No only the people who are good on our team at midrange(Chris Paul) should take it and he does. Other than that its just bricks by other players, look at the league, they are trending towards our style of play(in terms of layups and threes i mean, not the scheme). Harden has historically been an inefficient mid range shooter.
Are you really under the belief that Harden isn't capable of hitting the WIDE-open mid-range shots he gets constantly off a PNR? Are you also under the belief that it's a smart basketball play to turn down that wide-open mid-range shot and instead dribble behind the line for a contested 3-pointer? Is that really what you want to see Harden continue to do...particularly in a clutch situation? Turn down an open easier shot for a more difficult contested one?
Lol alright, lets go back to 14-15 season, dude shot 4.7 pull ups a game from 2 on 43%, that is not efficient. And generating wide open 2(looool) is something that makes our offense as a whole worse, not better. And btw, Harden will take a mid range if that's the only shot he has left,(see the Detroit game). He has free reign.
If you really think that generating wide-open 2s when the 3 is covered makes the offense worse, I really don't know what to tell you. That's absolutely ridiculous. And of course he has free reign...the problem is D'Antoni/Morey has ingrained into him that any and all mid-range shots are bad, and because of it he will only shoot it in the direst of bail-out situations.
We had one of the best offenses of all time last year DOING THAT. We do not have efficient mid range shooters except CP, go look at Harden's percentages from mid range man. They really should only be taken in those situations imo, we can agree to disagree.
This is way too simplistic an analysis. Mid-range shooting doesn't have to be better than 3-pt shooting to be an effective part of an offense. What if GSW shooting mid-range shots changes how teams defend them, giving them more open 3's or paint shots, and raising their %'s there and thus their overall effectiveness increases? While this is true - so is the opposite. If we have players who are not good at shooting 3%'s, maybe they would be better off shooting other shots. Given that we're 24th in the league in 3-pt %, it's clear we have lots of people who are not shooting 3's well, so is it really the best strategy for this group of personnel? This isn't inherently a bad thing. Maybe it worked for the Rockets specifically because other teams *weren't* doing it well. Other teams are doing it better than the Rockets now - so either the Rockets need to figure out how to do it better, or they need to find a new strategy that is now undervalued. This is similar to the predicament the Astros and other small-market baseball teams possibly face over the coming years. Analytics gave them a huge advantage and worked great when big-market teams were stupider than them (or going back further, Oakland and Money-ball). But now with teams like Boston embracing analytics and being able to do everything the Astros do except with more money, the Astros are going to have to keep find newer ways to outsmart everyone else. It's possible the rest of the league has caught up to the Rockets and are now doing the same things with either more talent or more sophisticated methods.
Hey guys I found some more footage you can take pointers from. So much stuff to open up our game, looks how it works so well for them.
Yes do not you think? When we are the NO.1 team in 3PA and bottom 7 in 3P% and we still keep chucking inefficient 3's, does that ring alarm bell or not? Last season we were the NO.1 team in 3PA and NO.12 in 3P% so we were able to do it.
Man, I am so sick of people defending the 3 ball and making out that those that feel more midrange shots should be incorporated are 'out of touch'...smh... A) Obviously you still shoot a lot of 3's - nobody is saying to abandon the 3 ball... B) It's about 'keeping the defense honest' and making them defend the whole court - not just the paint and 3 pt line... C) You take what the defense gives you... 3>2 but an open 2 > contested 3 D) You gotta have a fallback when the 3 ball aint working - or you just shoot yourself right outta games... It's about BALANCE! Just as there's a balance between offense and defense (which people wanted to argue with me a few years ago that defense no longer mattered in 'todays NBA' - lol - then we played good d - and look at the results...) Whether that balance is 33/33/33 or 50/20/30 or 30/30/40 or whatever... obviously we havent found it - at least not to the degree to be consistent... and guess what, it'ss gonna fluctuate based on matchup and personnel... Most want to take a shortcut to actually thinking and adjusting... nothing pisses me off more than MDA saying "We're just gonna play our game" or "I want to see x number of 3 pt attempts"... without even seeing or knowing what the defense is throwing at us.... Sports, and many things in life, are about taking advantage of opportunities and exploiting weaknesses... If you're going to go into a game against the NOP with the exact same game plan as if you were playing the GSW - you're not maximizing your odds...
exactly. But.."just because GS is the best 3pt shooting team of all time and for obviously dumbass stupid reasons takes the midrange shot doesn't mean we have to also!!!"
