***2021-2022 NBA Season Thread***

[Going Commando]

22 minutes ago, TryTheBeal! said:

McQueen is wild these days.

 

Hes on some different level.

 

I'm disappointed in the thread lately.  I thought unimaginative orthodoxy was very unpopular in here.  I thought we made fun of people for being trapped in the moment.

[PeterMP]

I do agree with Steve.  I like good low post play, and I miss it.  And even people like Embiid aren't really very skilled at low post play because there is a lack of emphasis to teach it and learn it because of the way the game has gone to the perimeter.  Now, I think you can correct the issue without going to a 3 point dunk:

 

1.  Clean up more the physical play on the inside.  They cleaned up the perimeter play by re-instituting/enforcing the hand checking rule on the perimeter so that's been taken back to where it was in the mid-1980s, but they didn't do the same thing with the area around the basket/paint.

 

2.  Clean up the walk/carries on the perimeter.  The ability to drop the hand down to the side of the ball and then even under the ball to turn the ball on the dribble really changed the game.  Place Harden in 1980 and he gets called for a travel/carry on almost every step back 3.

Edited May 12, 2018 by PeterMP

[Renegade7]

6 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

I'm disappointed in the thread lately.  I thought unimaginative orthodoxy was very unpopular in here.  I thought we made fun of people for being trapped in the moment.

Nothing wrong with thinking outside the box, and one thing I've noticed is despite you being wrong, I haven't seen an alternative to your solution either outside of letting this play itself out (Edit: Peter finally did).  Still, you're walking around like Thanos saying we need to kill half the population to save the other half, lets start with the stupid ones.  That's not a solution, bro : )

 

Serious question:  3 point line was official in the NBA about 40 years ago. Where do you see the NBA in 40 years regarding this issue you are bringing up this solution for?  Is your solution worth it in that context?  Is this a rule you'd want to leave in permanently?

Edited May 12, 2018 by Renegade7

[TradeTheBeal!]

4 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

I'm disappointed in the thread lately.  I thought unimaginative orthodoxy was very unpopular in here.  I thought we made fun of people for being trapped in the moment.

 

I will say this.

 

Your “3 Point dunk” rule makes my Porter/Whiteside trade that much better.

[pjfootballer]

While the passing is good, I’m just not a fan of watching teams chuck 40+ three pointers a game. Too many players think they are good at it and they aren’t. 

 

I miss the inside games like Hakeem, Ewing and such.

[TradeTheBeal!]

1 minute ago, Renegade7 said:

 

 

Serious question:  3 point line was official in the NBA about 40 years ago. Where do you see the NBA in 40 years regarding this issue you are bringing up this solution for?  Is your solution worth it in that context?  Is this a rule you'd want to leave in permanently?

 

The solution is to widen the court for the purpose of moving back the 3 point line. 

[Destino]

18 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

Where is Steph Curry's above the rim game?  Where is his low post game?  He doesn't have them at all.  And yet he's a top three player in the NBA because the NBA game does not value those skills in a proportionate way to jump shooting.  You don't have to be a well rounded basketball player to dominate today's game, you just need to be a good shooter.

Best shooter in NBA history.  That's a little more than just being a "good shooter."  Steph doesn't need a low post game because he can shoot off the dribble better than most shooters can hit assisted spot up attempts.  He also has some of the tightest handles in the league.  That lets him get to the rim without turning his back, and he finishes at a very good rate.  

 

 

18 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

There is only one Joel Embiid in today's game, and I think that's a problem for the league.  And he is only a dominant offensive player because he can face up and dribble and shoot.  If he couldn't then he'd go from a 23 PPG guy to a 13 PPG guy.  The league changed the rules and made traditional big man scoring untenable.  It was a negative unintended consequence of trying to kill iso ball.

You're complaining that Embiid has to use his diverse skill set to score?  Skilled bigs are a good thing.

[Going Commando]

4 minutes ago, TryTheBeal! said:

The solution is to widen the court for the purpose of moving back the 3 point line. 

 

I think you can re-emphasize inside play without punishing the perimeter guys if you change point values.  I want to see a diversity of highly effective and competitive styles rather than an over reliance on one part of the court or one style of play.  It'd make the game more dynamic.

