The Around The NBA Thread

[dice]

this year set yet another new record for 3 point attempts as a percentage of overall FG attempts

More and more teams are switching to 3 pt shooting as a whole but the mid range jumper is not nearly as forbidden as it used to be.

I think we've reached a point where all the defensive attention paid to 3pt shooters has made getting wide-open mid-range jumpers much easier.

If the offenses are concentrating on getting 3's or layups, the defenses are going to put more emphasis on defending 3's and layups - which means the mid-range is the easiest place to get wide-open shots.

And let's face it, a wide-open 15-footer is basically a free throw.

true...other than the success rate only being about 45% (at best). which is the equivalent of 30% on a 3pt attempt. and which is why smart defenses protect the paint and the 3 pt line! there are scant few players in the league that can punish a defense for employing that strategy




listen, i like offensive variety as much as the next guy, but until the league makes significant changes (moving back the line along with either widening the court or eliminating the corner 3) nothing's gonna change

[johnnyvann840]

Donovan Mitchell just limped off the floor badly straight to the locker room. Did not look good. Door may have just opened for the Clippers. Really sucks to see that. I hope he's not hurt badly. Without him and with Conley either out or playing with a hamstring injury, the Jazz are done. Injuries just suck. Especially to a team like Utah who had the NBA's best record and seemingly were on their way to the WCF's.

[johnnyvann840]

Whew.. Mitchell back on the bench and giving the thumbs up saying he's OK. That was scary for Jazz fans though.

[CobyWhite0]

More and more teams are switching to 3 pt shooting as a whole but the mid range jumper is not nearly as forbidden as it used to be.

I think we've reached a point where all the defensive attention paid to 3pt shooters has made getting wide-open mid-range jumpers much easier.

If the offenses are concentrating on getting 3's or layups, the defenses are going to put more emphasis on defending 3's and layups - which means the mid-range is the easiest place to get wide-open shots.

And let's face it, a wide-open 15-footer is basically a free throw.

true...other than the success rate only being about 45% (at best). which is the equivalent of 30% on a 3pt attempt. and which is why smart defenses protect the paint and the 3 pt line! there are scant few players in the league that can punish a defense for employing that strategy




listen, i like offensive variety as much as the next guy, but until the league makes significant changes (moving back the line along with either widening the court or eliminating the corner 3) nothing's gonna change

Two big problems with those graphs as they pertain to my post:

They're old - 3pt FGA as a percentage of total FGA has increased by 51% over 2014, and 17.1% over 2018. Just out of curiosity, I'd love to see that graph for the 20-21 season.

But even if we saw that graph, I specifically mentioned how it's easier to get wide-open mid-range jumpers now. I mentioned wide-open three times in three sentences.

If you have a graph that shows shooting percentages on wide-open mid-range shots from this season, I'd absolutely love to see it. Since that's what I blatantly mentioned 3 times in 3 sentences.

[dice]

I think we've reached a point where all the defensive attention paid to 3pt shooters has made getting wide-open mid-range jumpers much easier.

If the offenses are concentrating on getting 3's or layups, the defenses are going to put more emphasis on defending 3's and layups - which means the mid-range is the easiest place to get wide-open shots.

And let's face it, a wide-open 15-footer is basically a free throw.

true...other than the success rate only being about 45% (at best). which is the equivalent of 30% on a 3pt attempt. and which is why smart defenses protect the paint and the 3 pt line! there are scant few players in the league that can punish a defense for employing that strategy




listen, i like offensive variety as much as the next guy, but until the league makes significant changes (moving back the line along with either widening the court or eliminating the corner 3) nothing's gonna change

Two big problems with those graphs as they pertain to my post:

They're old - 3pt FGA as a percentage of total FGA has increased by 51% over 2014, and 17.1% over 2018. Just out of curiosity, I'd love to see that graph for the 20-21 season.

But even if we saw that graph, I specifically mentioned how it's easier to get wide-open mid-range jumpers now. I mentioned wide-open three times in three sentences.

