Official Scottie All Star Barnes Thread 9

[tsherkin]

He needs to accept at some point that he isn't a good 3 pt shooter and reduce his attempts.

You're gonna get a bunch of "he needs reps to get better" from the crowd which can't accept that he can get that in practice well enough, especially on those open pull-ups and catch-and-shoot sets. He should pretty much be banned from taking any three with more than 10 seconds on the clock at this point, and from all pull-ups.

[Scase]

I’d add that despite not being able to hit the broad side of a barn yesterday that Barnes was still able to have a positive impact on the offensive side of the ball, especially in the second half, because he’s now commanding more gravity. This allowed him to spray the ball around a bit and get easy opportunities for his teammates. He made a couple nice cuts as well.

Yeah, I was careful to phrase that as "scoring" for a reason. His broader effect on the game was still good.

Far from a finished product but the last 2 weeks (and the weeks before his eye injury) are proving to be promising.

We've seen him have a strong month or two before, so we'll see how this goes. But he can't do anything about the games he hasn't played yet, so the only thing left is to see how those games go, for sure.

Just think how much better it would've been not jacking up 7 stupid 3s. Last 5 games he's had 3 good offensive games, and 2 bad ones. I'll let you guess which games he went 0/6 and 1/7 from 3.

He's 27% with 169 3PA on the season, it's time to just accept what you are man.

[HangTime]

I’d add that despite not being able to hit the broad side of a barn yesterday that Barnes was still able to have a positive impact on the offensive side of the ball, especially in the second half, because he’s now commanding more gravity. This allowed him to spray the ball around a bit and get easy opportunities for his teammates. He made a couple nice cuts as well.

Yeah, I was careful to phrase that as "scoring" for a reason. His broader effect on the game was still good.

Far from a finished product but the last 2 weeks (and the weeks before his eye injury) are proving to be promising.

We've seen him have a strong month or two before, so we'll see how this goes. But he can't do anything about the games he hasn't played yet, so the only thing left is to see how those games go, for sure.

Just think how much better it would've been not jacking up 7 stupid 3s. Last 5 games he's had 3 good offensive games, and 2 bad ones. I'll let you guess which games he went 0/6 and 1/7 from 3.

He's 27% with 169 3PA on the season, it's time to just accept what you are man.

He needs to keep taking them, again it's not for now, but for later.

I think the tougher/more physical the defencive matchup he has, the more 3s he'll take.

[Scase]

Yeah, I was careful to phrase that as "scoring" for a reason. His broader effect on the game was still good.




We've seen him have a strong month or two before, so we'll see how this goes. But he can't do anything about the games he hasn't played yet, so the only thing left is to see how those games go, for sure.

Just think how much better it would've been not jacking up 7 stupid 3s. Last 5 games he's had 3 good offensive games, and 2 bad ones. I'll let you guess which games he went 0/6 and 1/7 from 3.

He's 27% with 169 3PA on the season, it's time to just accept what you are man.

He needs to keep taking them, again it's not for now, but for later.

I think the tougher/more physical the defencive matchup he has, the more 3s he'll take.

Yeah man, didn't you know every sub 30% 3 point shooter just needs more reps. Do you have even a remote understanding of development in basketball?

In his prime, Shaq averaged 11FTA, and all he did was get worse over the years, he shot over 11000 FTs over his career and never got any better. Despite what your grade school teacher may have taught you, practice does not always make perfect. Sometimes you just suck at certain things, and that's fine, you work around limitations, you dont slam your head against the wall and expect things to magically get better.

Definition of insanity etc.

[Raps in 4]

Yeah, I was careful to phrase that as "scoring" for a reason. His broader effect on the game was still good.




We've seen him have a strong month or two before, so we'll see how this goes. But he can't do anything about the games he hasn't played yet, so the only thing left is to see how those games go, for sure.

Just think how much better it would've been not jacking up 7 stupid 3s. Last 5 games he's had 3 good offensive games, and 2 bad ones. I'll let you guess which games he went 0/6 and 1/7 from 3.

He's 27% with 169 3PA on the season, it's time to just accept what you are man.

He needs to keep taking them, again it's not for now, but for later.

I think the tougher/more physical the defencive matchup he has, the more 3s he'll take.

There is clearly something mechanically wrong with his shot again. Taking more shots won't fix it. I agree that we shouldn't give up on it just yet, but he needs to spend time reworking his shooting form in the off-season with our coaches.

[HangTime]

Just think how much better it would've been not jacking up 7 stupid 3s. Last 5 games he's had 3 good offensive games, and 2 bad ones. I'll let you guess which games he went 0/6 and 1/7 from 3.

He's 27% with 169 3PA on the season, it's time to just accept what you are man.

He needs to keep taking them, again it's not for now, but for later.

I think the tougher/more physical the defencive matchup he has, the more 3s he'll take.

Yeah man, didn't you know every sub 30% 3 point shooter just needs more reps. Do you have even a remote understanding of development in basketball?

In his prime, Shaq averaged 11FTA, and all he did was get worse over the years, he shot over 11000 FTs over his career and never got any better. Despite what your grade school teacher may have taught you, practice does not always make perfect. Sometimes you just suck at certain things, and that's fine, you work around limitations, you dont slam your head against the wall and expect things to magically get better.

Definition of insanity etc.

I'm just glad Darko wants him to take them. Whether it's for the same reasoning I have or not, makes no difference.

You don't see it, and that's ok.

[Scase]

He needs to keep taking them, again it's not for now, but for later.

I think the tougher/more physical the defencive matchup he has, the more 3s he'll take.

Yeah man, didn't you know every sub 30% 3 point shooter just needs more reps. Do you have even a remote understanding of development in basketball?

In his prime, Shaq averaged 11FTA, and all he did was get worse over the years, he shot over 11000 FTs over his career and never got any better. Despite what your grade school teacher may have taught you, practice does not always make perfect. Sometimes you just suck at certain things, and that's fine, you work around limitations, you dont slam your head against the wall and expect things to magically get better.

Definition of insanity etc.

I'm just glad Darko wants him to take them. Whether it's for the same reasoning I have or not, makes no difference.

You don't see it, and that's ok.

Yeah I guess that must be it, your clairvoyance is unmatched

[Psubs]

You'll never know until a few years down the line. Look at Lebron, he's only 1% behind Curry shooting 3's this season and was over 40% last season and better than Curry!

[HiJiNX]

You'll never know until a few years down the line. Look at Lebron, he's only 1% behind Curry shooting 3's this season and was over 40% last season and better than Curry!

I think the reality is that shooting doesn’t come easily to everyone and for those that do develop it, sometimes it takes many years to be respectable (much less good). There are a bunch of guys around the league who went from bad shooters to eventually being competent (or better). Shoot, we had four such guys on our championship team in Lowry, Ibaka, Siakam, and Norm. Barnes needs to keep taking them and he needs to keep working on it in the offseason.

The thing he really needs to work on is taking them when they make sense. About four of his threes from Monday night were just poor shot selection when he could have taken the ball inside, or swung the ball. And instead of mixing them into his game, he sort of just takes a string of them when they’re not falling almost as if he’s trying to prove to himself that he can make them. I think that’s the bigger issue. He takes more when he’s missing and he strings them together rather than mixing them into the rest of his game.

I also notice that his shooting form tends to fall apart throughout the season. Look at his foot placement and balance/energy transfer and release during his good stretches vs his bad stretches and it’s night and day. His mechanics are inconsistent. He needs more practice reps. But he’s also gotta take them in games.

[Tripod]

Reminder, Kyle Lowry was a 26.4% career 3pt shooter after year 4 in the league.

It is possible to improve in year 5 onward.

[tsherkin]

Just think how much better it would've been not jacking up 7 stupid 3s. Last 5 games he's had 3 good offensive games, and 2 bad ones. I'll let you guess which games he went 0/6 and 1/7 from 3.

He's 27% with 169 3PA on the season, it's time to just accept what you are man.

Agreed. Corner threes, sure. ATB, much less so. Take em in practice, see what happens.

He needs to keep taking them, again it's not for now, but for later.

I think the tougher/more physical the defencive matchup he has, the more 3s he'll take.

That isn't the way shooting development typically works.

I think the reality is that shooting doesn’t come easily to everyone and for those that do develop it, sometimes it takes many years to be respectable (much less good). There are a bunch of guys around the league who went from bad shooters to eventually being competent (or better). Shoot, we had four such guys on our championship team in Lowry, Ibaka, Siakam, and Norm. Barnes needs to keep taking them and he needs to keep working on it in the offseason.

Okay, but Ibaka started out by taking nearly 50% of his 3s from the corner, which is the traditional way weak shooters leverage the 3. 46.7% of his attempts were corner 3s. And in general was 98% assisted on his 3s. Strictly catch-and-shoot, heavy corner usage. He came to Toronto and that changed, and so did his consistency, but he'd been in the league a decade by that time. So that sort of timeline isn't going to be useful to us at all with Scottie and his 3s, nor are we likely to deploy him as a primary corner shooter any time soon with this roster.

Siakam was a 36.9% 3pt shooter by his 3rd season, had 2 decent years and has been pretty rough since then, this season notwithstanding. 21-24, he shot 32.7% on 3.6 3PA/g with a high of 34.4% and a low of 29.7%. Not sure he's a good example either.

Powell was a 40.4% shooter as a rookie (and 81.1% at the line), had 2 rough years, got back to 40% in the title year and is a career 39.9% shooter from 3. He took corner 3s on 35% of his attempts while with us, and 30.8% on his career, and had 90.7% of them assisted with us. He was always capable of making his 3s, so again, not really a good example of a development arc similar to Scottie's.

The thing he really needs to work on is taking them when they make sense. About four of his threes from Monday night were just poor shot selection when he could have taken the ball inside, or swung the ball. And instead of mixing them into his game, he sort of just takes a string of them when they’re not falling almost as if he’s trying to prove to himself that he can make them. I think that’s the bigger issue. He takes more when he’s missing and he strings them together rather than mixing them into the rest of his game.

I also notice that his shooting form tends to fall apart throughout the season. Look at his foot placement and balance/energy transfer and release during his good stretches vs his bad stretches and it’s night and day. His mechanics are inconsistent. He needs more practice reps. But he’s also gotta take them in games.

This is a lost year, so I'm not gonna bellow to the sky about it too much, but it will become habit forming. He's a bad 3pt shooter who isn't really showing much improvement. Looks like he's right back to his 2023 self now that the 2 hot-shooting months in an injury-shortened year are gone. Even his corner 3 percentage is back down to horrible levels.

This just doesn't appear to be his shot.

He does a lot of other things really well; it's okay to look at this and say "maybe we shouldn't have him spamming a third of his shooting volume with a shot he's brutal at?"

[Scase]

Just think how much better it would've been not jacking up 7 stupid 3s. Last 5 games he's had 3 good offensive games, and 2 bad ones. I'll let you guess which games he went 0/6 and 1/7 from 3.

He's 27% with 169 3PA on the season, it's time to just accept what you are man.

Agreed. Corner threes, sure. ATB, much less so. Take em in practice, see what happens.

He needs to keep taking them, again it's not for now, but for later.

I think the tougher/more physical the defencive matchup he has, the more 3s he'll take.

That isn't the way shooting development typically works.

I think the reality is that shooting doesn’t come easily to everyone and for those that do develop it, sometimes it takes many years to be respectable (much less good). There are a bunch of guys around the league who went from bad shooters to eventually being competent (or better). Shoot, we had four such guys on our championship team in Lowry, Ibaka, Siakam, and Norm. Barnes needs to keep taking them and he needs to keep working on it in the offseason.

Okay, but Ibaka started out by taking nearly 50% of his 3s from the corner, which is the traditional way weak shooters leverage the 3. 46.7% of his attempts were corner 3s. And in general was 98% assisted on his 3s. Strictly catch-and-shoot, heavy corner usage. He came to Toronto and that changed, and so did his consistency, but he'd been in the league a decade by that time. So that sort of timeline isn't going to be useful to us at all with Scottie and his 3s, nor are we likely to deploy him as a primary corner shooter any time soon with this roster.

