Taking shots like this will generally make you less efficient but….

[Kblaze8855]

….being great at them will generally make you more reliable in situations where you can’t assume a good shot will present itself. Often clutch situations.






So…. should we or should we not not encourage young players to play that way?

I remember a few years ago people blamed an off-season of Kobe tutelage for Tatum coming out taking a lot of bad shots and having an off year. I don’t know how true it is, but I definitely read about it.

Obviously being great at it is of some benefit but to get great…you have to work up to it. That build up might be ugly.

Where do you stand?

[Baller234]

Only stat dorks obsess over things like efficiency when comparing all time greats.

Results are all that matter.

[elementally morale]

I watch basketball for entertainment. So if efficiency result in some great basketball like with Duncan or Jokic I'm all for it. Larry Bird may have been less efficient than Duncan (I honestly don't know and don't care) but does it matter?

I think all this efficiency talk is usually hiding a dislike for a certain player. I, for one, didn't like Iverson because hewas a ballhog... young Jordan because he was a ballhog... and I like Kobe... because he was a ballhog that entertained me. Does it make sense? No. Should it? I don't think so.

[dankok8]

Thing is we should see a breakdown by scoring types/zones before we judge overall efficiency. For instance Kobe was amazing at isolation scoring which as OP said is useful in clutch situations or really any time when a better shot cannot be manufactured. Taking more such shots cratered Kobe's efficiency but helped his team.

[Kblaze8855]

Thing is we should see a breakdown by scoring types/zones before we judge overall efficiency. For instance Kobe was amazing at isolation scoring which as OP said is useful in clutch situations or really any time when a better shot cannot be manufactured. Taking more such shots cratered Kobe's efficiency but helped his team.

A lot of people shoot higher percentages not due to more skill…but less. Not being able to convert anything but the easier looks makes someone who stays in his lane shoot better from the field. But he doesn’t shoot better because he’s better. He shoots better because he’s worse. But that’s a discussion that a lot of people just won’t accept despite years of seeing guys with good shooting numbers turn useless when you need a shot.

People are hesitant to make the distinction between good scoring and efficient scoring because somewhere down the line it’s gonna conflict some other argument they wanna make.

Which gets us here:

I think all this efficiency talk is usually hiding a dislike for a certain player. I, for one, didn't like Iverson because hewas a ballhog... young Jordan because he was a ballhog... and I like Kobe... because he was a ballhog that entertained me. Does it make sense? No. Should it? I don't think so.

You don’t need to make a consistent argument across all situations. We are talking ball. It isn’t science. It isn’t math. The answers are not definitive and don’t need to be.

Its all case by case.

[Real Men Wear Green]

If you're only judging him by fg %age the "damage" to Tatum was permanent. His rookie year shooting remains the career high in that statistic even though it's been creeping up since the initial drop. I would say it's definitely more about Tatum becoming a superstar scorer. He could probably be a highly efficient off-ball roleplayer if all he did was cut to the basket and shoot open threes but featured scorers get too much defensive attention to play that way. You don't want Tatum to imitate Kobe all game long, the Celtics have too much talent for that to make sense, but you do want him able to create a shot like Kobe could at the end with the game on the line. So for Tatum it was a good thing to work with Bryant even though it had some growing pains.

But for most players you don't want them trying to be Kobe, because most players aren't superstar material.

The tricky part is figuring out who has what it takes to be a superstar. For the young player with "potential" there's no reason not to work on that kind of game because you want to push your talent as far as you can go but a franchise had better be able to tell the difference between JR Smith and Devin Booker. But just working out in the offseason why not push the envelope with your game? Just about every star wing could have been a 3 and D roleplayer. Almost none of those roleplayers could step up and play like a superstar.

[iamgine]

I don't think we should encourage young players to play that way. Just like we should not encourage young players to shoot like Curry/Trae.

It worked out for Kobe and Curry but we should encourage young players the exact opposite of that.

[Full Court]

I don't think we should encourage young players to play that way. Just like we should not encourage young players to shoot like Curry/Trae.

It worked out for Kobe and Curry but we should encourage young players the exact opposite of that.

I think this is the correct answer. There's a place for the player who can put up the crazy shots when needed, e.g. