Where would Peak Barkley rank today?

[tsherkin]

1) The raw count, for those used to the numbers today, can be misleading. The full post above tried to put his three point attempts into context. He was primarily a big. Playing in the 1980s and 1990s. He was very bad at them and very good at other shots (people don't say "Oh that Steph Curry, he loves threes." It's a rational shot. It's not a rational thing for Barkley). Further context below with his draft class big man peers.

Sure. He was bad at it, and he eventually started taking a whole bunch of them. I don't think a single person truly gave a crap about his shooting volume from 3 until his MVP season or later, though, given the rest of his game. And as a proportion of his nightly shooting volume, they weren't consequential, nor meaningfully undercutting his play, so the idea that he "loved" them remains hyperbolic in my eyes, at least during the first decade or so of his career.

2) Immediately after the clipped section is the idea that you could perhaps defend the statement on a specific year but not over his career. Your response is to gesture at range of earlier years ... without stating a particular year to stand behind.

What? That's an empty remark. I pointed to a span at the start of his career to indicate that no single year was of consequential volume, and that they were low enough in volume as to be sizably represented by heaves. For a very significant chunk of his career, he wasn't taking a lot of them. And then I explicitly mentioned that this changed as he aged.


And posting a bunch of other bigs of non consequence doesn't really change any of that.

[Owly]

I would say he loved shooting them. At best maybe if you have a specific year in mind maybe that statement could be defensible. In general I don't think it is.

Ellis is pretty close to an archetypal 2 of the time. An "off" guard or shooting guard. His FT% is below what you'd expect. But unlike others he's extended his range out beyond that line. He peaks and has a short prime around (a little above for 4 seasons, final one injury curtailed) 25ppg. And he's shooting threes at a rate and accuracy unseen before in the NBA and is for a fair while the 3pt made leader until Reggie Miller surpassed him.

Charles Barkley is a man who shot .266 from three (you can say worse from the "full" present distance line - you could also note he shoots more frequently and slightly better from the shorter line). He is conventionally regarded as a 4 though early on played quite a bit at the 3. He is in any case very much regarded as a power player.

Karl Malone is the archetypal star power forward of the time, Barkley's rival and by FT% a slightly purer shooter (gap gets slightly larger if you wipe out Malone's weak early years developing his shot, mainly years 1 and 2 ... one could throw in 3). Malone plays substantially more minutes than anyone else here.

Charles Barkley shot threes as though he were an exceptional three point shooting big man for his era, except he was exceptional from inside the ark and probably the worst guy shooting as much as he was from outside.

By the standards of his era did he shoot way too many for a pf? Absolutely. Now when you bring in what I specifically said about his Philly days(where most of his best seasons came) and him shooting 1-2 a game in that timeframe, I wouldn't characterize that so much as him falling in love with the shot to it being some huge deteriment(the way it was with guys such as WB, late career Kobe, so forth). Barkley just had trouble understanding that his effectiveness as a jump shooter didn't really extend beyond about 17 ft.

The size of the detriment is probably constrained by the era. I didn't really comment on the cost.

I don't think that means he didn't love them even at the time because as you kind of acknowledge he's a pretty wild outlier for attempts given
(a) era
(b) position
(c) inability to make the shot
(d) capacity to get other, much better shots

Bending over backwards and calling him a 3 (or including them too anyway) ... hunting for the guys who most harmed their shooting efficiency versus what they could have got inside the line, that I could find or remember from studies, the next guy is probably Worthy. And after Barkley's 0.1 rookie year in 1985 Worthy's yearly 3PA per 100 possessions is always less than half Barkley's until 1993 when Barkley is out of Philly (2.3 to Barkley's 3.7).

I can see an argument it's harsh to penalize him for being good inside. But that's part of what makes it a "love" ... as I say if it's rational you probably don't describe it in those terms, (certainly not in the present context, with the present connotations ...). But to be honest I think the point stands even without that.


This part isn't so much at you given the time frame (though this does somewhat address any idea it wasn't a problem in Philly - the following span is split evenly between Philly and Phoenix)... and we're already getting to a different generation of player but before the three point line was shortened, 91-94 Danny Ferry (who shot 84% from the stripe for his career, .393 from 3 and from long mid-range (and granting the shortened line affects one year, and incomplete data and that early shot location tracking wasn't perfect ...) reportedly shot .507 from 15ft to the 3pt line [for the years we have that data]) shot 2.6 3s per 100 possessions, Barkley shoots 3.3 per 100 possessions. Barkley shot them at a higher rate than Ferry in 3 of the 4 individual years and more than Ferry's average in that span in just those two Philly years (2.8) ... and like I say Ferry is another high end shooting specialist and is much less of a peer than the power players list in a previous post.

