Do you adjust for threes when comparing past players?

[iamgine]

For example, Jerry West made zero threes. We could fairly say he was not a good three point shooter because well, he never shot them.

BUT he was an excellent shooter. It's not hard to believe that with some practice, he'd shoot the modern threes at a very high percentage and volume.

I always believe that you have to take players as they were because it's unfair to give a player extra ability but not take away anything. And there's just too many variables involved. i.e if Jerry West is assumed to be great at 3s, would his driving game suffer? Would his mid-range suffer? In line with this quote from Jordan: “My three-point shooting is something I don’t want to excel at because it takes away from all phases of my game,”

What do you think?

[Prometheus]

I think players should be viewed in full context of their era, and evaluated based on how they performed relative to their contemporaries.

rTS% is probably the best example of a stat which operates in this way.

[ArbitraryWater]

For example, Jerry West made zero threes. We could fairly say he was not a good three point shooter because well, he never shot them.

BUT he was an excellent shooter. It's not hard to believe that with some practice, he'd shoot the modern threes at a very high percentage and volume.

I always believe that you have to take players as they were because it's unfair to give a player extra ability but not take away anything. And there's just too many variables involved. i.e if Jerry West is assumed to be great at 3s, would his driving game suffer? Would his mid-range suffer? In line with this quote from Jordan: “My three-point shooting is something I don’t want to excel at because it takes away from all phases of my game,”

What do you think?

that woudnt be fair actually, cause, you know, we dont actually know as he never shot them, as you said so yourself.

[ImKobe]

If you know Jerry he often shot the ball from what would be considered 3PT distance because he was good at it. He'd be a decent shooter in today's NBA but I don't think you need to make that adjustment for past players, you just look at how efficient they were relative to their era & that's all you really need.