Patterson is the only player whose bread and butter shot is in-between. It used to be Scola. But Patterson shoots a lot less than Scola did.
This is where someone like Rip Hamilton could help us. IIRC, Bimathug said Rip could be had easily because of their cap situation. I know, he's too old and doesn't really fit what we're trying to do around here.
In between shots should be used as a safety valve only. If they can get an open 3 or a layup, I'd take that anytime over a long 2. Even a contested layup is good with the guys on our team since they can draw fouls. Only if they can't get any of these with the clock running down would I think a long 2 is worth it. It's great to have someone who can hit the 17 footer with the clock running down (like Melo), but you don't want someone to start out the offense by taking that shot up front (like Melo). 25% percent seems like a good number to me.
Call me old school, but this makes 0 sense. I mean if i just took it out of normal basketball sense, it still doesnt make sense. Maybe this is where i differ with the so called new approach, but players don't try to maximize point per possession. Instead they try to take the best possible shot. Anyone can launch 24 ft shots and claim to be maximizing pps, but in reality, its 23'9 which is a long shot. Just in terms of basketball in general,I would much rather take a 14-18 ft shot contested off the bounce. Most guys who shoot that shot create space and its a open shot. The guys who stand at the 3pt line tend to run hot and cold because of the distance of the shot. If you go look at the greatest scorers of even the modern era or say since say 80 when they put the 3 pt line down, none were 3pt shooters, all were in between shooters. So maybe they didn't know about pps back then or they were just dumb, but something trends that way.
A very reasonable take. I respect that. But the stats say that mid to long range two point shots are the worst shots in basketball. I believe that a new paradigm is here. For example look at Harden's shot chart. They generally show 6 three pointers, 3 mid range shots and 8 at the basket. Very efficient. Very Morey. Very 25+ points. It will be exciting! A distributing point guard, Harden and two mini-Harden 3 or drive players and a rebound and defense centric center. I believe it is going to be exciting to be a Rockets fan over the next two years. Now let us see if they can exceed my 34-48 forecast. LOL
I think the train of thought is overwhelmingly positive in this case similar to all other shot stats. If somebody asks you who's ranked 1 in shots between near the rim and beyond the ark, I think they're probably asking who has the most or highest.
LOL. I don't think I need to. Hormone crazy, the last game is all that matters, if you cannot produce now you are garbage, boys in their basement thinking about the girls they will never have while watching Rockets basketball. I was crazy at that age too.
Honestly I think this stat is a direct correlation to the youth of our team. Most young players who come in to this league are either good at slashing or shooting the three. The in between game is developed as they mature, lose a bit of their quickness and generally learn how to score in ways that nullifies athleticism. If I'm James harden and I possess world class athleticism and finishing ability I would take it to the rack more often than not as it puts pressure on the defense and results in fouls. While harden may have a good midrange game I think he's being coached to attack rather thm take a 20 footer. Now as harden plays into his contract and the question of durability comes up years from now I can see him utilize the midrange more ala what Kobe is doing now.
Coach used to call it game building. There are steps to becoming pretty much unstoppable that most if not all great scorers go through. I will use a guy like clyde drexler. Clyde was a dynamic,athletic force. He had a great 1st step,he chewed up real estate with it and could finish over anyone big or tall. Once opponets realized this,they started to play off of clyde to prevent the highlight reel plays at the rim. Clyde started to develop the pullup jumper. So now when guys backed off him, he could start hard to the rim, then pullup. So now that clyde can get to the rim and hit the mid range, teams started to back off him at the 3pt line. Well, clyde started hitting 3's. So now whats left? His post game became pretty good too since he was a big 2 guard. Clyde went from an athletic finisher, to a mvp caliber player because he had every facet covered offensively. Now i know this so called new age says those in between jumpers were bad or not as effecient, but you ask those defenders how hard it was to guard clyde drexler or kevin johnson or jeff malone or alex english. If KJ was playing today, he would embarrass every pg in the league right now. Why? because he could get to the rim at will, but when he was unstaoppable was when his hesitation pull up ft line jumper was hitting. Once that shot started to fall, you couldnt stay in front of KJ. I look at a guy like harden and he's still developing player, but if he starts knocking down that mid range shot as a staple, he will be very,very difficult to stop. Thats why a guy like kobe can produce at his age because he can always get to a good stop in between and knock down shots. He does this even though he cant really get to the rim anymore.
first of all i have to comment on your sig since i was banned from the d&d after falsely being accused of calling people racist. Unbelievable from a supposedly intelligent poster. Anyway i have no doubt harden has a killer mid range game. Calvin murphy always talks about this and he is right. These guys need to watch that denver detrot game from 83 i believe. One thing though defense is much better against mid range shots because of better athletes
I consider Manu Ginobili to be one of the elite scorers of the modern era. His shot selection has been James Harden-like for his entire career. - About 40% of his shots are from downtown, career 37% shooter. - 30% of his shots are at the rim, career 62% shooter - Only 19% of his shots are from 10 feet to the 3pt line. Career 35% shooter from 16 feet to the 3pt line. Career 39% shooter from 10-15 feet. Knowing this, why would you want him to take pull up for the midrange J rather than take the three? So that he could shoot a worse percentage from 16 feet out? Or so he can hit a whopping 2% better from 10-15 feet? Ginobili is not an anomaly. Most shooters are more efficient from downtown and at the rim than they are from midrange. Sure, Ginobili's never won any scoring titles. But he's usually taking 13 shots a game to get his average while guys like Durant and Kobe are taking 20 or more. Iverson was taking 25+ shots when he was winning his back to back scoring titles. Thankfully for Ginobili, he's never had to take that volume. But make no mistake, his shot selection has made him a lethal scoring threat.
the problem with this thread is there is no real evaluation of an nba player's ability to hit a mid range shot. Rip hamilton who was mentioned earlier thrived on this shot and has a ring to show for it
This has been the most interesting thread in along time. More thought, consideration and analysis went into most posts here than many entire threads. Here is to you clutch fans!
happy thanksgiving for this thread. It really trips me out because upon learning of the harden signing after a few cold ones in the sports bar i was saying this team would mid range jumpshot its way to the playoffs. Im sure the pct will go way up. However as i said in the previous post defenses are much better at stopping this shot. Particularly the range of todays big man. There are no more oakleys and mahorns and more rasheeds.
82games.com doesn't have data from before 08-09 on this, but Hamilton shot 44% that year on jumpers. That's the equivalent of 30% 3pt shooting. Just because the Pistons won, doesn't mean what Hamilton did was optimal. A lot of sub-optimal stuff happens even on championship teams. And Hamilton is considered one of the best shooters of this decade. How hard is it for Morey to find the next Hamilton vs one of gazillion 3pt shooting stiffs that litters the NBA landscape?
For all of this freaking out over 3 pointers and layups, you can't forget how important the midrange game is. It's why the Lakers were eliminated from the playoffs last year. Bynum was to slow to help on the midrange floater, and it destroyed them, because they had to open up the rest of the floor to stop it. You need the threat of the midrange game, or your shooting percentage on 3's drops below the threshold of them being more worth it that 2's.
Go to basketball-reference.com. They've got shot info for everyone's entire career. They even include shot charts that tell you the date and time of the shot, the score of the game at the time, and the opponent. The link for Hamilton's shooting info for the championship year is below. FYI, he shot 40.5% on shots from 10 feet to the 3pt line. http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/hamilri01/shooting/2004/