In short ... Barkley wasn't good at the shot and he was an outlier for big in shooting it that much ... kind of anyway but especially for how bad he was at it. I believe that justifies saying he loved it.

[Cavsfansince84]

The size of the detriment is probably constrained by the era. I didn't really comment on the cost.

I don't think that means he didn't love them even at the time because as you kind of acknowledge he's a pretty wild outlier for attempts given
(a) era
(b) position
(c) inability to make the shot
(d) capacity to get other, much better shots

Bending over backwards and calling him a 3 (or including them too anyway) ... hunting for the guys who most harmed their shooting efficiency versus what they could have got inside the line, that I could find or remember from studies, the next guy is probably Worthy. And after Barkley's 0.1 rookie year in 1985 Worthy's yearly 3PA per 100 possessions is always less than half Barkley's until 1993 when Barkley is out of Philly (2.3 to Barkley's 3.7).

I can see an argument it's harsh to penalize him for being good inside. But that's part of what makes it a "love" ... as I say if it's rational you probably don't describe it in those terms, (certainly not in the present context, with the present connotations ...). But to be honest I think the point stands even without that.


This part isn't so much at you given the time frame (though this does somewhat address any idea it wasn't a problem in Philly - the following span is split evenly between Philly and Phoenix)... and we're already getting to a different generation of player but before the three point line was shortened, 91-94 Danny Ferry (who shot 84% from the stripe for his career, .393 from 3 and from long mid-range (and granting the shortened line affects one year, and incomplete data and that early shot location tracking wasn't perfect ...) reportedly shot .507 from 15ft to the 3pt line [for the years we have that data]) shot 2.6 3s per 100 possessions, Barkley shoots 3.3 per 100 possessions. Barkley shot them at a higher rate than Ferry in 3 of the 4 individual years and more than Ferry's average in that span in just those two Philly years (2.8) ... and like I say Ferry is another high end shooting specialist and is much less of a peer than the power players list in a previous post.

In short ... Barkley wasn't good at the shot and he was an outlier for big in shooting it that much ... kind of anyway but especially for how bad he was at it. I believe that justifies saying he loved it.

It honestly just feels like we are talking about semantics at this point. It's not like he was kicking the ball into the stands once or twice a game. Keep in mind if he shoots 28% from that range(which he did in 88&91) it's the equivalent of shooting 42% from long 2's which is not at all a bad % from there for even good shooters. Then also have to factor in league wide 3pt% being only 31-32% back then. We look at 30% now and see it as bad(despite guys like Luka & LeBron having seasons at that level recently) but it wasn't bad back then. Then also factor in the way guys were shooting more due to the shortened line for a few years which is when his 2 highest apg occurred. What I am pushing back is the idea that he had a love for them that translated into a semi large detriment to him as a player which is the initial comment I was replying to. It's sort of hard to consider shot selection to be a weakness for a guy who didn't take that many shots and posted some of the highest ts add seasons of all time in a 5 year period.

[Owly]

1) The raw count, for those used to the numbers today, can be misleading. The full post above tried to put his three point attempts into context. He was primarily a big. Playing in the 1980s and 1990s. He was very bad at them and very good at other shots (people don't say "Oh that Steph Curry, he loves threes." It's a rational shot. It's not a rational thing for Barkley). Further context below with his draft class big man peers.

Sure. He was bad at it, and he eventually started taking a whole bunch of them. I don't think a single person truly gave a crap about his shooting volume from 3 until his MVP season or later, though, given the rest of his game. And as a proportion of his nightly shooting volume, they weren't consequential, nor meaningfully undercutting his play, so the idea that he "loved" them remains hyperbolic in my eyes, at least during the first decade or so of his career.

2) Immediately after the clipped section is the idea that you could perhaps defend the statement on a specific year but not over his career. Your response is to gesture at range of earlier years ... without stating a particular year to stand behind.

What? That's an empty remark. I pointed to a span at the start of his career to indicate that no single year was of consequential volume, and that they were low enough in volume as to be sizably represented by heaves. For a very significant chunk of his career, he wasn't taking a lot of them. And then I explicitly mentioned that this changed as he aged.


And posting a bunch of other bigs of non consequence doesn't really change any of that.

This probably isn't going anywhere.

