I posted this in a thread about Josh Smith back at the end of February, and it applies here as well... As you can see, he's significantly worse than many starting PFs at shooting the midrange shot. Now, you could claim that being played out of position is part of the reason for this poor percentage, but I don't really think that's the case. He's just a bad jumpshooter.
It's a bad shot and he's bad at it. The double whammy. The truth is that unless a big man can hit 55-60% out there midrange then he shouldn't be taking that shot. And there are very, very, very few big men that can hit the midrange jumper well enough that it should be a staple of the offense. Kevin Garnett is one of the best in the business from midrange. Take a look at his shot chart. And compare his shooting efficiency to guys like Ilyasova. Morey knows this. That's why he has discouraged the whole team from settling for the long 2 and has encouraged the bigs to step out and learn the 3 ball, while encouraging the perimeter guys to go all the way to the rim. Just remember this....a 45% midrange shooter is the same thing as a 30% 3-pt shooter and a 50% midrange shooter (very, very rare) is the same thing as a 33.3% 3-pt shooter (very common).
On that same note: I love Larry Drew, been following him since he played at Mizzou when I was a kid. However if the best you can come up with is Josh Smith handling the ball on the pick and roll and jacking up a bunch of midrange J's, I'd fire you.
clippers also have TERRIBLE def from the PF spot. Any their center is a good shot blocker thats about it. Smith can pick and pop...sorta
Howard took his team to the finals with no secondary superstar and a pretty average team. Doing that...rolling even without pick and pop. The thing is the way Howard finishes at the rem and you dont have to stop in pop.....BECAUSE if the defenders stop the roll...which is when you would pick and pop. INSTEAD He then passes to harden a superstar and top player in the league at this....much better having him do the pick n pop or breakdown drive...then KG or Tim D
basketbalaholic explained this...its because he is being used as primary ball handler in a pick n roll. So he takes bad contested 2s. No other PF does that. He is being played as a shot creating SF not a POST up SPOT up PF...like he would now. And like nearly every powerforward you compared him to.
There's another thing about Smith on defense, he's both an elite post defender (players shoot 38%, whilst he only fouls 6% of the time), as well as an elite perimeter defender, which allows us to play both big and small ball lineups with the same 5 (and not being forced to downgrade against small ball is a characteristic shared by the nba's best defenses)
Let's take a look at the Synergy stats. Of all of his possessions, only 1.7% were as the ball-handler in PnR situations. 5.3% of his possessions were as the roll man in PnR situations. And 23.5% of his possession were as a spot-up shooter. So I call BS on the whole, "he was the primary PnR ballhandler" thing.
Defensive Synergy stats are unreliable (according to Zach Lowe). I personally like looking at DRAPM (despite its flaws) because if your team is playing better with you on the floor then you must be doing something right (given there's a large sample size). According to DRAPM, Josh Smith was a top 10 defender in the league from 2006-2012, but this season he has fell off. By my observation, the reason fall that falling off is his decreased effort on help defense. Here are a couple of examples: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WaF91Tq9auw http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wT1yfdfmoqE He used to a much better of hedging, that was just pathetic by his usual standards.
Good point... I really like that too... imagine small ball with smith as the defender instead of delfino.... I wonder if that is better
Not sure on that then...unless I misunderstood his post. I just went off his analysis on that one. Even still spot up shooting is generic. Id like to see how that was broken down, and I am telling it was NOT from set threes or spot up Js in a set position within the flow of the offense. I saw at least 10 games this year and that isnt the way he plays at all. He is a ball dominant SF (thus his assists) ...who is relied on to create his own shot. So almost all of his "spot up" shots were highly contested. Either heavily defended catch and shoots or creating his own shot of the dribble. That much I can tell you...not sure where you go to get the stats that break that down...but feel free too. The way he played is not at all the way we would have him play for us.
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Yea, he took Orlando to the finals in the watered down eastern conference... SO WHAT... This is the wild wild west... Did you see how he played in the finals against L.A. when he actually had to face a team with big men in the frontcourt...??? In the 5 games against L.A. during the finals he only scored over 20 points ONCE... His team couldn't depend on him for points because he has no legitimate low post game and he's useless away from the basket. He had one game where he scored 11 points and 12 points in another. So I ask you the same question you asked me ___ DO YOU WATCH BASKETBALL...??? He's a career 18 ppg player and only averaged over 20 ppg in a season 4 times and he spent 8 years in the east where he faced no heavy competition in the frontcourt. It's not going to get easier for him out here in the west... He's the best center in the NBA, but he's not dominate like Shaq and Olajuwon was... It's a new day and you don't have to have the BEST center in the NBA you just have to have a good one and Asik is a good one... And if guys like you can think Lin can be better, you should feel the same about Asik because he actually lived up to his contract in his first year as a starter...
I'm not crazy about mixing Howard with Smith, but obviously wouldn't be against it. Their strengths (shotblocking, athleticism, versatile defenders) and weaknesses (decision making, shot range) are almost mirror images of one another. I think this would cause problems on the offensive end, but maybe the defensive improvement would be more than enough to offset this. The truth is PG-Harden-Parsons-Smith-Howard is a better offensive team than PG-Harden-Parsons-PF-Asik, and the later lineup was already one of the best offensive teams in the league. If Smith and Howard will play within the system, and remain the defensive forces that they are, we will compete with OKC for the Western Conference Championship every year.
I think we can compete with OKC with Smith and Asik... Smith is someone we could put on Durant and maybe can use Parsons at times to try to bother Westbrook. But OKC is a perimeter team, so why pay Howard $22 million to hold Perkins...??? Howard had ONE block shot in THREE games against OKC this past season by the way....
Howard came back early from a BACK injury and was still considerably better than Asik in his best season so far. Yeah... I think the people that matter (actual GM's) would all pick Howard over Asik in a heartbeat. Howard = Superstar and Asik = Not a star.