[Going Commando]

2 minutes ago, Destino said:

You're complaining that Embiid has to use his diverse skill set to score?  Skilled bigs are a good thing.

 

I agree, but the problem is there are too few of them.  There are already too few athletic seven footers in the world, and fewer still who can face up and dribble by people or shoot from range.  Well, there is only Embiid who can dominate inside and out like that.  And I also think it's a waste of rare God-given talent to see Embiid spend so much time on the perimeter.  But he's strongly incentivized to do that by the current rules.

 

5 minutes ago, Destino said:

Best shooter in NBA history.  That's a little more than just being a "good shooter."  Steph doesn't need a low post game because he can shoot off the dribble better than most shooters can hit assisted spot up attempts.  He also has some of the tightest handles in the league.  That lets him get to the rim without turning his back, and he finishes at a very good rate.  

 

In my system, Curry would still be massively valuable.  He's a super efficient volume scorer and that wouldn't change.  I'm not changing to total value of what he does.  I'm raising the value of players who are dominant in other ways to match the value of the part of the game he's mastered.  And like I said, let's go down the hierarchy and look at a guy like Kyle Lowry.  That guy is a mediocre slasher and pretty good three point shooter and nothing else, and under our current system, he has a ton of value because being able to initiate contact on junky drives ending in weak lay up attempts and hit threes has disproportionately huge competitive value.  And thus he can co-lead a team to 59 wins and yet a team with Blake Griffin and Andre Drummond can't even go .500.

 

The NBA game has gone down a weird and ugly rabbit hole.

21 minutes ago, TryTheBeal! said:

 

I will say this.

 

Your “3 Point dunk” rule makes my Porter/Whiteside trade that much better.

 

See, you're starting to see the value in the idea.

 

Whiteside is fun.  He shouldn't have to be a dinosaur.

[TradeTheBeal!]

14 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

I think you can re-emphasize inside play without punishing the perimeter guys if you change point values.  I want to see a diversity of highly effective and competitive styles rather than an over reliance on one part of the court or one style of play.  It'd make the game more dynamic.

 

Gotta move the baseline 3 back by a foot.

[Going Commando]

26 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

Serious question:  3 point line was official in the NBA about 40 years ago. Where do you see the NBA in 40 years regarding this issue you are bringing up this solution for?  Is your solution worth it in that context?  Is this a rule you'd want to leave in permanently?

 

I honestly don't know what the game would look like 40 years from now if you made dunks worth three.  I'd assume the long term effect would be that you'd have two distinct types of specialized players: perimeter players who specialize in shooting and defending shooters, and bigs who specialize in above the rim finishing and defending above the rim finishers.

 

And I don't think that sounds that bad.  We've already got the first type of player running the league, I wouldn't mind seeing the second come about.  More dynamic styles of play means a larger number and variety of dominant player and that would mean a greater number of competitive teams and a more dynamic league.  The NBA is just so stagnant right now.  We're about to see a completely played out battle between the Warriors and Cavs in the Finals again, and probably see the Warriors face off with LeBron's team yet again next year and the year after to determine the champion.  And the general lack of competitiveness and dynamism is only like a quarter of the league's problems.  The NBA game has become unhealthy and it needs reform.

10 minutes ago, TryTheBeal! said:

Gotta move the baseline 3 back by a foot.

 

Hmm.  I could go for this.  Make the court wide enough to not have to flatten out the three point arc, like it is in the college game?

[PeterMP]

19 minutes ago, Destino said:

Best shooter in NBA history.  That's a little more than just being a "good shooter."  Steph doesn't need a low post game because he can shoot off the dribble better than most shooters can hit assisted spot up attempts.  He also has some of the tightest handles in the league.  That lets him get to the rim without turning his back, and he finishes at a very good rate.  

 

 

You're complaining that Embiid has to use his diverse skill set to score?  Skilled bigs are a good thing.

 

1.  But he's also allowed to dribble in a manner that gives him ability to control the ball not seen through much of NBA history coupled with a set of rules that minimize defenses ability to control where he goes when he has the ball (no hand check).

 

2.  The problem is that Embiid spends a lot of his time working on a specific skill (perimenter shooting) and not others.  Kevin McHale was a skilled big man.  Even had diverse set of skills (though they were all employed relatively close to the basket), but a player with his skill isn't relevant in today's NBA.