I'll do a brief response but intend to let the broad comments stand.

I don't think there are any careers over 30000 minutes are "of non-consequence". I could have left it there and honestly made the picture look worse. I tried to be comprehensive and give as full a context as possible.

It is theoretically possible that his numbers are heaves. None of the other bigs seem to be doing that at any substantial volume. He reportedly attempted 7 heaves in his final 6398 RS minutes (last four years). That might scale to 3.5 for a 3200 minute season. Maybe those numbers are off. Maybe he was taking way more heaves in absolute terms whilst taking fewer threes ... I'd need evidence to be persuaded.

You are, for whatever it's worth, literally wrong with regard to "don't think a single person truly gave a crap about his shooting volume from 3 until his MVP season or later". Not only is there a single person, there's mini-chapters about who's losing and gaining from the three and suggesting Barkley "lost" 98.05 points for his team in 1989 by shooting the 3 rather than 2s (Trupin, Secor Couzens, '89). Barry and Cohn ('91) note it (again taking a near to hand example) when they ask us to "consider the results if he didn't indulge his taste for treys (a 44-for-155, .284 [me: above his career norm] habit that makes Sixers coaching staff wince): Sans the three, he would have led the league in field goal percentage with .614! ... But Barkley has trouble resisting the bomb" so that's a publication and apparently a coaching staff ... in a stronger shooting year...

I'm not sure what "given the rest of his game" means. That he gets a free pass on it because other stuff is great?

You state that you explicitly point out that it changed as he aged. I never suggested you didn't (or that it didn't, league norms changed too) I did suggest your quote missed important context.

As before to the other poster I haven't suggested a particular degree to which it might "undercut" his game. It's been whether one could justify the idea of him loving the 3. Someone attacked someone else's post giving that opinion. I think given he's an outlier attempter for a big and an awful shooter of them who had better options at his disposal it stands.

And given the context provided in the posts above you will be unsurprised that I don't see any hypebole in saying he loved the three. The era mitigates the absolute terms cost but he's doing it wildly more than his peers and doing it very badly.

But as I say I fear this isn't going anywhere so I think it's probably best left there.

[tsherkin]

This probably isn't going anywhere.

Likely, but it's okay to disagree sometimes, especially when the conversation is at least interesting.

I don't think there are any careers over 30000 minutes are "of non-consequence". I could have left it there and honestly made the picture look worse. I tried to be comprehensive and give as full a context as possible.

I was being lazy with phrasing when I said "of no consequence," if I'm to be honest. I didnt want to go into a big diatribe about why I didn't care about any of those guys in terms of their shooting proclivities, especially since a bunch of them weren't competent enough to even think about 3s in the first place, that's all.

It is theoretically possible that his numbers are heaves.

For clarity, I didn't mean to suggest they all were, just that heaves at any rate would feature prominently in samples that small.

None of the other bigs seem to be doing that at any substantial volume.

Sure, but you selected a bunch of crap-ass shooters who couldn't stick a 20-footer, let alone a 3, so I don't know how much that matters.

You are, for whatever it's worth, literally wrong with regard to "don't think a single person truly gave a crap about his shooting volume from 3 until his MVP season or later". Not only is there a single person, there's mini-chapters about who's losing and gaining from the three and suggesting Barkley "lost" 98.05 points for his team in 1989 by shooting the 3 rather than 2s (Trupin, Secor Couzens, '89). Barry and Cohn ('91) note it (again taking a near to hand example) when they ask us to "consider the results if he didn't indulge his taste for treys (a 44-for-155, .284 [me: above his career norm] habit that makes Sixers coaching staff wince): Sans the three, he would have led the league in field goal percentage with .614! ... But Barkley has trouble resisting the bomb" so that's a publication and apparently a coaching staff ... in a stronger shooting year...

Fair point in the sense of my comment being hyperbole and directly inaccurate.

The spirit of it carries forward, of course. If someone thinks him taking 3s was a problem for Philly, then they weren't paying attention. He did so much else for the team with his volume scoring that the 1 or 2 3s he took per game really weren't of consequence.

And given the context provided in the posts above you will be unsurprised that I don't see any hypebole in saying he loved the three. The era mitigates the absolute terms cost but he's doing it wildly more than his peers and doing it very badly.

In the end, I suspect we are closer to agreement than you think and that our primary distance is related to the specific semantics of what "love" means, if I'm to be honest.

[Owly]

The size of the detriment is probably constrained by the era. I didn't really comment on the cost.

