ESPN Ranks the East (Detroit 10th)

[sc8581]

At what percentage point do "good" shooters become "very good" shooters?

Billups = 38.8% career

Knight = 36.7% last season

CV = 34.7% last season

Singler = 35% last season

IF Datome, Middleton and K.C.P can be "threats" from downtown that's even better.

35% barely puts a guy in the top 100 last year, you can't go by Billups career numbers at his age, Middleton shot 31% so I don't where or why you pulled his name from in this conversation, 2 of those guys are rookies so we have no idea what they will do while CV and Singler might have been mediocre last year they do nothing else at all to contribute. It would be one thing if we had 2 guys nearing 40% and then these guys as well but our best guys are league average 3 point shooters. That being said I think Knight shoots closer to 40% this year and although i'm not convinced KCP will be hitting 3s at a good rate his midrange game will certainly be there in my opinion and help quite a bit.

[Q00]

At what percentage point do "good" shooters become "very good" shooters?

Billups = 38.8% career

Knight = 36.7% last season

CV = 34.7% last season

Singler = 35% last season

IF Datome, Middleton and K.C.P can be "threats" from downtown that's even better.

Percentages can be misleading in regards to floor spacers, because a lot of great shooters are streaky thus have lower percentages. Though as a defense, if you know a shooter is capable of getting hot and taking over a game from downtown (like CV), you can't allow him any easy open looks and let him get in a rhythm. So just that threat can force a defense to stay home on a shooter all night, even if they have a low percentage overall.

[sc8581]

At what percentage point do "good" shooters become "very good" shooters?

Billups = 38.8% career

Knight = 36.7% last season

CV = 34.7% last season

Singler = 35% last season

IF Datome, Middleton and K.C.P can be "threats" from downtown that's even better.

Percentages can be misleading in regards to floor spacers, because a lot of great shooters are streaky thus have lower percentages. Though as a defense, if you know a shooter is capable of getting hot and taking over a game from downtown (like CV), you can't allow him any easy open looks and let him get in a rhythm. So just that threat can force a defense to stay home on a shooter all night, even if they have a low percentage overall.

I agree that CV is one of those guys but I don't think we have another one at this point.

[qm22]

Knight, Billups, Datome, CV, Singler, KCP, Middleton. All very good 3pt shooters, capable of making a defense pay if left open. I don't know what you are talking about calling them terrible.

There is truth to this. You can throw out percentages and all that jazz but everyone listed here can shoot as Q00 said. Datome/KCP may not be consistent in their first season, but we know they can shoot. Billups can definitely shoot. CV is a guy that can stretch the floor and he gets his shot off in less than a second. Singler/Middleton both proved they can knock down threes last year...and Knight is a better shooter than he showed last year.

They can shoot well enough to make teams have to defend them, so to a degree their classification as shooters is enough to do that. But percentages are what matter when defenses opt to make us beat them by the 3. These guys will be streaky, and some games we will blow teams out by huge margins when it works, and other times it will fail and everyone on offense will look terrible, and there will be a lot of people clamoring for Brandon Knight's head. Based on percentages, and being optimistic for improvement, I think they will be average.

This could change with our coaching change. I think of Knight as a good shooter despite his percentage. I think he never really had a consistent role and that will hurt shooting percentages. It's the opposite of someone like Rip, who made a living out of midrange shooting very well, and was always preparing and improving the same aspect. Similarly, Isiah Thomas said he became a good midrange shooter by spending an entire off-season working on only midrange shots.

Hopefully these guys are really working on the type of shots that fit our predicted offense, but it might not happen if they try to do too much or are unclear about their role.

[Pharaoh]

35% barely puts a guy in the top 100 last year,

I don't really care where they rank league wide - it's not a 3 point shootout.

It's about having guys who consistently knock down that shot at have to be "respected" as a "threat" from long range.

you can't go by Billups career numbers at his age,

I used his career percentage because I thought that was a fair reflection of his shooting.... if you look at the stats he attempted 90 3's last season and hit 36.7% of them... the season before that he launched 125 and hit 38.4% of them...

might not be "top 100" in the league but certain a "threat"

Middleton shot 31% so I don't where or why you pulled his name from in this conversation,

I mentioned him because he's likely to play a "3&D" role... so his shooting or lack thereof might matter. He only attempted 45 3-pointers for the season in his 475 minutes...

Can't really judge him solely on his percentage though - he simply didn't play enough

2 of those guys are rookies so we have no idea what they will do

Yes, that's true but K.C.P and Datome are likely to be used to "space" the floor, so again their shooting or lack thereof matters.... which is why I mentioned them

while CV and Singler might have been mediocre last year they do nothing else at all to contribute.

If their role is to launch it from long range and they do that at a reasonable clip then haven't they done their jobs? They aren't there to be lockdown defenders... they aren't there to grab 10 boards a game.... they are there to play a role. If they do that at a league average rate isn't that OK?

