funny how a player like kobe and dominate from midrange but be a average 3pt shooter most of his career. % seem to be low because the player skill levels are low. Look at bigs during practice. When i used to watch rockets practices i wondered why is greg smith launching 3 pointers instead of focusing on bank shots? When watching patterson he practiced that mid shot like a boss and it showed in the game. Its a skill that needs to be practiced but just like we see when watching college basketball, either you gotta learn to shoot off dribble or run off screens to do it. Lebron has all of a sudden become a beast from midrange this season when i watch the heat play. He is unpredictable on offense like KD and can score from anywhere on the court. Its all about the players not the shot. LMA beats the hell out of houston from midrange and with post fades, Bosh is almost automatic and morey wanted him for that reason, Dirk ALWAYS goes HAM on houston with his jumper and, jamal crawford SMH nothing to say about him. Morey doesnt value it and it shows on the roster. His decisions have caused the rockets to be predictable so one of the players with a somewhat fast release needs to develop a pullup jumper or something.
Harden is supposed to be unpredictable. At least he is trying to, isn't he. Man, so we are unhappy that we don't have LBJs, Kobes, LMAs on this team. We are what we are. Things have to be looked historically. We are a work in progress.
Lin is a 2nd year player and he does have skills and is a decent mid-range shooter. If he wants to incorporate that in his game he has the determination to get that stop and pop shot midrange shot rather than always going to the hoop when big shot blockers are present or for variety. He's even done that a few times this year. When Parker was in his 2nd year he stunk at that shot, now he can do it with regularity. I don't know what level will get to ultimately but I'm never going to underestimate what he can do as he's proven people wrong time after time about his abilities. I would never discourage anyone to do anything until we've seen them really give it a go over a decent amount of time and practice. TJ has a decent 3 pointer, at least sometimes it falls for him. If Harden, Lin, Parsons find the lane blocked and find an open TJ from 16 feet for a mid-range shot he should take it. The idea is how to deal with the teams that have great rim protection and are making it difficult for the drivers, Harden, Lin and Parsons AND the 3 pointers aren't falling for anyone like it happens sometimes with teams. You need another means to score. When the penetrators are going to the rim at will, by all means, I don't want to see Lin, Harden and Parsons settling for mid range shots. But there are times when that is taken away.
I heard that Dwight guy is pretty good. Sounds good, but that's like coach telling player to score the basket in the last timeout of the game without spelling out how. Harden has the skill set to be really good anywhere on the floor to create for his own. Parsons, maybe, but that's not his strength, and if he does show he can create and make those type of shots, he will be be the hottest allstar. The rest, just do what they do right now. Actually I want Cassipi take less those ass falling off balance midrange jump shots.
BTW, Lin+Asik for Mo Will+Leonard is always available. Mo Will is your midrange guy, do you want that?
Lin creates his own shots and creates for others. Brooks also creates his own shots. Casspi tries too hard sometimes. I think Dwight's post game is getting better but he would also be strong in PnR. I'd like to see him do both, his post game is still a work in progress.
Predictability isn't necessarily a bad thing. The championship Rockets had a very predictable (and some would say boring) offense. But it was effective when it needed to be. Is there a way to assess, empirically, the negative consequences of our predictable offense? Is it particularly bad against veteran teams or good defensive teams, more so than what would be expected? Has our efficiency steadily declined, suggesting (perhaps) that teams are "figuring us out"?
No. I have no interest in trading Lin. I want to see him develop. He keeps showing signs of being a winner like in those 2 games where he had poor-scoring 3Qs and came up big in the 4th with buckets, steals, rebounds, passing in transition, and he keeps improving defensively. Asik has checked out and distanced himself from the team so hopefully whatever pieces are added for him in an eventual trade will address the big obvious holes in the team. If Asik can really come back to the Rockets, great. But I don't see that.
One could graph the eFG% for every game this year, draw a best fit line through it and see if there has been a decrease in the eFG% as the season has gone on. There are some statistical methods that would work.
Under the rim, yes. Midrange ... :grin: I can guarantee you if Lin, Brooks, and Casspi start looking for midrange shots, points per their shots will drop. That is just statistics, we are going round and round. I appreciate your wishful thinking. I sometimes want these guys to do more too, but that's just not going to happen, to the extent that this team will be better off with those guys looking for midrange shots.
Ideally one would also factor in SOS (strength of schedule) and then I could plug the resulting data into MiniTab and see if the p-value resulted in a confidence level of 95%+. That would result in an analysis that would stand up to scrutiny.
You call it wishful thinking and you say that's not going to happen and I don't buy into "that's not going to happen" stuff. Sorry. Lin can't go left. That's nonsense now, he does go left. And I'm saying try it. You're saying it can't happen and I don't buy that. Sorry. Brooks, Lin and Casspi are 3 different types of players. Lin creates his shots and others and strokes his shot. If he can do it from 3 point range he can do it from 2 point range and he's done so numerous times this season and last for the Rockets and plenty for the Knicks. Brooks has as well for the Rockets, not all of his shots are catch and shoot. So what does it matter whether it is midrange or 3 point shots. Shooting is shooting. Casspi doesn't belong in this group, he's at best fair at creating and if he scores over 20, what Lin and Brooks can do, it's mostly from assisted shots and a good amount of 3s where much of Brooks or Lin's shot they create for themselves.
Tell me what exactly do you want them to do? Lin will PnR, stop and pull up a J maybe once or twice a game, or a circle around reverse J (which is kinda in the paint), but anyways. What else do you think he is capable of or want him to develop into that will help this team immensely? Sounds like you want him to take people out on steps and dribbles. He sometimes shoots way off the mark that is not really funny. Wishful is actually a polite description. No slight to Lin, I used to think Lin may be a poor man's Nash, but lately his game to is more and more away from that.
Lin: just develop more ways to put the ball in the hoop, whatever that is. What he's doing now doesn't even matter that much to me because there's a long way to go in the season and more off-seasons to improve his game. I say what I say because take someone like Jason Kidd. For years he couldn't shoot, then later in his career he turned into a decent 3 point shooter. So it's impossible to say what guys will develop in their games or won't. I'd love to see Dwight, Harden, Parsons and Lin in 2 years and see what they develop into as a unit. Right now, I don't have expectations of them other than play in the playoffs and learn. But in 2 years, if somehow the 4 are together, they can be quite good together and both Harden and Lin have a lot of things to work on. Parsons could develop more too, but he's pretty strong now. Howard is still developing a post game and now can make hook shots with his left and right and has better footing on his post ups. Well, of course when he doesn't travel.
The 3 ball is like this to the rockets. Spoiler The amount of stupid 3s they take chucks the game away and makes their offense way too predictable.
Funny you mention that - I'd say Hakeem's mid-range game was probably one of the greatest to ever exist.
finally, something that makes sense. these are all young players. people seem upset that despite average 12 ppg and 5 apg, that they want another PG that can perform better. but the same can be asked of all the other players including harden (better defense, better playmaking), howard (better post skills, free throws, staying mentally in the game), parsons (defense, maybe some post skills he is 6'9), Beverly (playmaking), etc. I've been through this as an ex-Mavs fan from the 90s and going on boards and reading about how Dirk and Finley and Nash should be traded. Dirk and Nash are hall-of-famers and Finley had a fine career averaging over 20 ppg for several seasons. you couldn't imagine that during that first year or two. I mean dirk was a flop. nash can't play defense and didn't deserve his contract. finley isn't the go-to guy. for all their flaws, if you maximize their good attributes and minimize their flaws, you have a good nucleus.