I don't think that means he didn't love them even at the time because as you kind of acknowledge he's a pretty wild outlier for attempts given
(a) era
(b) position
(c) inability to make the shot
(d) capacity to get other, much better shots

Bending over backwards and calling him a 3 (or including them too anyway) ... hunting for the guys who most harmed their shooting efficiency versus what they could have got inside the line, that I could find or remember from studies, the next guy is probably Worthy. And after Barkley's 0.1 rookie year in 1985 Worthy's yearly 3PA per 100 possessions is always less than half Barkley's until 1993 when Barkley is out of Philly (2.3 to Barkley's 3.7).

I can see an argument it's harsh to penalize him for being good inside. But that's part of what makes it a "love" ... as I say if it's rational you probably don't describe it in those terms, (certainly not in the present context, with the present connotations ...). But to be honest I think the point stands even without that.


This part isn't so much at you given the time frame (though this does somewhat address any idea it wasn't a problem in Philly - the following span is split evenly between Philly and Phoenix)... and we're already getting to a different generation of player but before the three point line was shortened, 91-94 Danny Ferry (who shot 84% from the stripe for his career, .393 from 3 and from long mid-range (and granting the shortened line affects one year, and incomplete data and that early shot location tracking wasn't perfect ...) reportedly shot .507 from 15ft to the 3pt line [for the years we have that data]) shot 2.6 3s per 100 possessions, Barkley shoots 3.3 per 100 possessions. Barkley shot them at a higher rate than Ferry in 3 of the 4 individual years and more than Ferry's average in that span in just those two Philly years (2.8) ... and like I say Ferry is another high end shooting specialist and is much less of a peer than the power players list in a previous post.

In short ... Barkley wasn't good at the shot and he was an outlier for big in shooting it that much ... kind of anyway but especially for how bad he was at it. I believe that justifies saying he loved it.

It honestly just feels like we are talking about semantics at this point. It's not like he was kicking the ball into the stands once or twice a game. Keep in mind if he shoots 28% from that range(which he did in 88&91) it's the equivalent of shooting 42% from long 2's which is not at all a bad % from there for even good shooters. Then also have to factor in league wide 3pt% being only 31-32% back then. We look at 30% now and see it as bad(despite guys like Luka & LeBron having seasons at that level recently) but it wasn't bad back then. Then also factor in the way guys were shooting more due to the shortened line for a few years which is when his 2 highest apg occurred. What I am pushing back is the idea that he had a love for them that translated into a semi large detriment to him as a player which is the initial comment I was replying to. It's sort of hard to consider shot selection to be a weakness for a guy who didn't take that many shots and posted some of the highest ts add seasons of all time in a 5 year period.

I've been pretty clear my defense was of someone's statement that he loved them, not regarding the absolute terms cost.

Fwiw if you want to take the two semi-outlier stronger percentages (every other year is below his Philly average, the following years of 89 and 92 would give volume years with uglier %s) and compare them to what is now understood by all (and for others for much longer) to be an awful shot ... yes that framing will make it look better. My posts have considered era norms, crediting Jeff Turner's percentages for instance. But even that might be generous ... the offenses of the time were efficient. Barkley's shooting especially so. That was an alternative. Fwiw I think I've also been clear in acknowledging the shortened line

I don't think he has to be remotely ineffective overall or as a shooter (in the sense of general shooting accuracy rather than from distance - in light given his exceptional TS adds his overall effectiveness isn't in question) to point out that this was a glaring weakness and yeah ... I think my position's clear ... he shot it an awful lot relative to peers and very badly and that seems to justify "love" to me.

But as with others I'm burnt out on this ...

But since the tone is more agreeable I will just bite on the one thing

Sure, but you selected a bunch of crap-ass shooters who couldn't stick a 20-footer, let alone a 3, so I don't know how much that matters.

As I said ... I "selected" (read: listed) the bigs from his draft class. And and this point was defending them from being "no consequence" (which you've since acknowledged was ... not a phrasing properly aligned with your intent). And went to lower significance ones despite knowing it included Turner ... and I included Perkins as context in the original post. Bowie was tolerable from three for a big, for the time, too.I don't think the sample was biased, just direct peers. If one wanted to say Perkins had some room for some heaves ... maybe ... that's one guy and Barkley seemingly wasn't throwing them later so I don't think it changes the argument.