If you have a graph that shows shooting percentages on wide-open mid-range shots from this season, I'd absolutely love to see it. Since that's what I blatantly mentioned 3 times in 3 sentences.

i can pretty much guarantee that those percentages haven't changed much, but i'll look for more current data

edit: first thing i came across was individual player stats via basketball reference. %s 10 to 15 feet from rim, this season:

54.2 booker
53.4 durant (only 35 games played)
51.4 mccollum
50.5 cp3
48.8 brown
48.0 kawhi
46.3 middleton
45.4 derozan
45.2 beal
44.4 aldridge (26 games)

players selected from here:

https://clutchpoints.com/ranking-the-top-10-midrange-scorers-in-the-nba-today/

mind you, these are the very best mid-range shooters. even for them, it's far more difficult than a free throw. because they're moving, because they are distracted by other players, and because it's not a shot they practice much

[CobyWhite0]

Donovan Mitchell just limped off the floor badly straight to the locker room. Did not look good. Door may have just opened for the Clippers. Really sucks to see that. I hope he's not hurt badly. Without him and with Conley either out or playing with a hamstring injury, the Jazz are done. Injuries just suck. Especially to a team like Utah who had the NBA's best record and seemingly were on their way to the WCF's.

Agreed. Recently, it's often mentioned how availability is one of the most important "skills" (for lack of a better term) a player can have nowadays.

Of course, I'm stating the obvious here - as Bulls fans who witnessed the DRose "era", we all know far too well how important availability is.

[dice]

Donovan Mitchell just limped off the floor badly straight to the locker room. Did not look good. Door may have just opened for the Clippers. Really sucks to see that. I hope he's not hurt badly. Without him and with Conley either out or playing with a hamstring injury, the Jazz are done. Injuries just suck. Especially to a team like Utah who had the NBA's best record and seemingly were on their way to the WCF's.

Agreed. Recently, it's often mentioned how availability is one of the most important "skills" (for lack of a better term) a player can have nowadays.

Of course, I'm stating the obvious here - as Bulls fans who witnessed the DRose "era", we all know far too well how important availability is.

in other words, the most important ability is availablity?

[CobyWhite0]

Donovan Mitchell just limped off the floor badly straight to the locker room. Did not look good. Door may have just opened for the Clippers. Really sucks to see that. I hope he's not hurt badly. Without him and with Conley either out or playing with a hamstring injury, the Jazz are done. Injuries just suck. Especially to a team like Utah who had the NBA's best record and seemingly were on their way to the WCF's.

Agreed. Recently, it's often mentioned how availability is one of the most important "skills" (for lack of a better term) a player can have nowadays.

Of course, I'm stating the obvious here - as Bulls fans who witnessed the DRose "era", we all know far too well how important availability is.

in other words, the most important ability is availablity?

I'm not sure that availability is the most important ability, but unavailability can certainly be a player's biggest weakness.

I would definitely say that nobody cares if Felicio is available 100% of the time, but everyone cares if (fill in your favorite superstar) is only available 1/2 the time.

[Southpaw]

The Suns and the Jazz are showing us how a successful team built around a Lavine-type talent could look like. An athletic rim runner who protects the rim at the C, a couple of 3D wings who are interchangeable on D and a 2-way play making PG. Unfortunately, only P. Will looks like a fit, at least in theory, on our team.

[MrSparkle]

The Suns and the Jazz are showing us how a successful team built around a Lavine-type talent could look like. An athletic rim runner who protects the rim at the C, a couple of 3D wings who are interchangeable on D and a 2-way play making PG. Unfortunately, only P. Will looks like a fit, at least in theory, on our team.

The Suns and Jazz are playoff-caliber teams without their SGs...

The only thing they're showing is how important it is to have 8 good players on the same page.

[MrFortune3]

this year set yet another new record for 3 point attempts as a percentage of overall FG attempts

More and more teams are switching to 3 pt shooting as a whole but the mid range jumper is not nearly as forbidden as it used to be.

I think we've reached a point where all the defensive attention paid to 3pt shooters has made getting wide-open mid-range jumpers much easier.

