peachbucket wrote:Masterfully wrote:Of course I watched Magic. The guy was a shotmaker from anywhere.
Things were different in the 80's. Bird went 4 straight years shooting under 30% for three. It just wasn't a high priority. That doesn't mean they weren't elite shooters.
Yes, things were much different which is why it is a good idea to not go back there for current player comparisons...also as unreliable as eyewitness testimony is, it gets that much worse after 30 years.
One thing that was different back then was you could get away with shooting a 6th grade push shot from below your chest because your HOF center or forward was getting double teamed on the block and you didn't have anyone within 10 feet of you on the perimeter...a shooting style that has gone extinct with Shawn Marion because you wouldn't be able to get that shot off in todays NBA.
Putting his shooting style and difficulty of his outside shots aside for a second, the fact is that Magic shot .30% from 3 for his career which is not a great mark for any era. Magic did many things at an elite level, but shooting was definitely not one of them.
Early in Magic's career he only shot 3's in end of clock situations. Broken plays and such. During the last 4 years of his career he shot .346 for 3, which was very good for that era. In 89-90 he was 18th in the league in 3pt %. His career FT% was 85%. As waynearchetype said, we don't have advanced metrics to show his shooting % from different ranges, but Magic was elite going off the info we have. Which, as a Blazer fan, includes my eyes watching Magic hit deadly jumpers over and over.
)