Siakam was a 36.9% 3pt shooter by his 3rd season, had 2 decent years and has been pretty rough since then, this season notwithstanding. 21-24, he shot 32.7% on 3.6 3PA/g with a high of 34.4% and a low of 29.7%. Not sure he's a good example either.

Powell was a 40.4% shooter as a rookie (and 81.1% at the line), had 2 rough years, got back to 40% in the title year and is a career 39.9% shooter from 3. He took corner 3s on 35% of his attempts while with us, and 30.8% on his career, and had 90.7% of them assisted with us. He was always capable of making his 3s, so again, not really a good example of a development arc similar to Scottie's.

The thing he really needs to work on is taking them when they make sense. About four of his threes from Monday night were just poor shot selection when he could have taken the ball inside, or swung the ball. And instead of mixing them into his game, he sort of just takes a string of them when they’re not falling almost as if he’s trying to prove to himself that he can make them. I think that’s the bigger issue. He takes more when he’s missing and he strings them together rather than mixing them into the rest of his game.

I also notice that his shooting form tends to fall apart throughout the season. Look at his foot placement and balance/energy transfer and release during his good stretches vs his bad stretches and it’s night and day. His mechanics are inconsistent. He needs more practice reps. But he’s also gotta take them in games.

This is a lost year, so I'm not gonna bellow to the sky about it too much, but it will become habit forming. He's a bad 3pt shooter who isn't really showing much improvement. Looks like he's right back to his 2023 self now that the 2 hot-shooting months in an injury-shortened year are gone. Even his corner 3 percentage is back down to horrible levels.

This just doesn't appear to be his shot.

He does a lot of other things really well; it's okay to look at this and say "maybe we shouldn't have him spamming a third of his shooting volume with a shot he's brutal at?"

This has been my gripe all year. Shoot 3's go for it, but stop shooting stupid ones. Start on the easier ones that you have better success with, no one is going to improve shooting bad shots. All it does is breed bad habits, Darko needs to tighten the leash on that stuff, but I worry he's enabling it.

[tsherkin]

This has been my gripe all year. Shoot 3's go for it, but stop shooting stupid ones. Start on the easier ones that you have better success with, no one is going to improve shooting bad shots. All it does is breed bad habits, Darko needs to tighten the leash on that stuff, but I worry he's enabling it.

In Scottie's defense, he takes a lot of what are not bad 3s. He's taking 3.5 catch-and-shoot 3s per game, he is just sucking horribly on them. Those aren't bad 3s. He's only taking 1.6 pull-up shots. Those are bad looks for him, and he's appropriately horrible at them. He's also only taking like 2 3PA/g in the first 9 seconds of the clock. He's taking 2.4 3PA/g with the defender no where near him, and blowing at them, and another 2.6 with the defender 3-6 feet away.. and blowing at those.

We see some shots here and there which he takes which are puzzles, but by and large, he's taking open 3s when they come to him, and isn't even doing it too frequently on the pull-up. He's just been atrocious from 3 in general. Open looks, catch-and-shoot or not, he is just bricking them. I don't think the shot selection is at the core of his issues at all, to be honest, just that we need to shave off his attempts from ATB eventually. Probably not this season, because it's a lost season, but it just isn't a strength for him.

[Scase]

This has been my gripe all year. Shoot 3's go for it, but stop shooting stupid ones. Start on the easier ones that you have better success with, no one is going to improve shooting bad shots. All it does is breed bad habits, Darko needs to tighten the leash on that stuff, but I worry he's enabling it.

In Scottie's defense, he takes a lot of what are not bad 3s. He's taking 3.5 catch-and-shoot 3s per game, he is just sucking horribly on them. Those aren't bad 3s. He's only taking 1.6 pull-up shots. Those are bad looks for him, and he's appropriately horrible at them. He's also only taking like 2 3PA/g in the first 9 seconds of the clock. He's taking 2.4 3PA/g with the defender no where near him, and blowing at them, and another 2.6 with the defender 3-6 feet away.. and blowing at those.

