tsherkin wrote:No, he was far from bad at the line. I only meant to highlight that Butler is better. Erving peaked at 84.5%, one of three seasons at 80%+. Butler thus far has averaged 84.2% and has six seasons of 85%+, including 86.3% and 87.0% in the two seasons preceding this one. I was trying to highlight an accumulation of things that ultimately limits Erving's upper-bound in terms of efficiency. Not to the point where he's a tragedy of a scorer, that certainly wouldn't be true, but it does help paint an overall picture of where he might rank as a scorer in the league. He isn't a first-tier scorer in today's game.
I guess it means what you mean by "first tier".
I think that's a little off in the particulars, since two years later he shot 36.7% on 3.3 3PA/g... Compared to 2015 (3.0, 37.8%), it's fairly similar. And then you can make a semantic argument about 35% if you like, but it's still competent 3pt shooting and he wasn't overusing the shot, either. Certainly not elite, but good enough to make of himself a threat.
A very specific sample, to be sure, but it's worth mentioning that Butler's volume and efficiency have been down in his injury-hampered seasons, so it's hard to separate the injury from the shooting ability. He's been 7-8% better this season so far than those super down years, and you have to consider the percentage of unassisted 3s he was taking, and the percentage of corner threes, which both play into his percentage. Again, not an elite 3pt shooter, but throwing in a little context does help examine why his percentages dipped.
That's nitpicking, Butler in 2015-22 had only 2 seasons with 3P% above league average and his volume is poor for a player of his role. No, that's not a competent 3pt shooting - he's just good enough player to do well regadless of this weakness.
Kind of depends on how you define "mid-range," though, since he's around 41% in both the 3-10 and 10-16 zones. It'd be more accurate to say that prior to this season, he has struggled on long twos.
He's been 41.9% from 3-10, 40.9% from 10-16 and 36.1% from long midranges in 2015-22 period. These are not good numbers, these are league average from closer spots and bad from long midrange. I guess he's not horrible, but him being average at short midrange, bad at long midrange and below average from three point line doesn't make him even a decent shooter, let alone good. To be honest, after further evaluation I wouldn't be surprised if Julius'd come out as a better shooter.
Watching him handle the ball wasn't as bad as watching Drexler, but I admit I have trouble evaluating him in that respect because the rules aren't quite the same. His R to L crossover was... let's say 'uninspiring' even by the standards of the time. There WERE guys in his era who were good ball handlers by modern standards, but even dudes like Walt Frazier, Isiah Thomas and Magic mostly weren't doing quite the same things as now. Erving was okay, I mean he could PROTECT the ball well, but I wouldn't really argue that he had strong handles. He could confidently dribble drive to the rim, but he wasn't like yo-yoing guys with good hesitation and exceptional east-west movement, he was mostly just blowing past dudes in transition or jumping over them. And of course he did have a post game, which is now en vogue again for wings, which is nice to see.
I don't think I agree, his handles are very good for a 1970s forward and he had a lot of control due to his large hands. Again, he wasn't Magic Johnson but he could beat his man off the dribble quite often. On the contrary of what you said, I have seen him using hesitation moves quite a lot in his prime.
Mmm, but then he'd be ONLY taking the hardest 3pt shots in the game and would necessarily be required to take a bunch of them in order to keep the D honest. And without truly elite foul drawing, that starts to diminish the efficacy of that move,
I don't think you truly appreciate how insane Julius was with the ball in his hands. Just stoping him from getting inside would be extremely tough task for defenses. Just look at what Ja Morant did last year without a reliable jumpshot and as impressive as Morant is as an athlete, Julius was considerably more dominant physically. I get, Morant wasn't super efficient but Julius ceilling is significantly higher than that.
particularly since I don't think he was as good a passer as guys like Doncic or Harden or other helio guys. It isn't just kick-out passing that these guys do, or we'd be that much more thrilled with the Marburys of the world. Penetrate and pitch is a starting point, but there's a degree of timing and vision involved in being that level of player and I don't think Erving was Drexler's level as a passer, let alone a truly elite helio playmaker. I don't mean to crap on Drexler there, meantime, that was more a compliment to that skillset in Clyde's game versus Erving's. Just watching him, he makes simple passes. Nothing particularly visionary, nothing that wasn't really obvious. Good passes, appropriate passes, but not so much that you have this notion he has excellent vision of the court. Shuffle passes, basic lead passes, moving it ahead in transition. The stuff you EXPECT a player to do. I will admit that he made good outlet passes, though.
I think Julius was very good at finding cutters on a move, but he definitely wasn't Doncic or Harden.
Yes, we have seen higher usage from some guys, but minutes played still does affect upper bound. Harden, for example, was still mostly playing about 36 mpg when he was leading the league in scoring. And again, competent volume 3pt shooting, elite FTAr, different skills and so forth.
It's not really Harden, this season we have 8 players flirting with 30 ppg average and only one of them plays more than 37 mpg (Doncic). It's not a controversial take that offenses are more one-guy centred than ever before.
Ah, but Lebron DOES have touch outside of the paint. And this season, of all seasons, while he's in the middle of setting a career-high from 16-23 feet, is not the season to make that crack about James... particularly since he's working on his 6th season of 40%+ from 16-23 feet. Elite? No. "No touch?" Wildly inaccurate, even if he IS struggling badly from 3 this year.
As you did with Butler, it should be noted LeBron also finishes his shots from 10-16 range at 35.5%, which is very bad. I mean, James makes 34% of his shots outside 10 feet, that's horrible. If you thnik that Julius was worse than that, then we clearly view his shooting ability differently.
30 ppg is a lot. Even now, and setting aside efficiency.
I mean, that would put him "only" 6th in the league, not that massive as you'd expect.
The guys who are doing it in the league right now are also leveraging some kind of competitive advantage. Tatum is a considerably better shooter.
Again, Tatum is not that good of a shooter. 35% from three, 42% from midrange is decent but on a low volume. How bad do you think Julius was as a shooter?
Giannis is a physical monster.
Julius was also a physical monster.
Doncic is far more skilled (and also a demon drawing fouls at the moment). Embiid is an athletic big with range who can draw fouls.
I agree.
Even the close guys are Lebron and Durant.
Both of them are old and I wouldn't be surprised to see peak Julius doing better than them at that age.
Lillard is perhaps the second-best 3pt shooter in league history.
Exaggaration, but I get the point. At the same time, Lillard doesn't use midrange and is a horrible finisher inside.
SGA is a dramatically superior mid-range shooter than Erving, and faster to boot, etc, etc.
But way less physically imposing. Come on, that's nitpicking...
Meantime, I don't think that's really Erving's game to begin with. He didn't push volume in the 70s or 80s most of the time, particularly less so in the NBA. That wasn't really what he needed to do for Philly to compete. He picked his spots. I think he was more like Drexler in that regard, happy to sit back a little while the team game unfolded and then to try and assert his will as necessary apart from a season here or there.
Again, Philly had a lot of volume scorers which didn't have much other talents. Julius averaged 29 ppg in the ABA (31 ppg in the playoffs) and I get it - different talent, different pace, but still - he could increase his load when team was structured differently,