 

Even a guy like Hakeem.  If Hakeem plays today, he'd be practicing his 3 point shot, and we'd have no Dream Shake.

[TradeTheBeal!]

18 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

 

 

Hmm.  I could go for this.  Make the court wide enough to not have to flatten out the three point arc, like it is in the college game?

 

Widen the court by a foot on each side.

To maintain proportion, lengthen the court and lane by 6 inches and widen the lane by a foot.

Extend the 3 point line by 18 inches at the top and a foot on the baseline.

 

Open up the court.

[Momma There Goes That Man]

I don’t know why we are punishing players that have developed their 3pt skill. 

 

It Hakeem existed in today’s NBA he would totally dominate the inside because he would have little opposition. Same with pretty much every great center of the past. Embiid could do this as well but he chooses not to. That’s not on the game, that’s on him and his coaches. 

 

Steve - put your talents to use fixing god awful college basketball. Leave the NBA alone. 

[PeterMP]

2 hours ago, Momma There Goes That Man said:

I don’t know why we are punishing players that have developed their 3pt skill. 

 

It Hakeem existed in today’s NBA he would totally dominate the inside because he would have little opposition. Same with pretty much every great center of the past. Embiid could do this as well but he chooses not to. That’s not on the game, that’s on him and his coaches. 

 

Steve - put your talents to use fixing god awful college basketball. Leave the NBA alone. 

 

The issue is dominating in the post isn't enough to actually make a team good, and the numbers back it up.  

 

Let's take Dwight Howard the year that he lead the NBA in FG% (which Hakeem never did).  He had a FG% at the rim of 74.5%, and he had a FG% from 3-10 feet of 45.8%.  Now remember, this was before the change in illegal defense so even those numbers are probably over inflated because today it would be easier to double and triple team an equivalent player, and again that's the lead league leader in FG% that year, which Hakeem never did  I'm using Howard because we don't have those number for Hakeem except for his last 2 years in the league, but those 2 years he was lower than those numbers.

 

Give him 20 post up shots if 5 of them end up with him at the rim and the other end up from 3-10 feet (this is what you'd expect based on Hakeem's first half performance in the 1994 NBA championship https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNsPfnuAxvQ on his pure post ups, he finished at the rim about 1/4 of the time.  The other 3/4 of the time it is either a hook shot or a fade away jump shot.  Now he does score other ways, off the fast breaks, off passes from other people's dribble penetration, off pick and roll action, etc, but just looking at his pure post ups, it is about 1/4 of the time at the rim), he's only scoring 10.595 points.  Give a 35% 3 point shooter those same 20 shots, and he scores 10.5 points.  Even increase it 1% to 36%, and you end up with 10.8 points.

 

It is simple math.

 

An Embiid with his current post game, but as a 36% 3 point shooter is more valuable than Hakeem.

 

To claim the changes in the rules haven't favored perimeter players and shooters is just not reality.  Just even looking at the rules that have been changed should make it clear they are going to benefit shooters.

 

**EDIT**

It isn't about punishing people that have developed a 3 point shot.  It is about recognizing changes in the (enforcement of) the rules over the last 35 years have made it easier for shooters to score vs. post players.

 

The change in what is a carry/travel more heavily benefits perimeter players.

The contact allowed in the post, but the lack of the hand check on the perimeter has benefited perimeter players.

The change in the illegal defense rule benefited perimeter players over post players.

 

Those things should be inarguable.  Part of the reason that people are much better shooters today is because it is much easier to get those shots off (it is harder to play perimeter defense) than ever.

Edited May 12, 2018 by PeterMP

[Mr. Sinister]

11 hours ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

I'm disappointed in the thread lately.  I thought unimaginative orthodoxy was very unpopular in here.  I thought we made fun of people for being trapped in the moment.

 

Usually I jump at the chance, but I began to genuinely worry about you?

 

[Going Commando]

Top five movies with NBA players in them who aren't playing themselves:

 

1 - He Got Game

2 - Airplane!

3 - Conan the Destroyer

4 - My Giant

5 - Kazaam

 

Honorable mentions:

Juwanna Man

Steel

Holes

[TradeTheBeal!]

