picc wrote:
First, my comments weren’t meant to imply he’s just left open to fire away. He’s rarely, if ever, open. Can shoot from everywhere. I’m a believer...believe me.
No, no, I realize. You were saying that he wasn't necessarily always pulling a Kobe and attacking a single defender and then pulling a dribble-stop or something to create the jumper, which is a different sort of degree of difficulty than the shots we typically see from Nash, yes? I respect the comment, it's true that some of Kobe's lower FG% results from his shot selection, the fact that he's in motion more than just popping around a screen, that he has often taking 6-8 attempts per game from 16-20, etc, etc.
It IS very difficult to compare shooting ability across different positions/roles. Same deal with his 3pt shooting.
I don't think Kobe's as good a shooter as is Nash to begin with anyway, but it makes a direct comparison very difficult. It's also true that for Kobe, the shot is his goal. For Nash, he is baiting the defenders to open up a passing lane and burning them when they don't, which is an inherently different strategy with different results.
Yes and no. I’m not contending that either of those bigs are better shooters than Steve Nash. He is far superior to Garnett, who is superior to Bosh, and I doubt they’d shoot better than him under any circumstance. I think that’s the contradiction you were getting at, but correct me if i’m wrong.
Generally. Without being condescending, I was just trying to point out that you'd showed the one thing, but to connect it back to the role/position angle of discussion, we needed another step, that's all.
Well, it isn't. Its actually more beneficial, and less indicative of dynamic shooting ability. Even if you’re shooting off a screen, you’re still shooting off the dribble – which is almost universally harder to do than simply catching and shooting.
Well, no, not always. A lot of the time what actually happens for the pop big is that they peel off of the screen, catch and shoot without the ball ever touching the floor (unless it was a bounce pass). You can see TONS of that happening for Malone, Bosh, Garnett and Duncan. Boozer, Lee and Amare, as well.
I’m not quite following here. It sounds like you may be under the impression i’m arguing for these guys over Nash? On the contrary, my point was more to demonstrate why KG’s percentages weren’t quite as amazing as they seemed when previously brought up.
Nah, KG is a very good shooter from the mid-range. He isn't Dirk's level (and you can look at volume, degree of difficulty, basically any angle you want), but he's still a guy who was deadly. In his 6-year run as a 20/10/5 player, he took 18.1 FGA/g, shooting between 23 and 32 percent of his shots from 16-23 feet (don't have data for 2000, actually, just 01-05), and an additional 20-27% from 10-15 feet. From 01-05, he shot 46.8% from 10-16 and 44.3% from 16-23.
That's bloody marvelous no matter how you characterize it. So right there, you're looking at maybe 43-60% of his FGAs per game. He was BRUTAL from the elbows and the foul line, absolutely brutal in his effectiveness.