If the offenses are concentrating on getting 3's or layups, the defenses are going to put more emphasis on defending 3's and layups - which means the mid-range is the easiest place to get wide-open shots.

And let's face it, a wide-open 15-footer is basically a free throw.

True. The thing that is interesting to me is how often you see guys pass up wide open looks because they are so wide open and pass the ball to a "better" shooter for a tougher shot though.

[MrFortune3]

The Suns and the Jazz are showing us how a successful team built around a Lavine-type talent could look like. An athletic rim runner who protects the rim at the C, a couple of 3D wings who are interchangeable on D and a 2-way play making PG. Unfortunately, only P. Will looks like a fit, at least in theory, on our team.

Gobert and Ayton are the head of the snake on defense for those teams though. We don't have that type of guy on the roster.
Them being so good in that area allows the other guys to thrive. Ayton, Bridges, Paul, Crowder are dynamic on defense.
Gobert is just...like the damn professor of defense in the NBA right now.

[Andi Obst]

The completely random tipoff times in the NBA will never not be weird to me.

[Andi Obst]

Man, please be alright Kyrie. Injuries suck.

[MrFortune3]

Man, please be alright Kyrie. Injuries suck.

That looked nasty and he could not get up too quickly.

Don't like the talk of Giannis being retroactively given a flagrant. That was a normal basketball play.

[johnnyvann840]

How quickly the complexion of a series can change.. The rumors of the death of the Bucks were greatly exaggerated. Now, Kyrie goes down with an injury. All of a sudden the series is tied at 2-2 and if Kyrie is out for any games, who knows what can happen?

Everybody that was crowning the Nets Champs, time to slow that roll.

[Mbrahv0528]

Lol what??? It has nothing to do with being lazy. The NBA changed rules offensively and defensively which made the game much more friendly to little guys. This is common knowledge to people who follow basketball.

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It had everything to do with bigs being lazy and not working on their offensive skillset. The NBA went from being built around dominant bigs to guards and wings and now being 3 pt shot crazy.
The rules didn't just change and make big men obsolete. The issue was finding high quality bigs with a offensive skill set you could build around. Since there were little to none, the game moved towards the players that the league could feature and build around.

Guys like Jokic and Embiid and AD are showing that despite rule changes, a highly skilled big man, who is not only tall but strong and athletic, can still be one of the best players in the league. Heck, even Vuc puts up crazy good numbers. There just aren't many of those guys around anymore.

Right. That still doesn't change the fact that "laziness" is not the reason there are less talented bigs.. that's just a hot ass take.

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[MrSparkle]

Phoenix should consider bubble wrapping CP3 at the rate these injuries are happening. This year's winner is gonna be the team with their starting 5 (or 4) in July.

[Chicago-Bull-E]

There is something humorous about Durant desperate to pair up and create super teams, and he found himself out there alone today.

To me, the Nets and Clippers are the super teams, and the Suns, Jazz, Sixers, Hawks, Bucks, and Nuggets are the naturally grown teams. Hopefully one of those teams wins and not the Nets or Clippers

[Dan Z]

More and more teams are switching to 3 pt shooting as a whole but the mid range jumper is not nearly as forbidden as it used to be.

I think we've reached a point where all the defensive attention paid to 3pt shooters has made getting wide-open mid-range jumpers much easier.

If the offenses are concentrating on getting 3's or layups, the defenses are going to put more emphasis on defending 3's and layups - which means the mid-range is the easiest place to get wide-open shots.

And let's face it, a wide-open 15-footer is basically a free throw.

True. The thing that is interesting to me is how often you see guys pass up wide open looks because they are so wide open and pass the ball to a "better" shooter for a tougher shot though.

I'd like to see some team(s) focus on mid range or post ups again. They don't have to completely abandon the three, but it doesn't have to be their main plan.

I remember when the Warriors were on their run and teams tried to match them with three point shooting, but only one team had Steph and Klay. Why not try a different strategy? And/or look at your players strengths and go from there?