Shooting Efficency (or lack thereof) Featuring Antoine Walker

You know they once asked Antoine Walker why do you shoot so many 3 pointer and he replied because there's no 4 pointers

 

'Toine truly didn't care. He was going to chuck no matter what anybody thought.

 

You don't need to needlessly stress yourself with FG% and 3pt%, just look at Antoine Walker's TS%: it already takes 3 pointers, 2 pointers and free throws into account. Toine's career TS% is 0.484%, which is horrible for a guy who shoots as much as he does.

Secondly, 40% FG is also horrible, and a big reason for that is he only shoots 33% from the three and takes 8+ 3 pointers a game. For points of comparison AI and Melo both have FGs more than 0.400%.

Finally, someone who only shoots 33% from the three but manages to shoot at 50% FG overall is probably only taking 1 three pointer a game and converting 2's at an ungodly rate, something which doesn't really apply to Toine.

 

That's pretty much Michael Jordan's career shooting %. It's elite for wing players. But he only took 1.7 3s per game over his career.

 

Wow. The Ron Artest game summary thing is so wrong.

The Malice at the Palace.

1. PACERS won the game by 15.
2. Ben Wallace started everything with a hard foul.

 

Brad Miller is a career 33% from outside. That's not elite for anyone.

52% is all time record
44% is great
40% is good
37% is the cutoff for getting a green light to bomb away
33% is poor
30% and below it had better be your birthday

 

Wouldn't 33% be considered average, If not decent?

Make 2 of 6 threes = 6 points on 6 attempts.
Make 3 of 6 twos = 6 points on 6 attempts. (Which is 50% from two, which is very solid)

 

33% is the cutoff since it equals 50% from the 2.

 

You're not making any sense since opening this thread. I'd rather have Lowry shooting threes from way downtown than having him do what you're proposing, it's stupid.

 

however the FG % takes into the count of the 3pt %. A guy shoots 33% from 3s and 50 from FG meaning he has to shoot 67% from inside the arc, which is superb. If he shoots 67% from 2s, why bother taking all the 3s?

 

this is stat geekdom to the tenth power

 

If Antoine shot 50% overall and 34% from 3pt land, yes, I'd complain, because it means he'd be far more efficient at converting 2pt shots than 50%. If we assume that he took as many 3pt attempts as 2pt attempts, it would imply that his 2pt FG% would be an ridiculous 66%. If that's the differential between his 2pt and 3pt shooting, he should take close to ZERO 3pt attempts per game because for every 2pt FG attempt, he'd be getting back 1.33pts on average, but for every 3pt FG attempt, he'd be getting back about 1pt per attempt. The only 3pt attempts he should be taking are end of shot clock or end of quarter desperation shots (and possibly 2 for 1 situations).

Toine: SMH

 

Exactly, 8 3apg(34%)= 2.72 3mpg, 8.16 pps

If he had taken 8 2-pointers at 50%:
8 2apg(50%)= 4 2mpg, 8 pps

 

Whoops, fixed

 

33% could be considered average, as in, the average NBA player could probably hit 33% on average from deep.

And Rudy T once mentioned to the media that he was fine with his Rockets sending up so many threes, since if they hit a third it was equal to 50% 2 pt FG.

Here's why that doesn't hold up in reality:

a) The 3 point shot is not as reliable.
When you look at season averages, it seems fine, but that rarely holds up night to night.* That's why teams that rely so heavily on 3s are said to live and die by the sword. Shooters get hot, shooters get cold. You don't want your offense chained to outside shooting unless you've got a lineup of Redick, Allen, Granger, Lewis, Frye.

b) 3 point shooting doesn't put you on the line.
This is a much bigger part to success in the NBA than is acknowledged. Getting defenders into foul trouble affects how aggressively they can play, takes them out of the game, and breaks down a defense slowly over 4 quarters. Get into the paint and you force guys to foul. Park behind the line and it doesn't happen.

c) Long rebounds trigger fast breaks the other way.
c-2) Offensive boards and tip ins feed off of inside shots.


The three is an important part of any offense, but going Don Nelson and firing up 20 attempts a night (as a team) in Fun & Gun small ball systems rarely translates to postseason success.

The way I would think of it is, a baseball team trying to hit home runs at every at bat versus trying to move people around the bases.


* Stephen Jackson made 121 threes this season at a 0.337 clip. If you only look at his monthly splits, that came out to: 42%, 30%, 27%, 37%, and 32%. Game to game, the swings were much bigger: 2-2 followed by 0-3, followed by 3-7, etc.

 

brad miller is a center. 33% by itself is by no means good. but with 50% overall FG%, yes, it's elite for wings as i said that's pretty much michael jordan's career FG% and 3P FG%. you can't take many 3s at 33% and get 50% overall FG% at the same time, which usually means high TS%.

 

Just because you hit 50% FG overall doesn't mean 33% from deep is a good percentage, let alone "elite"

"Elite" for wings would be ~ 45% from behind the arc

Jordan was never considered an "elite" 3 point shooter. Hell, he shot in the teens his first four years. But he was smart enough to know that jacking up 8 a night wasn't a good idea.

Walker was a brainless chucker.