If I was feeling mean towards him I'd (half-joking) suggest "crap-ass shooter who couldn't stick a 20-footer, let alone a 3" ... might not separate them from Barkley. His late career 15ft-3pt is solid though. That said a contemporary review said 15ft jump/set shot was useful but shouldn't go beyond 18 so ... the bearish take if one buys that as true would be perhaps is that he's just taking the shorter end of that range and the jokey comment still kind of land [general context not directly pertaining to point - as before also that early era's shot tracking is less accurate] ... a bullish take could buy that and suggest he traded his long twos for 3s and praise the shot selection ... even if that were the case though ... let someone else take the long shots.

[tsherkin]

As I said ... I "selected" (read: listed) the bigs from his draft class. And and this point was defending them from being "no consequence" (which you've since acknowledged was ... not a phrasing properly aligned with your intent). And went to lower significance ones despite knowing it included Turner ... and I included Perkins as context in the original post. Bowie was tolerable from three for a big, for the time, too.I don't think the sample was biased, just direct peers. If one wanted to say Perkins had some room for some heaves ... maybe ... that's one guy and Barkley seemingly wasn't throwing them later so I don't think it changes the argument.

I don't purport it was biased, I just don't think it's a relevant sample. Barkley had skills they didn't, so pushing the boundary of those skills made any kind of sense. I can't even envision some of those guys CONSIDERING 3s. Not that Barkley should have, but he did have more of a J than most of those guys. Direct peers isn't a terrible starting point, but it does go only so far.

If I was feeling mean towards him I'd (half-joking) suggest "crap-ass shooter who couldn't stick a 20-footer, let alone a 3" ... might not separate them from Barkley. His late career 15ft-3pt is solid though. That said a contemporary review said 15ft jump/set shot was useful but shouldn't go beyond 18 so ... the bearish take if one buys that as true would be perhaps is that he's just taking the shorter end of that range and the jokey comment still kind of land [general context not directly pertaining to point - as before also that early era's shot tracking is less accurate] ... a bullish take could buy that and suggest he traded his long twos for 3s and praise the shot selection ... even if that were the case though ... let someone else take the long shots.

Yeah, I mean, if you're looking to see if I support Barkley's decision to shoot 3s, I don't. I think it was a mistake and I think his increasing volume in later years had more to do with aging and injuries and ebbing athleticism than it did with anything else. He shot a couple of them per game after a few years in the league, but it's also not surprising after how physical he was on all of his other shots. There are very few guys who just bull around the basket in volume across league history and he was shouldering primary scoring volume on a nightly basis, so it isn't surprising to me, nor any kind of outlier. Later in his career, of course, more of an issue.

I just find it semantically challenging to line up with your characterization of "loving" the 3 ball over his first decade on such a trivial sample, regardless of it being an outlier relative to draft class peers in the frontcourt, that's all. That's where we differ, I think, more than anywhere else. Now, come the mid-90s... well, that's a separate discussion.

[OhayoKD]

1) The raw count, for those used to the numbers today, can be misleading. The full post above tried to put his three point attempts into context. He was primarily a big. Playing in the 1980s and 1990s. He was very bad at them and very good at other shots (people don't say "Oh that Steph Curry, he loves threes." It's a rational shot. It's not a rational thing for Barkley). Further context below with his draft class big man peers.

Sure. He was bad at it, and he eventually started taking a whole bunch of them. I don't think a single person truly gave a crap about his shooting volume from 3 until his MVP season or later, though, given the rest of his game. And as a proportion of his nightly shooting volume, they weren't consequential, nor meaningfully undercutting his play, so the idea that he "loved" them remains hyperbolic in my eyes, at least during the first decade or so of his career.

2) Immediately after the clipped section is the idea that you could perhaps defend the statement on a specific year but not over his career. Your response is to gesture at range of earlier years ... without stating a particular year to stand behind.

What? That's an empty remark. I pointed to a span at the start of his career to indicate that no single year was of consequential volume, and that they were low enough in volume as to be sizably represented by heaves. For a very significant chunk of his career, he wasn't taking a lot of them. And then I explicitly mentioned that this changed as he aged.


And posting a bunch of other bigs of non consequence doesn't really change any of that.

For the purposes of this thread, I think a relevant question would be whether he increases his volume of ill advised threes as his contemporaries do it more transported today

[Masigond]

Barkley would be devastating in open court situations. Still much of the game like he played it back in his time would not work as well today. As had been said: The Mark Jackson rule would make him less effective in set play, and his shooting and defense leave a lot to be desired.

Overall about top 10, I guess.

[HeartBreakKid]

Top ten is a safe bet. I think he gives up too much on defense to be a guarantee at top 5.