We see some shots here and there which he takes which are puzzles, but by and large, he's taking open 3s when they come to him, and isn't even doing it too frequently on the pull-up. He's just been atrocious from 3 in general. Open looks, catch-and-shoot or not, he is just bricking them. I don't think the shot selection is at the core of his issues at all, to be honest, just that we need to shave off his attempts from ATB eventually. Probably not this season, because it's a lost season, but it just isn't a strength for him.

Good point(s), it's likely that it sticks in my mind more seeing him dribble down the court for a pull up ATB 3 with like 10-15s on the clock.

Granted, if you suck at C&S 3's as well, maybe it's time we become more selective of those. If you are getting upwards of 5, 3PA when your defender isn't really close to you, maybe that's a sign you shouldn't be taking those shots. You aren't open because of our league leading ball movement, that is intentional, and until you can make those at even league average clips, they will continue to leave you open.

Run plays that can result in him being open from his strong corner, and build up his confidence from there. Scottie is not a good 3p shooter, but I also don't think he's a 27% one either. We've seen more than enough times how his emotional state and confidence levels impact his scoring both good and bad, we should harness it and put him in the best situations possible.

[tsherkin]

Good point(s), it's likely that it sticks in my mind more seeing him dribble down the court for a pull up ATB 3 with like 10-15s on the clock.

Yeah, as we get into the mid-clock, it starts to change a bit. And yes, I agree with your later point: in an ideal world, he'd be more selective with his overall 3pt shooting.

That said, if he's WIDE open and there isn't a better pass, that's a good shot. Obviously not so much for HIM, but I can understand why he's pulling on a lot of the shots he does take. They're good looks. The defense is GIVING him those looks, of course, but in his head, if he's working on 3pt shooting, it doesn't get a lot better than those. Especially if the coach is supporting the effort.

We definitely would benefit from getting him in the corner more than ATB, though, no doubt. He's not even good from there, he's actually quite bad relative to league averages. His BEST seasons are 36 and 37%, and 38.5% is league average from the corner. But it'd be better than what we're getting now.

Again, context matters. This year, it isn't such a big deal and makes sense to have him let fly. I know HangTIme is somewhere salivating and all like "MRAH, LET HIM SHOOT EVEN THOUGH HE'S WESTBROOK-LEVEL AWFUL" and all that. This year, that makes plenty of sense. But from a winning POV, we can't have him doing that once we flip that switch and start attempting to compete.

[Scase]

Good point(s), it's likely that it sticks in my mind more seeing him dribble down the court for a pull up ATB 3 with like 10-15s on the clock.

Yeah, as we get into the mid-clock, it starts to change a bit. And yes, I agree with your later point: in an ideal world, he'd be more selective with his overall 3pt shooting.

That said, if he's WIDE open and there isn't a better pass, that's a good shot. Obviously not so much for HIM, but I can understand why he's pulling on a lot of the shots he does take. They're good looks. The defense is GIVING him those looks, of course, but in his head, if he's working on 3pt shooting, it doesn't get a lot better than those. Especially if the coach is supporting the effort.

We definitely would benefit from getting him in the corner more than ATB, though, no doubt. He's not even good from there, he's actually quite bad relative to league averages. His BEST seasons are 36 and 37%, and 38.5% is league average from the corner. But it'd be better than what we're getting now.

Again, context matters. This year, it isn't such a big deal and makes sense to have him let fly. I know HangTIme is somewhere salivating and all like "MRAH, LET HIM SHOOT EVEN THOUGH HE'S WESTBROOK-LEVEL AWFUL" and all that. This year, that makes plenty of sense. But from a winning POV, we can't have him doing that once we flip that switch and start attempting to compete.

Yup, the bad habit bit is my biggest concern, it's a lot easier to give free reign to shoot, than it is to take it away. We definitely want him trying new things, but it needs to be structured, we aren't the 7 seconds or less Suns, we can't just have dude freewheeling out there.

It's not bad in the sense that it's causing us to lose games cause, well, bring em on. But when we do pivot to trying to win, having a 30% 3p shooter just jacking up shots at a moments notice is definitely going to hamper progress.

I have harped on RJ in his respective thread about taking bad shots and how he needs to be more disciplined or put in better spots, and got labelled a "hater", but my criticism is rated E for everyone. Scottie needs to be treated the same way, he's not some offensive savant that should get the benefit of the doubt, he's a limited offensive player that needs to be brought along slowly to improve.