LOL the fallback was defense, omg not mid range shots. Lol you all think because we brick open three pointers, we are gonna become magically amazing at open mid range twos, gimme a break. There are already percentages posted for you. LOOL and talking about GS is idiotic, they have have 3 TOP TEN SHOOTERS OF ALL TIME. Curry, the greatest, Klay number 2 and Durant somewhere in the top 10. Why dont you guys look at the Bucks, nothing about them huh lol.
short cut to thinking and selective reasoning... lol notice the stats for contested 3s vs open 2s aren't mentioned... yeh open 3s are great and contested 2 suck - until the defense starts adjusting for the shift... thats why GSW shoots so many 2's - it provides for more open 3's.... I really hate how how some people cling to their analytics as though they provide the ultimate answer - as opposed to realizing that analytics are merely a tool to be factored into the equation to obtain the correct answer... smh... Thats why Morey can keep assembling rosters based on the numbers... but until he factors in chemistry and so forth...
Do I think that if we brick open 3 pointers that we might have better luck at an easier/shorter shot? Yes, yes I do... isnt that common sense? lol Have you ever played 'Horse'... lmao... The posted percentages do not represent open 2's vs contested 3's... which is the whole point... have you noticed how our 3 pt attempts seem to be getting longer and longer? That's bc the defense is camping out at the 3 point line... PS Thats how Ryan Anderson always managed to keep his 3p% up - he never took contested 3s - and took fewer and fewer shots based on how close the nearest defender was...
“Now you look at a stat sheet after a game and the first thing you look at is the 3s. If you made 3s and the other team didn't, you win. You don't even look at the rebounds or the turnovers or how much transition D was involved. You don't even care. "These days there's such an emphasis on the 3 because it's proven to be analytically correct." - Greg Popovich
Besides the fact that it isn't even true, what is relevance of this? This doesn't argue for or against mid-range shots.
"Now you look at a stat sheet after a game and the first thing you look at is the 3s. If you made 3s and the other team didn't, you win. You don't even look at the rebounds or the turnovers or how much transition D was involved. You don't even care." Pop is speaking to how dramatically the 3 ball can affect the outcome of a game and how it can render many other stats meaningless due to its impact... but obviously every game isnt gonna be a situation where one team is hitting and the other team is ice cold... but hey, if folks just wanna keep playing Russian roulette hoping we hit ours - and they dont hit theirs - then by all means carry on... but quite frankly, i dont believe our shooters are that much better than the rest of the league and would rather hedge my bets... lol
Cmon man, thats a bit disingenuous, you cant compare horse to in game action. Besides that some people are better from 3 than they are from mid range, people have different types of shot, but I guess thats neither here nor there. And how many contested threes do you think we take? We are 9th in the league in wide open three point attempts and first in the league in open attempts. Youve seen our percentage as a whole on these open threes, they are below league average, what makes you think us shooting open twos will help us here, they will gladly give us those bricks instead of the three point bricks Its literally just Eric Gordon whos out that far and that's cause Gordon has the range for the shot and it provides better spacing. Ryan Anderson wouldnt shoot at all on those 4-6 ones though which is why people got mad at him, he wouldnt shoot. I dont mind adding mid range attempts for CP and ....I guess Harden, but not for the role players....I think the defense and needing more offensive plays(Not mid range lol) needs to be worked on alot.
When was Harden ever a good midrange shooter? Harden is ridiculously efficient. Why are we trying to change his game?