[tsherkin]

For the purposes of this thread, I think a relevant question would be whether he increases his volume of ill advised threes as his contemporaries do it more transported today

Later in his career? Sure. I think he'd probably be on the "limited volume" train in his 20s still, though. The awareness of what is and isn't a good three and percentage-specific remarks would be very different in today's environment compared to then.

[Owly]

As I said ... I "selected" (read: listed) the bigs from his draft class. And and this point was defending them from being "no consequence" (which you've since acknowledged was ... not a phrasing properly aligned with your intent). And went to lower significance ones despite knowing it included Turner ... and I included Perkins as context in the original post. Bowie was tolerable from three for a big, for the time, too.I don't think the sample was biased, just direct peers. If one wanted to say Perkins had some room for some heaves ... maybe ... that's one guy and Barkley seemingly wasn't throwing them later so I don't think it changes the argument.

I don't purport it was biased, I just don't think it's a relevant sample. Barkley had skills they didn't, so pushing the boundary of those skills made any kind of sense. I can't even envision some of those guys CONSIDERING 3s. Not that Barkley should have, but he did have more of a J than most of those guys. Direct peers isn't a terrible starting point, but it does go only so far.

If I was feeling mean towards him I'd (half-joking) suggest "crap-ass shooter who couldn't stick a 20-footer, let alone a 3" ... might not separate them from Barkley. His late career 15ft-3pt is solid though. That said a contemporary review said 15ft jump/set shot was useful but shouldn't go beyond 18 so ... the bearish take if one buys that as true would be perhaps is that he's just taking the shorter end of that range and the jokey comment still kind of land [general context not directly pertaining to point - as before also that early era's shot tracking is less accurate] ... a bullish take could buy that and suggest he traded his long twos for 3s and praise the shot selection ... even if that were the case though ... let someone else take the long shots.

Yeah, I mean, if you're looking to see if I support Barkley's decision to shoot 3s, I don't. I think it was a mistake and I think his increasing volume in later years had more to do with aging and injuries and ebbing athleticism than it did with anything else. He shot a couple of them per game after a few years in the league, but it's also not surprising after how physical he was on all of his other shots. There are very few guys who just bull around the basket in volume across league history and he was shouldering primary scoring volume on a nightly basis, so it isn't surprising to me, nor any kind of outlier. Later in his career, of course, more of an issue.

I just find it semantically challenging to line up with your characterization of "loving" the 3 ball over his first decade on such a trivial sample, regardless of it being an outlier relative to draft class peers in the frontcourt, that's all. That's where we differ, I think, more than anywhere else. Now, come the mid-90s... well, that's a separate discussion.

Part of me is worried perhaps I was wrong to bite. This should be my last on it within this exchange. Otherwise at best a constant loop.

I felt the implication of the list being "selected" was a curation towards a particular perspective. And it was in the first instance players drafted within one year who were genuinely great shooters for the time and direct positional and era peer/rival. And then the bigs from the same same class. That's where the defense against bias came from.

Barkley having skill they didn't ... they weren't shooting skills so I don't see why it would matter. Malone provides context of a star with perhaps a marginally better pure shot (cf previous posts regarding FT%). Fwiw Willis, Bowie and McCormick sit (with Barkley and Malone) within the 70-75% range. Thorpe and Cage below. Turpin and Turner above (Perkins above, fwiw Ellis above). He possessed an adequate PF stroke. There was no signal for him to gun away.

2nd para was really just playing with ""crap-ass shooter who couldn't stick a 20-footer, let alone a 3" and giving some context around that, playing with limited data and ideas around it. No I haven't said you support it.
That being said I don't understand the he took mostly physical shots so ... what, he's entitled to jack up some terrible low contact ones? I don't know what the conclusion from the premise is.

"nor any kind of outlier" without any kind of specifics is I would suggest, outright wrong (I'm not entirely sure what you mean here to honest, given you grant he is an outlier among his peers which would be one kind of outlier ... maybe the idea is that Philly-only he isn't, though see below....). If you say just volume or just accuracy and don't account for position sure. We've already seen Trupin and Secor Couzens suggest he "lost" more than 2.5x as many points as any other player by taking 3s in '89. If you don't like the assumption he could continue making 2s at the same rate arguably implied in that measure (particularly with the use of "lost") sure it's not perfect but he is an outlier taking so many of them and being so bad ... and moreso accounting for position and the other options available to him.

