Watch this couple minutes of largely mocked Christian Laettner.

[Kblaze8855]

He was a big disappointment because coming out of college there were arguments he was the best college player of all time. In retrospect he was definitely no Kareem or Walton but it was a discussion. I was in ACC country at the time when that was a big deal so I heard quite a bit of it. Got taken over Shaq for the Dream Team spot. Big deal is my point. He was a big deal.

Anyway….



https://youtu.be/UOt3bGqI5F4?si=L7_M-XvkoPgoo7AS


Watch that when you have a couple minutes and reflect on this fact….



Thats part of an 8 season run where he made a total of 32 threes. He made 9 one season when they moved it in. And he wasn’t some late developing shooter. He could shoot and score on day one:



https://youtu.be/BnkOsmIj2pE?si=HPM-rCp29ANnu30G



It’s just funny to me that it never occurred to anyone that if you move him like 4 feet back you could get the other teams power forward or center completely out of the paint to make it easier not only on your own interior guys, but for your guards.

You can see Alonzo Mourning guarding him. He can shoot. If you put him far from the basket and he makes a couple shots then Alonzo has a harder time Standing in the paint to block all your shots.


you would see one or two teams do it. Whoever had Sam Perkins at the moment might stick him at 25 feet and annoy the other teams bigs. And the disruptive aspect of it was noticed and talked about on broadcasts. Is not like the coaches and people back then didn’t have eyes. They just wouldn’t commit to it. It was just one of the many things you might see not any kind of focal point.

though of course it’s only really a different maker if you’re the only one doing it.

Once everyone catches on, there is no longer an advantage. It’s just how basketball is played by everyone. It would be more effective with nobody else doing it, but you will quickly lose your advantage. So it’s not so much better as it is different.

But I do wish few more players who had reputations for being soft or in lateness case for being both soft and dirty(an odd combo) Were just told to give it a shot for a while.

All that said Don Nelson realized Patrick Ewing was slowing down as he was getting older and decided he should shoot corner threes and space the floor while he made Anthony Mason a point forward to open the floor up even more, and he was immediately run out of town in disgrace.

So there’s that.

[Carbine]

It really is a bad look for all coaches that it took what, 30+ years to figure out that the game we currently see is the smart way to play from a math standpoint.

[Kblaze8855]

Man….New York media was really mad at John Starks for shooting 36% from 3





Guard John Starks, 30, who fired a
career-low 39.5% from the floor last season, has all but given
up his mad dashes to the hoop and degenerated into an erratic
jump shooter; he set a dubious NBA standard for threes last
season, hitting 217, but on a record 611 attempts--a figure that
dwarfed his 451 shots from within the arc.





They also didn’t like Nelson taking a non shooter and putting him in a Draymond role to let him find shooters and cutters






Take hot-tempered Anthony Mason, the NBA's top sixth man in
1994-95. Whereas Riley gave him a limited role in the offense,
Nelson plans to deploy him as a starting "point forward" to take
advantage of his passing and ball-handling skills. So far, Mason
is delighted with Nellie--"I know [Warrior] Chris Mullin, and I
know Tim Hardaway, and both said I would love playing for
him"--but Mason's mood changes about as often as those tonsorial
billboards he sports. It's some measure of the Knicks'
desperation that they coughed up $20 million over five years to
re-sign Mason, who does lots of things that don't show up in the
box score but doesn't do one rather significant thing that does:
score.





he had some really forward thinking ideas. Wanted Ewing to focus on shooting and passing, Made a 290 pound forward into a point guard, wanted his guards shooting and slashing And got hated for it. He saw nobody was buying in(other than Mason), so he tried to do the smartest thing possible and trade Ewing for Shaq. That perfectly intelligent decision Got back to Ewing and he got fired midseason.

innovation was frowned upon. It’s entirely possible that if Laettner had taken a step back 30 years ago, Local media would’ve called him a ***** and lobbied to have him benched.

[Phoenix]

It really is a bad look for all coaches that it took what, 30+ years to figure out that the game we currently see is the smart way to play from a math standpoint.

I don't think it's smart for half the league to be shooting under 35% taking 35-40 3pointers( 13 teams to be exact.). It's smart math if you're hitting 37-38% at that many attempts. Problem is everyone now HAS to spam the 3 in order to keep up with the teams that do at an actual efficient rate. The Magic, for example, take 39 threes and shoot 31%. That's not great math, but they have no choice.

[Kblaze8855]

It really is a bad look for all coaches that it took what, 30+ years to figure out that the game we currently see is the smart way to play from a math standpoint.

but like I said, it’s only an advantage if you’re the only one or one of a few who do it. Once the transition is made, none of you have the advantage. Don Nelson was out there playing 6 foot seven centers and letting Manute Bol shoot 30 footers But he was playing finesse lineups against teams that have players who would do this if you didn’t double them with two of your finesse players at a time


https://youtu.be/TuR-GbZma1Q?si=3oO7KcGtUpLz3lnh



The league was built to bully soft interior players and force you into a hard double. The response to these postcards was for everyone to have a bruiser or two inside and most of them didn’t give you the skill set to play them on the outside.

Now a few of them definitely did. Charles Oakley could’ve been a knockdown three-point shooter while guarding all the imposing bigs. But guys like Dale Davis were more the norm.

When you have to defend Barkley Malone Shaq Ewing Zo and on and on inside you tend to add a couple extra bullies inside so you don’t have to get your own scoring big into foul trouble trying to guard them.

It was a combo of philosophy and the kind of stars that were coming out of college.

Somebody has the guard Shaq and the people who can do it trend towards bully ball.

50 years of Mikan, Wilt, Kareem, Moses, Hakeem/Ewing/Shaq/Zo had coaches trauma bonding, trying to stop the most effective people between them and success.


The people who could’ve changed it all were coached by people who were hired to do something about those players in the short term.

It’s entirely possible the end of the reign of centers in the late 90s into the Shaq era is what allowed the change.

When Dwight Howard and half a season of Yao are all you have to worry about you stop prioritizing the interior defenses And move to a more well rounded extra player at the four And start to see the possible benefits.

[tontoz]

I always wondered what it must have been like for him on the Dream Team. Must have felt very awkward.

[Kblaze8855]

I could see Jordan Being a real dick to him largely because of the Duke issue.

[Soundwave]

It really is a bad look for all coaches that it took what, 30+ years to figure out that the game we currently see is the smart way to play from a math standpoint.

Who knew my 11 year old neighbor from the 90s knew the future of the NBA, when playing NBA Jam he'd just spam 3s all game long and not even try to shoot 2s. Kid was 25 years ahead of his time, lol.