Are we going to ignore that Harden's MidRange TurnAround Jumper is unstoppable?

you forgot 'turnaround'

 

A mid range is like a layup to an NBA level player? That's news to me, because last I checked guys like Melo, Rudy Gay and Westbrick FG% aren't exactly like they are "making layups".

I already explained to you why a mid range shot doesn't "collapse things". Collapsing means going from one extreme to the end, for example when you stand at one end of the 3 pt line you collapse the D to your side then when you whip the ball to the other side your team mate has a ton of.space to operate. That is collapsing the defense. Mid Range area is in the center of the court there is no collapse going on as you can easily reach any other side of the court you want.

Look up stats first befire you argue with me, guys like Melo and Rudy Gay are the mid range kings. How space do Melo and Rudy Gay create for their teammates? How efficient were Melo and Rudy Gay during their heyday? The stuff you say does not reflect what happpened in reality.

If the mid range is so hot how come every team decreased the mid range shot? Look at the stats dude, the league as a whole has decreased the mid range shot. They know it sucks. Who is smarter, you or the entire league full of people who study stuff like these full time?

If you are saying sometimes mid range shots should be taken then you have no argument as the Rox are already doing that. Harden and Cp3 already take a couple of mid range Js a game that is more than enough.

 

man firstly read what i wrote, OPEN midrange shot is like a layup to nba level player, not just any midrange shot. I understand Capela can't make them but even when you leave Gortat open and give him time he will make those, did you ever played basketball? i could not play 10 years step on the court and hit midrange. Cant say the same about three

Dont Rudy Gay me about midrange. Check Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady, Michael Jordan do those names ring you something about offense? because they would pull up in full speed for a midrange and still be best offensive players at their time. Heck even Rip Hamilton shot basically only from midrange and was one of the efficient guys in the nba and his Pistons won a title. Parker/Timmy/Manu operated on midrange and fed what was given from it and they won several titles. Dwayne Wade? Slasher with jumpshot only to midrange area? You know him? Yes he won titles hitting some tough **** from midrange and the list goes on and on

 

I already know you didnt play one game at basketball in your life you just proved it, all it takes is one step forward from center, one hesitation on wheter to come out and contest midrange and its open dunk for your center. It amazes me rockets fan doesnt know that while Harden throws like 100 oops to Capela based on help defenders under the basket lol

 

I think this is another case of perception vs reality.

You are referring to guys that played in an era where there weren't many 3 points shot compared to the modern game. Teams weren't nearly as efficient as they are today. Neither team was shooting a high volume of 3s so they weren't at a disadvantage by not shooting 3s. If you did that today then you'd have a problem.

Most of the guys that you mentioned weren't very efficient by today's standards.

McGrady - Very inefficient overall. Career 51.9 TS%. Even in his best season's McGrady only shot around 43% from midrange.

Kobe - Career 55% TS%. He also shot 42 to 43 percent from midrange.

Hamiltion - Career 52.5% TS%. His midrange percentage was usually around 43%

Parker - Career 54.7 TS%. His midrange ranged between 42% in good years to sub-40% in bad seasons.

Duncan - Career 55.1 TS%. His midrange percentage was between 44% and 36%

Ginoblie - Career 58.2 TS%. That's a decent percentage but is due to the fact that he got lots of layups, free throws and shot a high number of 3s.
His midrange percentage was usually in the 42% range in good seasons and as low as 37% in bad seasons.

Jordan - Career 56.9 TS%. In his younger (pre 1st retirement) days, he was very efficient because he got to the rim so much and he shot a bunch of free throws. He was a good midrange shooter, hitting around 48%.


Compared to today's game, those guys weren't very efficient. It's not that they weren't great players, they just weren't taking advantage of the 3 enough. That's what teams have figured out. Getting 50% more on a shot from behind the arc, you don't have to be all that good of a shooter to still be more efficient than anyone in the history of the game from midrange.