Last year it looked like he had much improved mechanics on his 3 and was hitting them at a really good rate for a couple months, so I had hopes that after a large emphasis being put on his off season work on his 3, that it was that hard work starting to pay off, but it looks more like it was a hot streak. We have seen countless off season workout videos of him splashing 3's like nobodies business, but we've now seen a season and a half of close to 400 attempts and he's hovering around 31%. This isn't improvement, it's a decline at worst, and stagnation at best.

I know progress isn't linear in sports, but there is no reason to believe that he will magically show up to be a league average shooter out of nowhere. We should be seeing at least marginal improvements, not 30%, 28%, 34%, 27%.

[tsherkin]

Yup, the bad habit bit is my biggest concern, it's a lot easier to give free reign to shoot, than it is to take it away. We definitely want him trying new things, but it needs to be structured, we aren't the 7 seconds or less Suns, we can't just have dude freewheeling out there.

It's not bad in the sense that it's causing us to lose games cause, well, bring em on. But when we do pivot to trying to win, having a 30% 3p shooter just jacking up shots at a moments notice is definitely going to hamper progress.

Yup, I'm with you. But I guess it's the juggling act, right? We need to give him the rope. If we don't, then we aren't giving him a good-faith chance to develop into what we want from him. This is the time. If ever there was a time for us to let him go out there and fall flat on his face (or rise up!), it's now. So we'll see.

This isn't improvement, it's a decline at worst, and stagnation at best.

Normalization, I should think. Like I said before, he's had a month of hot shooting before, or even two months in a season. He just did it consecutively for the first time and then had an injury-shortened year, so we all thought it was the start of something. But he's back to exactly who he was before that.

Shooting is usually something which a player comes in with. And when you're struggling at the line AND from 3, then it is generally an indication that you aren't going to be a shooter. Historically, guys don't just get good at shooting unless you start fading them to the corner with huge passing support for catch-and-shoot, but that's not what we need or want from Scottie out of an on-ball role, obviously. We were hoping for a miracle, but it isn't very likely and never was.

[Scase]

Yup, the bad habit bit is my biggest concern, it's a lot easier to give free reign to shoot, than it is to take it away. We definitely want him trying new things, but it needs to be structured, we aren't the 7 seconds or less Suns, we can't just have dude freewheeling out there.

It's not bad in the sense that it's causing us to lose games cause, well, bring em on. But when we do pivot to trying to win, having a 30% 3p shooter just jacking up shots at a moments notice is definitely going to hamper progress.

Yup, I'm with you. But I guess it's the juggling act, right? We need to give him the rope. If we don't, then we aren't giving him a good-faith chance to develop into what we want from him. This is the time. If ever there was a time for us to let him go out there and fall flat on his face (or rise up!), it's now. So we'll see.

This isn't improvement, it's a decline at worst, and stagnation at best.

Normalization, I should think. Like I said before, he's had a month of hot shooting before, or even two months in a season. He just did it consecutively for the first time and then had an injury-shortened year, so we all thought it was the start of something. But he's back to exactly who he was before that.

Shooting is usually something which a player comes in with. And when you're struggling at the line AND from 3, then it is generally an indication that you aren't going to be a shooter. Historically, guys don't just get good at shooting unless you start fading them to the corner with huge passing support for catch-and-shoot, but that's not what we need or want from Scottie out of an on-ball role, obviously. We were hoping for a miracle, but it isn't very likely and never was.

And these are my biggest concerns, what we need him to do, he can't and is very unlikely to be able to. What he can do, doesn't fit the idea of what we need/want from him. So something has to give, and to me, that is heavily limiting those 3's.

Even the open ones, I get it, they aren't "bad" shots because you're open. But a bad shot is also heavily dependent on the player taking it, a contested shot at the rim isn't usually a bad shot since you are super close, but there is a huge difference between FVV doing that, and a good finisher like DD for instance. If you're being given that shot, it's for a reason, doesn't mean you have to take it all the time though.