In '93 STATS Inc looked at the largest gap between 3pt % and 2pt%. Again one can argue that this penalizes him for being good and quibble at the margins...
He's the clear leader in difference (.607 - .254 = .354 [their rounding]) from Worthy's .538 - .227 = .311
And of all these bad outside shooters, (requiring a minimum of 200 attempts for qualification) Pippen shot the most at 453 ... Barkley shot nearly 2.5 times as many at 1108. Nobody at that time shot that much. For older guys Worthy took 375, Pressey 356, Cheeks 204. So just in case we're punishing him for shooting accurately from 2 ... going way down the extended list in the appendix ... there's 2 players who attempted as many as 500 on lower than .300. Both are small guards. Spud Webb is just under .300 at .294 (coming off a down year - he ends his career at .314) and Isiah Thomas - who himself isn't a bastion of shot selection - at .288 off 1247 attempts (finishes career at .290 - the generous would grant that with playoffs included he gets close to 30%) ... and Thomas played longer to get those shots off.

He's very bad at it and among those very bad at it he has the most or at best second most absolute attempts ...
though Thomas played longer (rate wise he''s at 1.8 per 100pos, Barkley at 2.1 for that time)
and shot not insignificantly better (I'm not sure he qualifies for "really bad" at that time, idk)
and was a small guard
and didn't have an efficient inside game as a possible alternative
... among forwards who weren't great shooters he was an outlier in terms of attempts. Among bigs moreso. He was substantially outpacing some spacing/shooting specialists (e.g. Turner ... getting to different generations but cf Sikma, Laimbeer). There are various ways of arranging the data where I can't see the data points that are sitting close to Barkley. Even when looking through a prism of what is mainly just his Philly career and entirely within his first decade.

Those shots are bad shots, he's very bad at them taking them very often given the context even within this window. Not it's wouldn't be many now, no it doesn't stop him being net very efficient. It's still, even just 87-92, it's 1.8 possessions a game with an awful shot. Fwiw, If I were told I'd have to take that as a given I'd be annoyed and I'd ask why. Now, if you told me I got Barkley that would dwarf that concern, but that hasn't been the point ... if he were occasionally shooting his free throws backwards he wouldn't have to shoot many to call him an outlier or suggest he must really love doing it because it's patently bad, weird and harmful ... the example is absurd but the adjectives ... still apply. In relative terms (to norms general context - not relative to Barkley's net value) it was a lot, in absolute terms not nothing.

But I'm repeating myself "nobody that bad shooting them that much ... especially big, especially one with better options ... is an outlier, justifies "loving" as a term" blah, blah ... so ... yeah I'll leave it.

[tsherkin]

Part of me is worried perhaps I was wrong to bite. This should be my last on it within this exchange. Otherwise at best a constant loop.

Fair, but regardless, thanks for engaging. We can agree to disagree over the semantics of the word, but it was valuable to see your line of reasoning at least

[SportsGuru08]

People are speaking of Barkley's jumpshot as if he were Ben Simmons.

Barkley had a solid midrange and could shoot the occasional three. Sure it wasn't his primary form of scoring, but it's ludicrous to suggest he was incompetent in that regard.

As we've seen from the likes of Lopez, Millsap and Ibaka, going from being a strictly inside scorer to a range scorer isn't particularly difficult. All it takes is a little practice.

[SickMother]

124 TS+ | 433.5 TS Add
124 TS+ | 454.7 TS Add

From an efficiency standpoint peak Chuck was on par with peak Curry. The only other guys to go over 400 TS Add in a season are Wilt and Kareem, though Durant (395) and Oscar (393) came close. Pretty insane company.

Reggie Miller's season best is a .650 TS%, Dame Lillard's career best was a .645 last year, Embiid came in at .655 during his MVP campaign. SGA (.649), Jokic (.649) and Giannis (.655) are all in that range this year. Barkley topped the league in TS% for four straight seasons with an aggregate .660 mark.

[HeartBreakKid]

People are speaking of Barkley's jumpshot as if he were Ben Simmons.

Barkley had a solid midrange and could shoot the occasional three. Sure it wasn't his primary form of scoring, but it's ludicrous to suggest he was incompetent in that regard.

As we've seen from the likes of Lopez, Millsap and Ibaka, going from being a strictly inside scorer to a range scorer isn't particularly difficult. All it takes is a little practice.

All 3 of those guys had good jumpers and were better from the outside than Chuck even before they went to the 3 point line. They were not just "inside" scorers, unless your definition of inside is anything within the 3 point line.


