you use it to open up your go-to game which, as a big man, happens inside 15 feet if you're doing it right as a center or inside 17 feet if you're a PF (with reasonable fluctuation to allow for varying skill as a shooter; Chris Webber and Malone could step out as far as 20 feet, for example).
Who else...
Vlade Divac comes to mind, for obvious reasons... he floated between the low and high post and had the game to be effective in either location.
Kareem... didn't have the greatest face-up jumper but was a brutally effective player from 20 feet and in on the baseline and about 17 feet and in elsewhere. His range allowed him to be a really effective passer in the motion offense, which really exploits the center man as a passing hub for cutters of all kinds and in L.A.'s offense in the 80s, it worked out with obvious and very high-quality results as well.
Gasol is a great example; he's a very well-rounded big and a beautiful fit in the triangle... he uses a nice mix of inside-outside game and plays very efficiently. He's an absolutely perfect power forward on offense, IMO. Yeah, he's had trouble in the playoffs but Memphis was 7th, 8th and 7th in the West, so they played the 2nd, 1st and 2nd-best records in their conference, not exactly a wonderful chance to shine, you know? They faced San Antonio, Phoenix and Dallas and of those teams, two of them were actually very good defensively. And in Gasol's defense, he was pretty nasty on O against the Spurs and the Suns, he mostly struggled against Dallas on O and on the glass against the Spurs (and that's hardly surprising since Duncan was in his prime (second in MVP voting, a year removed from his second MVP, All-Defensive Second Team when he should have been First Team and DPOY, 4th in the league in total rebounds, 2nd in rebounding average, top 10 in blocks, 2nd in DRTG and a year removed from the start of a 3-year run as #1 in DRTG, 4th in DWS), so it's excusable.
Who else... Bird, obviously, though he was a 3/4 like Dirk and depending on who was on the floor with him at any given time. Still, he had the height and the post game to qualify here.
David West? Another very good example from the present era.
Zach Randolph, Brad Miller, Chris Bosh... Okur isn't my favorite because he plays too far outside and isn't really quite good enough for me to be comfortable with that style but he's been effective for the Pistons and Jazz, so he's got some merit.
Analysis
Having a jumper is useful at any position... for all the same reasons. If you're left open, you can hit the shot. You can involve yourself in the pick-and-roll as the popper, you can curl around some screens to get easy buckets when the defense is denying your favorite static spots. It warps the D when you set up in places where you can use the jumper, opening up new plays.
The key thing is, don't be Dirk.
Big men should model themselves after Duncan, Yao, etc, guys who use the jumper as a secondary tool, something to make the rest of their job easier and to flash different looks at the opposition.
As a 4, you can get away with more shots from farther distances because that's generally where you want your 4 so he's not conflicting with your 5. Amare, who plays like a classic 4, is a great example... although he happens to also be a good example of how to screw the defense with matchup problems when D'Antoni has him running against comparatively lumbering 5s who can't handle his first step.
The thing about a frontcourt player and a jumper is that you have to understand it's not your first option. Even in the classic triple-threat mantra, it's the last option (Look Inside, Drive, Shoot); the whole idea of basketball is exactly what Oscar Roberson described when he talked about always trying to get closer to the basket.
You want your shots to come as close to the rim as you can get because closer shots are higher percentage; it's simple stuff, but guys get caught up in the Euro-influx or in the mystique of their favorite players from when they were growing up or whatever. Lots of guys don't want to be centers because to be a 5 is a physical, arduous style of basketball.
And anyone who says power players (ala Shaq and Dwight) don't need a jumper or can't really benefit from one needs to study up on Wilt, who had range out to around 15, 16 feet (realized in-game; the man hit 20-foot baseline hooks in practice all day but wasn't stupid enough or enough of an ass to uncork those in a game on a regular basis because they weren't reliable shots for him in those situations).
Too many people get caught up in versatility and lose sight of the value of staying within yourself.
I know this has a shot at ruining the thread, but at the risk of doing so, I unearth the Kobe/Jordan comparison.
In my mind, offensively, the major difference between those two comes down to shot selection and the stuff they practice. Kobe Bryant may be the most broadly skilled shooting guard I've ever seen; he has more consistent range than Jordan ever did, great footwork, good shooting off the bounce, etc, etc, etc. Jordan wasn't as good as Kobe in a lot of areas but he stuck to what worked a lot more effectively and didn't take as many poor 3s as does Kobe; he focused on his turnaround fade from the post, he focused on certain spots on the floor, etc. His game evolved over time but he specialized to some degree in a couple of pet moves that he became so proficient at that they were almost completely unstoppable. Kobe hasn't really done that, although in his defense, if you're watching him lately, you're seeing that his post game is starting to get kind of scary, especially now that Gasol is helping to open the defense up for him.
And that's the ticket; stay within your game and use other tools to open up those go-to aspects for yourself; Kobe's been getting better at this and you're seeing him play some really transcendental basketball the last few years because he's starting to really learn how to work his game, something MJ learned a little earlier.
This translates to bigs; Shaq has 4 titles in 6 appearances in part because he understood the scope of his game. Now, if he'd had a little 12-footer and some decent FT shooting, he'd probably have 6 titles by now but that's another story... and he'd still have been primarily a power post scorer who liked to set up as close to the rim as possible as often as he was capable.
Conversely, David Robinson would have been a lot better off if he was more comfortable with his back to the basket and he inverted his game... though in his case, teammates and competition kind of soured his ability to win a title in the 90s.
Conclusion
A jumper is a tool; it's a lot more vital for perimeter players and in the case of frontcourt guys, a lot more valuable to a 4 than a 5 but it still has its place in a big's arsenal if it is used appropriately, as a complement to the player's focus area rather than as a focus area. Dirk is an exception, much in the same way that a guy like Charles Barkley was an exception, or Magic Johnson, Oscar Robertson, etc.
Those guys, they're athletes that radically altered the game by the very nature of what they did to the sport of basketball. It's ALWAYS wise to be as broadly skilled as possible, but in the confines of an NBA game, you want to stick to convention more often than not because it's convention for a reason.
Big men have historically won games by sticking inside most of the time. Dave Cowens? He's an outlier.
It's GREAT if a big shows that he's got a jumper; you want to encourage him to practice it and then involve him in certain kinds of plays to exploit it and show him that you appreciate that versatility but you want to make it clear that his job is mainly under the foul line and not as a shooter.
