Is Dale Ellis the most disrespected shooter of all. time?

[Phreak50]

Dale Ellis was such a great shooter.

Even past his prime on the Spurs he was lethal from 3.

Love his shooting form as well.

Kids coming into the league these days with unko shots when guys like Ellis and Mark Price existed…

What does this mean though? There have always been and will always be people with funky shots, great shooters existing before you doesn't make you able to then shoot like them. If people could just watch someone else shoot and exactly imitate the form and consistency, no one would be a poor shooter, but obviously it doesn't work lot that.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here, you'll need to clarify this.

I’ve been watching basketball for 31 years.

I’ve never seen so many ridiculous forms.

Sure there have always been guys with strange shots but the modern era is light years ahead in terms of lottery picks coming up the ranks with absolutely embarrassing shooting forms.

Any decent coach with a pair of balls would never let guys like Lamelo, Simmons, Lonzo, Halliburton get through the grades with their form.

And it doesn’t matter if their shots sometimes go in when they are wide open.

Broken forms are simply not consistent and not reliable under pressure.

Lots of modern chuckers wouldn’t even get their shot off in the golden era with hand checking and actual defense.

There’s a reason guys like Kawhi modelled their jumper of Jordan.

But even then, there’s hundreds of brilliant shots to replicate and instead little piss ants decide to chuck or shot put the basketball.

[og15]

Dale Ellis was such a great shooter.

Even past his prime on the Spurs he was lethal from 3.

Love his shooting form as well.

Kids coming into the league these days with unko shots when guys like Ellis and Mark Price existed…

What does this mean though? There have always been and will always be people with funky shots, great shooters existing before you doesn't make you able to then shoot like them. If people could just watch someone else shoot and exactly imitate the form and consistency, no one would be a poor shooter, but obviously it doesn't work lot that.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here, you'll need to clarify this.

I’ve been watching basketball for 31 years.

I’ve never seen so many ridiculous forms.

Sure there have always been guys with strange shots but the modern era is light years ahead in terms of lottery picks coming up the ranks with absolutely embarrassing shooting forms.

Any decent coach with a pair of balls would never let guys like Lamelo, Simmons, Lonzo, Halliburton get through the grades with their form.

And it doesn’t matter if their shots sometimes go in when they are wide open.

Broken forms are simply not consistent and not reliable under pressure.

Lots of modern chuckers wouldn’t even get their shot off in the golden era with hand checking and actual defense.

There’s a reason guys like Kawhi modelled their jumper of Jordan.

But even then, there’s hundreds of brilliant shots to replicate and instead little piss ants decide to chuck or shot put the basketball.

You're way too mad about this, and I'm not convinced it's actually the problem you are claiming it is either, but good to know.

[jokeboy86]

Ellis was a real problem, on and off the court. He should absolutely be recognized as one of the most lethal shooters ever. However, I think he is lost in the sands of time because he never received much recognition during his playing days, largely due to his own actions. Constant drunk driving arrests, a domestic violence conviction, and a deep-seated anger, perhaps due to the fact that his father was shot and killed when Dale was just 9 years old. Ellis was notoriously private. Didn't give a **** about the media. He often no-showed appearances, including during all-star weekend the day after he won the 3 point competition. The announcer gave Ellis a huge intro and it was then they discovered he wasn't there.

Another fun story: The Supersonics dismantled their team during the 1990-1991 season after Xavier McDaniel kicked the crap out of Dale Ellis early in the season. X-Man was dealt two weeks after the altercation. Ellis was gone three months after the fight.

Had no idea he had all these off the court problems. Reminds me of when people thought Marvin Harrison was quiet and unassuming.

[ellobo]

Dale Ellis was such a great shooter.

Even past his prime on the Spurs he was lethal from 3.

Love his shooting form as well.

Kids coming into the league these days with unko shots when guys like Ellis and Mark Price existed…

What does this mean though? There have always been and will always be people with funky shots, great shooters existing before you doesn't make you able to then shoot like them. If people could just watch someone else shoot and exactly imitate the form and consistency, no one would be a poor shooter, but obviously it doesn't work lot that.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here, you'll need to clarify this.

I’ve been watching basketball for 31 years.

I’ve never seen so many ridiculous forms.

Sure there have always been guys with strange shots but the modern era is light years ahead in terms of lottery picks coming up the ranks with absolutely embarrassing shooting forms.

Any decent coach with a pair of balls would never let guys like Lamelo, Simmons, Lonzo, Halliburton get through the grades with their form.