Chuck shot 3 pointers, that does not mean he was ever good at them. He hurt his team by taking those 3s. The fact that he was one of the few bigs who included 3s in his game and he wasn't good at them doesn't bode well.

I would say Barkley's threat from the outside came from his drives not pulling or spotting up. He could hit jumpers around the elbows like a lot of good bigs, but beyond that I don't think he was very threatening.

[penbeast0]

124 TS+ | 433.5 TS Add
124 TS+ | 454.7 TS Add

From an efficiency standpoint peak Chuck was on par with peak Curry. The only other guys to go over 400 TS Add in a season are Wilt and Kareem, though Durant (395) and Oscar (393) came close. Pretty insane company.

Reggie Miller's season best is a .650 TS%, Dame Lillard's career best was a .645 last year, Embiid came in at .655 during his MVP campaign. SGA (.649), Jokic (.649) and Giannis (.655) are all in that range this year. Barkley topped the league in TS% for four straight seasons with an aggregate .660 mark.

You are forgetting Adrian Dantley.

Adrian Dantley had a 404.8 TS Add in 1984 (plus 4 other seasons over 300 TS Add). He didn't bring the rebounding that Barkley did, but in terms of pure scoring, he's not far off.

[tsherkin]

You are forgetting Adrian Dantley.

Adrian Dantley had a 404.8 TS Add in 1984 (plus 4 other seasons over 300 TS Add). He didn't bring the rebounding that Barkley did, but in terms of pure scoring, he's not far off.

Higher volume than Barkley, as well.

[homecourtloss]

People are speaking of Barkley's jumpshot as if he were Ben Simmons.

[b]Barkley had a solid midrange and could shoot the occasional three. Sure it wasn't his primary form of scoring, but it's ludicrous to suggest he was incompetent in that regard.

As we've seen from the likes of Lopez, Millsap and Ibaka, going from being a strictly inside scorer to a range scorer isn't particularly difficult. All it takes is a little practice.

Peak Barkley didn’t have much of a jumper unless you consider 1993 Barkley’s peak, which I don’t. Explosive monster Barkley was the player in Philadelphia.

124 TS+ | 433.5 TS Add
124 TS+ | 454.7 TS Add

From an efficiency standpoint peak Chuck was on par with peak Curry. The only other guys to go over 400 TS Add in a season are Wilt and Kareem, though Durant (395) and Oscar (393) came close. Pretty insane company.

Reggie Miller's season best is a .650 TS%, Dame Lillard's career best was a .645 last year, Embiid came in at .655 during his MVP campaign. SGA (.649), Jokic (.649) and Giannis (.655) are all in that range this year. Barkley topped the league in TS% for four straight seasons with an aggregate .660 mark.

He was 400+ TS added in a league that was at 54% TS. And, even if we argue that it is “easier to score today,” it’s “easier” for EVERYONE to score so you have to score better than the rest of the competition. At Barkley’s athletic peak, he was a +10 to +13 rTS% monster. Does anyone think that he would be a +13 rTS% consistently in today’s game at the same volume without a three point shot? I doubt it—30 ppg on 70%+ TS sounds unlikely. The biggest argument for him being a top player today would be his monster offensive efficacy.

As his explosive athleticism declined, he did develop an underrated nuanced offensive repertoire, including a very effective left-hand finish, some nice up and under moves, absorbing contact, being able to shoot off the dribble for mod-range shots to varying degrees of efficacy, a decent left hand in an era when you didn’t see one as often, especially not from any front court players. He availed himself of illegal defense rules to create iso situations with his back to the basket as well as facing up for 14+ seconds of shot clock time but he wouldn’t be able to do today that as effectively today.

But his biggest issue would be that he was a poor defender (c.f., on/off numbers available, partial RAPM numbers, eye test), playing in an era where he got to play a lot of one on one defense. He could look down on a man, use his hands, body them up a little bit and do OK without having to defend in space. His problem was that he had poor defensive awareness and/or didn’t care that much on defense. During his peak, he was a negative defender, but in today’s game if he played exactly the same way defensively, he would be a massive liability because today’s game would require him to defend in space, switch, make many many more rotations off of many many more actions that each team runs. In today’s game if you are late on a rotation, you’re giving up an open three pointer to probably a good shooter and/or and open lane to the basket after one pass. In Barkley’s days, late on a rotation meant you gave up an 18 footer to somebody.

Now, obviously all this depends upon what type of player would Barkley be had he grown up during this era vs. putting the Barkley we know in this era.