Singler IMO suffered from over-playing. Frank gave him too many minutes and wore him out

It would be one thing if we had 2 guys nearing 40% and then these guys as well but our best guys are league average 3 point shooters.

So you're saying we have multiple shooters that connect at the league average... is that a bad thing?

Obviously every team would love to have 3 or 4 absolute snipers (40% and up) on the roster but if you can't have that isn't it a good sign that we:

A) have 3 guys that we all know can hit at a league average rate (CV, Knight, Singler)

B) have another guy who is a well known long range threat (Billups) and

C) 3 other guys that may or may not be able to connect at a league average rate?

[oldncreaky]

Again, unless our back court turns out really bad, we wont be among the worst in the NBA as you said in a prior post.
On the other side of the coin, at best our back court wouldnt be top 10 either, but thats irrelevant because we are an inside out team who plays through Monroe & Drummond.

Just to state my stance clearly and leave it at that: if our guards and all the other teams' guards play roughly similarly to how they played last year, our guard rotation is in the bottom 10-20% of the league. Unless our guys make significant improvement or some teams have significant injuries, i can't see how that's not the case. Not hatin', not trollin', just following what the stats say.

(Also, you can't 'run' an offense through Drummond when his offensive skillset consists of a) orebs b) tip-ins and c) dunks off feeds. Monroe is great at creating/using possessions; but at this stage Drummond, while he might score 15 a game this year, can't just take the ball and make something happen.)

I also worry about our guard rotation. If things work out, the back-court could be just good enough. On the other hand, if CB struggles with injuries, I agree we could have one of the leagues worst backcourts. I could see Stuckey being our best overall guard, BK continuing to struggle with his roll and TOs, KCP taking more than half a season (like most rookies!) to figure out NBA defense before get any significant burn, Bynum to be what he is - a decent 3rd point guard - and everyone else (Singler/Middleton/etc.) forwards trying to fake it as two guards.

An NBA season has 4,000 minutes. If Chauncey can play 50% of the time, we may be reasonable because we'll have some low-turnover games as well as on-court influence. If Chancey plays 30% of the time - 60 games, 20 mins per game, I think we have too many turnovers and not enough of on-court leadership to make the playoffs.

[zeebneeb]

When your one of the top, or the top rebounding team, your going to win a certain portion of games, based just off of that. If you combine that with proper defense, within the top 5, your going to win another portion of those games.

I said this before, but I will reiterate, if we were going into this season, with this exact same team, but they had already played a year together, they would be a LOCK for at least 50wins. This team is going to be a rebounding beast, and should be the best offensive rebounding team in the league.

This season has so many changes, and new players, coaches e.t.c., there will be an adjustment period that could make it extremely difficult to make the playoffs. With that said, we will finish this season strong, maybe even at a torrid pace that will give us hope for the future.

IF Knight comes around under Billups, and our young bigs prosper quickly combined with some sort of decent play out of KCP, it could be a very exciting year for us. Its hard though to imagine everything going right, very quickly though.

[ThirdMan]

lol @ Monroe=Thompson.

Im starting to understand why you guys create these silly Monroe trades 17 times a day now. None of you guys have ever watched him & think hes Tristian Thompson lol

Agree to disagree. I wouldn't trade Moose and have never stated that anywhere. While he's the better than Thompson it isn't by that much.

I have to disagree with you here bro. Monroe looked like he belonged yesterday. Defense looked better. I seen him doing things on D he hasn't done. He is leaps and bounds better than Thompson.

It's not very close.

Oh, no doubt going forward Monroe will be the better player. He's already shown plenty of flashes. But I caveated in my original post "At this point in their respective careers". The gap is not nearly as big as people are making out to be.

[sc8581]

Agree to disagree. I wouldn't trade Moose and have never stated that anywhere. While he's the better than Thompson it isn't by that much.

I have to disagree with you here bro. Monroe looked like he belonged yesterday. Defense looked better. I seen him doing things on D he hasn't done. He is leaps and bounds better than Thompson.

It's not very close.

Oh, no doubt going forward Monroe will be the better player. He's already shown plenty of flashes. But I caveated in my original post "At this point in their respective careers". The gap is not nearly as big as people are making out to be.

Thompson has a higher upside

[BadMofoPimp]

There are just too many teams that made moves to truly know who is 10th, 8th, 6th or 12th best team out there in the EC. Too many variables to consider at this point.

I would like to wait a good month into the season before I even get an idea on that.

[Jodi]

Oh, no doubt going forward Monroe will be the better player. He's already shown plenty of flashes. But I caveated in my original post "At this point in their respective careers". The gap is not nearly as big as people are making out to be.

Thompson has a higher upside

@sc8581: You make some wild comments bro...