Of the guys that you mentioned, the only one that could be considered a good midrange shooter is Jordan and his midrange is still way more inefficient than most of the current players. Jordan's midrange percentage equates to a sub 32% 3 point shot. Last season the league average on 3 point shots was over 36%.

That shows you the advantage of shooting the 3. The NBA league average on 3s is way more efficient than these all time greats' shooting percentages.

 

I guess the entire NBA haven't played one game of basketball their entire lives too, because they have been decreasing the amount of mid range Js they take.

I guess James Harden, Daryl Morey, MDA and the entire Rockets team havent played a game of basketball in their entire life, they almost cut out mid range from their offense they so dumb that they are only #1 offense in the entire NBA.

It amazes me the rest of the NBA world is wrong and you, Mr. bmelo is right.

I mean the Rox are only up 15 pts against Wizards despite shooting the same FG%, but what do they know? Mid range Js create space and are way more accurate than 3s. Wizards are proving it!

 

Check out what aelliot said he is the man. These all time greats just shoot 42% from mid range, the sane rate as James Harden.

You think 42% from long twos is gonna win games in today's NBA? You think 42% is a great percentage? You don't need a list of great players, you need to actually do the math and realize 42% FG on long twos is a lotto team in today's NBA.

 

Please dont cherry pick me guys. I know 3 is more efficient. I'm just saying there is no open three - which is more efficient than forced 2 - without constant threat from paint and midrange. And if defense give you OPEN MID you shoot it, and not go back to miss contested three. Let's take Harden for example. When he has ball around midrange area his defender could just back off and let him shoot if your theory is right. But he won't cause Harden will rip net everytime he does that... so he goes out to him allowing James to blow by him or atleast get step ahead of him. And then you got 3 options :
1.Side defender helps and opens the corner.
2.Center steps out - opening either shot from under the rim from his original asignee(Capela oop) OR defense pre rotates (corner defender rotates to attacking center) leaving one man at the 3point line open..
3.Nobody helps and Harden gets layup

What happens if we purposely don't take open Midrange?
Take a look at GSW defense in g6 and g7. Aggresively stayed home with 3pt shooters. They didnt help on purpose. They backed off James leaving paint crowded against his drives and baited him into taking stepbacks cause they know he wont be shooting midrange jumpers. He was cold from three, he had tough shots every drive and he didnt have any open teammates to bail him out. This tactic didn't work with Chris in the line up. why? because James would pass it to him, and he would just take a jumpshot from ft area while defender backed off.. and when he was keeping us in the game with his midrange defense got slightly loose leaving guys like EG and Ariza open and thats how we got our wins in the end. Of course defense scheme like that depends on certain body types and defending ability, but unfortunately GSW has great switching defenders, average at worst(Steph).

Midrange threat is important guys even if you dont want to take it

 

Mergady's numbers are due to his mindset and his circumstances trying to drag teams into the playoffs, he took the toughest shots on the team in Orlando and sometimes here.

Dumb shots and he wasn't a good shooter in that sense.

 

There certainly are open 3s without midrange, the Rockets are proof of that. We shoot very little midrange and we generate the most open 3s in the league.

You are presenting it as if our only two options are shoot midrange or shoot contested 3s. We also have the option to drive or shoot open 3s. Are you under the impression that we're having to take a bunch of contested 3s? If so, that's simply not the case. We've always been able to generate open 3s and those are much, much more efficient than taking any midrange shot (even open midrange shots).

Assuming that you can generate a bunch of open midrange shots, I'll ask you this question:

Would you rather take an open midrange shot or an open 3 point shot? That's a more realistic set of options than including contested 3s when we don't shoot very many of those.

It works the same as you described when Harden is up top above the arc. If you back off he can shoot it. Even if you don't back off he can drop step and create space and shoot it. If you play up he either baits you into a reach and draw a foul or he can blow by you.