And it doesn’t matter if their shots sometimes go in when they are wide open.

Broken forms are simply not consistent and not reliable under pressure.

Lots of modern chuckers wouldn’t even get their shot off in the golden era with hand checking and actual defense.

There’s a reason guys like Kawhi modelled their jumper of Jordan.

But even then, there’s hundreds of brilliant shots to replicate and instead little piss ants decide to chuck or shot put the basketball.

First, I think Haliburton is a bad example. He's a career 41% three point shooter on 5.4 attempts per game, higher than Dale Ellis or Mark Price (and even though Haliburton has only played 3 years, he is already close to half of Price's career attempts), a 54% two point shooter and over 85% from the free throw line. He's an objectively great shooter.

And even LaMelo shoots 37.7% (above league average) on 7.5 attempts per game and over 82% from the free throw line.

Lonzo came into the league with a broken shot, but he changed his form a lot and his percentages became very respectable.

Simmons' shot is just broken, but there have always been bad shooters and non-shooters, and they were much more common back in the day than they are now.

Second, my impression is the opposite. There used to be a wider variety of shooting forms, and players have become more homogeneous over time as shooting instruction has become more standardized and non-three point shooters have become less common. Nowadays, players grow up with skills coaches and YouTube videos all teaching similar mechanics. They may not all be great shooters, but there are a lot fewer weird shooters (such as a Jamaal Wilkes).

[Ol Roy]

I wonder why his FT% was relatively low at 78%?

[tamaraw08]

I wonder why his FT% was relatively low at 78%?

OMG, this thread was started more than 2 years ago that I actually forgot that I was the OP .
I was thinking, what a brilliant post…
anyway, Luke Kennard has honorable mention though.

[Profound23]

Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf

[jpengland]

Without looking up the stats (and so may be embarrassing myself!) I always thought Hersey Hawkins (another Seattle shooter) was hugely underrated and had he entered the league 20 years later and given the green light he’d have been a star.

[Blame Rasho]

Absolutely.

[VeggieBurger]

I think for someone who was considered an All Star caliber player at one point he is definitely the most underrated. There are more obscure shooters a la Steve Novak, but players like that were more one dimensional and not as impactful. I may be mistaken but I think Ellis has a record that I doubt will ever be broken - 69 minutes played in one game!

[Stan]

So literally one persons opinion is your entire basis for this hypothesis.

[Sixers in 4]

I said it in the other thread, Sam Perkins. Never an All-Star due to the era he played in. Would be a star in this era, still wasn't on anyone's list for team building without all-stars.

[kcktiny]

For those that were not around when he played, Dale Ellis in his prime was far more than just a shooter, he was a legitimate scorer.

His first four seasons with the Sonics (1986-87 to 1989-90, ages 26-29) he scored 25.6 pts/g, second best among all SGs in the league over that time (only Jordan averaged higher), and attempted the 3rd most FTAs among all SGs (only Jordan and Drexler attempted more). He also grabbed the third most offensive rebounds among all SGs (only Drexler and Alvin Robertson grabbed more), and attempted/made the second most 3s among SGs (only Ainge had more). He was a true offensive weapon, and those four seasons had single games of 53, 49, 47, 47, and 46 points. But during this time less than 1/5 of his FGAs were 3s, and he didn't attempt more than 339 3s in a season.

After 1988-89 when he finished third in the league in scoring (27.5 pts/g) we all thought of him as a star player (he was all-NBA 3rd team that year).

It wasn't until later in his career that he became primarily a 3pt shooter. In 1996-97 at the age of 36 playing for Denver he attempted a career most 528 3s. That was the record for the most 3s attempted by a player in a season age 36 or older until Curry attempted 784 this past season.

[OdomFan]

Sadly if you're not very popular this is what will happen. Dale Ellis was a name I've heard here and there my whole life whether it be through video games, basketball cards, or watching games, but he wasn't that popular of a name compared to a Ray Allen or Reggie Miller. So thats probably why he'd get passed up on on a lot of things years later.

We hardly even see Peja get mentioned at this point, and he was pretty much the face of 3 point shooting while he was with the Kings. His stock went down more and more once he left that Kings system and ended up playing on other teams here and there.

[Capn'O]

Dale was a sniper.

Chuck Person too. And Dan Majerle.

[Mr Puddles]

The Nets' Jayson Williams was an absolutely deadly shooter, but somehow he never gets mentioned among the all time greats