I thought Larry Bird was really good in Deliverance.

[Bozo the kKklown]

On 5/12/2018 at 8:39 AM, Momma There Goes That Man said:

I don’t know why we are punishing players that have developed their 3pt skill. 

 

It Hakeem existed in today’s NBA he would totally dominate the inside because he would have little opposition. Same with pretty much every great center of the past. Embiid could do this as well but he chooses not to. That’s not on the game, that’s on him and his coaches. 

 

Steve - put your talents to use fixing god awful college basketball. Leave the NBA alone. 

Hakeem’s championship years, the Rockets employed a stretch 4 with Horry/Chillcutt/Bullard.

 

Embiid with shooters around him is the Warriors kryptonite, imo.

On 5/12/2018 at 10:15 AM, PeterMP said:

Let's take Dwight Howard the year that he lead the NBA in FG% (which Hakeem never did).  He had a FG% at the rim of 74.5%, and he had a FG% from 3-10 feet of 45.8%.  Now remember, this was before the change in illegal defense so even those numbers are probably over inflated because today it would be easier to double and triple team an equivalent player, and again that's the lead league leader in FG% that year, which Hakeem never did  I'm using Howard because we don't have those number for Hakeem except for his last 2 years in the league, but those 2 years he was lower than those numbers.

Dwight was never a dominate scorer or had goto scoring moves.

 

Not a good comparison.

[Going Commando]

44 minutes ago, TryTheBeal! said:

I thought Larry Bird was really good in Deliverance.

 

I was surprised to learn he was such a good banjo player.

[PeterMP]

1 hour ago, BenningRoadSkin said:

Hakeem’s championship years, the Rockets employed a stretch 4 with Horry/Chillcutt/Bullard.

 

Embiid with shooters around him is the Warriors kryptonite, imo.

Dwight was never a dominate scorer or had goto scoring moves.

 

Not a good comparison.

 

The only reason that Dwight Howard didn't score more was because he didn't take more shots.   I took a year he lead the NBA in FG%.  The underlying math is sound.

 

Even a big man that leads the NBA in FG% in an era where the rules limited the use of double teams in the paint is less valuable than a 36% 3 point shooter.

[Destino]

On 5/12/2018 at 10:15 AM, PeterMP said:

 

The change in what is a carry/travel more heavily benefits perimeter players.

The contact allowed in the post, but the lack of the hand check on the perimeter has benefited perimeter players.

The change in the illegal defense rule benefited perimeter players over post players.

 

Part of the reason that people are much better shooters today is because it is much easier to get those shots off (it is harder to play perimeter defense) than ever.

All of these things would seem to favor perimeter players driving with the ball more than three point attempts.  Threes are largely assisted shot attempts.  There aren't many players in the league specializing in unassisted threes off the dribble.  What the analytics movement has focused on reducing is long twos and contested shots that are not at the rim.  

 

 

[Destino]

5 hours ago, PeterMP said:

The only reason that Dwight Howard didn't score more was because he didn't take more shots.   I took a year he lead the NBA in FG%.  The underlying math is sound.

 

Even a big man that leads the NBA in FG% in an era where the rules limited the use of double teams in the paint is less valuable than a 36% 3 point shooter.

This ignores several components of basketball.  The league is full of 36% three point shooters that can't create their own shot.  Those guys are not more valuable than a big, or any player, that can score efficiently when defended.  

 

Otto Porter is a great example.  Hes much better than a 36% three point shooter, but he can't dribble or reliably create his own shot.  The result is that defenses can take him away.  Despite being 6'8 he was effective defended by Isaiah Thomas and Kyle Lowry in several instances during the playoffs this season and the previous.  

 

Effect on the opposing defense, something basketball heads are calling "gravity" now, is a significant consideration that's hard to quantify through stats.  Embiid catching the ball in the post warps the opposing defense and leaves shooters open.  Reddick, an excellent shooter, may have wonderful numbers but his impact on the game is much smaller.  

Edited May 13, 2018 by Destino

[skinfan2k]

the NBA game needs reform lol.  The NBA is skyrocketing in popularity and you want to change it?

[Mr. Sinister]

They're doing it again