The differences are:

a) it's harder to just allow him to shoot when you're giving up 3 points rather than 2.

b) When Harden has the ball above the arc then the floor is spread more than if he had the ball closer to the basket. Harden with the ball above the arc stresses the defense much more because they have to cover a larger area. That's the very reason that the Rockets take so many deep 3s, to force the defense to extend themselves even farther. When teams have to cover a larger area then it's much harder to help out.

c) If he decides to drive then he's already up to full speed by the time he gets to the paint and is much harder to stop

d) When starting up top, he has more choices available to him for his path to the hoop.

e) He will still draw defenders and be able to kick to shooters or lob to Capela.

I'm not following your logic.

Golden State "aggresively stayed home with 3pt shooters"? Yet, we still got 62 open or wide open 3s in those two games? If that was their strategy then it failed miserably because they still allowed a whole bunch of open 3s. Maybe because we missed so many 3s you perceived that it was because we were covered tightly but that wasn't the case. We got a whole bunch of open 3s and just missed them.

They "backed off James leaving the paint crowded against his drives and baited him into taking stepbacks cause then know he won't be shooting midrange jumpers". ? When did Harden have open midrange shots? He almost always starts the offense from above the arc. You seem to be implying that Harden was left wide open from midrange. When did that happen?

How does backing off of Harden that far bait him into taking a step back? The step back is used to create space when covered closely/ If you back off that far then he doesn't need a step back, he's already behind the arc. He can just shoot an open 3.

How can GSW stay home with 3 point shooter AND pack the paint? You can't do both, that's the whole point. Even if Harden's man was to drop into the paint, that's not a problem for him. He can easily beat any defender in the league 1-on-1. If you stay home on 3 point shooters then it's almost impossible to help out on Harden's drives. That's the whole point of the offense.

Also, if the GSW plan was to make it tough for Harden to drive in those two games, they weren't very good at it. Since we were shooting so poorly Harden drove a lot. He had 25 drives and shot 52% on those drives. That's about his normal percentage on drives.

Your logic is based on things that didn't occur. Mainly, they didn't take away our open 3s and they didn't stop Harden from driving. We got a lot of open shots and just missed them.

Trying to present it as an option of open midrange vs contested 3 is misleading too. We didn't pass up a bunch of open midrange (mostly because our whole team is above the arc) and we didn't take a bunch of contested 3s.

As has already been pointed out, there's a reason that teams take so many 3s and so few midrange now days. Everyone in the league realizes the advantage of getting 50% more on a shot.

Why then don't everyone take as many 3s as we do? Because they doin't have Harden or Paul who can create those shots. If they did, then they'd shoot even more open 3s. That's the advantage that we have over our competitors.

 

That and the fact that he wasn't a great shooter.

 

Great stuff as always @aelliott

 

You know what? If you dont understand by now i will just leave video of "open threes". the product of great offense without taking midrange shots and i will go as far as saying that's the exact shots Kerr wanted us to take



and here is my logic of taking MIDRANGE. We all know Harden can beat Steph off the dribble (he shot stepback on that play). If he does that he can pull up from mid. Durant has choice, go out and contest which will leave Green on two attackers (Capela dunk vs Tucker open 3). Or stay in the lane waiting for a drive. He would stay in the lane and wait for the contact I guarantee you that

 

So, because we shot horribly that one game that means that it's a bad strategy? Everyone knows that we shot historically bad that game but it was only one game. Using an exception doesn't disprove anything. I could point at a game like last night and say that we should shoot 3s every trip down the floor because it worked so well vs WAS. That would be incorrect too because shooting like last night was also an exception.

Harden is an inefficient midrange shooter, Kerr would love for him to start taking those shots. Why would Durant double on a shot that Harden isn't good at. That makes no sense. Nobody doubles on midrange shots. Teams want you to shoot midrange.

Where's the video of all the wide open midrange that we passed up? If you're telling me that GSW were trying to not leave shooters, then why would they leave them on midrange?

You can go look up the numbers on stats.nba.com. In those final two games, we got 62 open or wide open 3s. Are you disputing that?

That's a huge number of open 3s. More than most any team other than us can create. That particular game, we sucked at shooting them.

Considering how badly we were shooting and how bad we are from midrange, I'm not sure why you'd believe that we'd all of a sudden be lighting it up from midrange.