As for the hot start, sure maybe he's missing that this year, but ultimately it doesn't matter. If you are only good from 3 for the first couple months of the season, you're still a bad shooter and it just juices your averages. Shooting 100% for 41 games and 0% for the last 41 doesn't make you a 50% shooter in any way other than stats in a vacuum.

Let him get up 3 a game, but in no world should we be seeing 5, 6, 7, attempts a game. He hasn't earned that, and Darko needs to be the one to call him on it. I think Darko is overall a good developmental coach, but I also think Scottie needs a stricter coach to bring out the best in him, kid needs structure IMO.

[tsherkin]

And these are my biggest concerns, what we need him to do, he can't and is very unlikely to be able to. What he can do, doesn't fit the idea of what we need/want from him. So something has to give, and to me, that is heavily limiting those 3's.

Even the open ones, I get it, they aren't "bad" shots because you're open. But a bad shot is also heavily dependent on the player taking it, a contested shot at the rim isn't usually a bad shot since you are super close, but there is a huge difference between FVV doing that, and a good finisher like DD for instance. If you're being given that shot, it's for a reason, doesn't mean you have to take it all the time though.

Sure. But again, we're not good right now and this helps with that, which is sort of what I feel we should be doing. Let him get it out of his system. Maybe realize it isn't in reach, perhaps. I agree with your notion of a bad shot; I did acknowledge that the D is giving him those looks for a reason, after all!

As for the hot start, sure maybe he's missing that this year, but ultimately it doesn't matter. If you are only good from 3 for the first couple months of the season, you're still a bad shooter and it just juices your averages. Shooting 100% for 41 games and 0% for the last 41 doesn't make you a 50% shooter in any way other than stats in a vacuum.

Yes, that was specifically my point. I was saying that those two months were a mirage due to the shortened season more than any indication of improvement, as he's had such months before.

Let him get up 3 a game, but in no world should we be seeing 5, 6, 7, attempts a game. He hasn't earned that, and Darko needs to be the one to call him on it. I think Darko is overall a good developmental coach, but I also think Scottie needs a stricter coach to bring out the best in him, kid needs structure IMO.

I don't think this is the season for that, but I agree that Darko isn't likely the guy for that purpose.

[Scase]

And these are my biggest concerns, what we need him to do, he can't and is very unlikely to be able to. What he can do, doesn't fit the idea of what we need/want from him. So something has to give, and to me, that is heavily limiting those 3's.

Even the open ones, I get it, they aren't "bad" shots because you're open. But a bad shot is also heavily dependent on the player taking it, a contested shot at the rim isn't usually a bad shot since you are super close, but there is a huge difference between FVV doing that, and a good finisher like DD for instance. If you're being given that shot, it's for a reason, doesn't mean you have to take it all the time though.

Sure. But again, we're not good right now and this helps with that, which is sort of what I feel we should be doing. Let him get it out of his system. Maybe realize it isn't in reach, perhaps. I agree with your notion of a bad shot; I did acknowledge that the D is giving him those looks for a reason, after all!

As for the hot start, sure maybe he's missing that this year, but ultimately it doesn't matter. If you are only good from 3 for the first couple months of the season, you're still a bad shooter and it just juices your averages. Shooting 100% for 41 games and 0% for the last 41 doesn't make you a 50% shooter in any way other than stats in a vacuum.

Yes, that was specifically my point. I was saying that those two months were a mirage due to the shortened season more than any indication of improvement, as he's had such months before.

Let him get up 3 a game, but in no world should we be seeing 5, 6, 7, attempts a game. He hasn't earned that, and Darko needs to be the one to call him on it. I think Darko is overall a good developmental coach, but I also think Scottie needs a stricter coach to bring out the best in him, kid needs structure IMO.

I don't think this is the season for that, but I agree that Darko isn't likely the guy for that purpose.

For sure, if it's leading to losses I'm not sweating it too much. But if it leads to bad habits in the future that are harder to kick and start impacting us when we need to win, that's a worse spot.

Naturally without being in the room, we have no idea what kind of asterisk has been put on his ability to let it fly, maybe they have an agreement, maybe this is a "Alright Scottie, prove to me you can" moment and it isn't a far reaching issue. But I'm skeptical.