dorianwrite wrote:Forgive me if this article has already been posted, but what do folks think? The premise of the article (ball-dominant point guards need shooters to kick out to in the modern NBA) seems unassailable, but I'm not as pessimistic as the writer about the Wizards' chances.
https://www.theringer.com/2020/12/15/22175373/washington-wizards-bradley-beal-russell-westbrookIt feels like all the players' 3-point shooting woes are correctable. If Troy Brown would invariably jump straight up-and-down rather than fading/kicking/twisting when shooting jumpers (this is going to become my version of hip bend and back arch); if Hachimura has permanently added the additional arc displayed against the Nets; and if Avdija, who's only 19, continues to develop (and perhaps is a better shooter than the overseas numbers indicate), then adding them to Beal, Bertans, and Bryant feels like a recipe for 4 shooters around Westbrook in most lineup combinations. If Matthews is playable and Wagner shoots more like the first half of last year than the second half, then virtually every rotation player outside of Westbrook's back-up point guards at least has to be guarded from 3.
It seems like a pretty ignorant article to me.
First, and most importantly, they totally ignore Thomas Bryant (and to a lesser extent, Mo Wagner). Bryant might well be the best shooting big man in the league other than Karl Anthony-Towns. Having a floor stretching 5 seems to me to be the single most important player to unlock a guy like Westbrook. He'll take the biggest defensive presence from the other team out of the picture. What's more, Bryant can hit those 3's from above the break, freeing up the easy corner 3 spot for our less adept forwards.
So we perhaps the second best shooting center in the league.
We have perhaps the best or second best catch-and-shoot forward in the league (it's either Bertans or Robinson)
We have one of the best SG's in the league in Beal.
And this guy is complaining?
Yeah, Hachimura, Avdija and Brown aren't perfect catch-and-shoot players, but it's not like they're bad shooters like, I dunno, Terrence Ferguson, Andre Robinson, or a young Jerami Grant. And if you squint real hard, you can see Bonga doing a pretty fair offensive impersonation of P.J. Tucker. Tucker only got up 4.4 3PA's per 36 minutes at 3P% of just .358 - exclusively from the corner. Over the last 30 games of last season, Bonga was launching 2.6 3PA's/36 at a .396 clip.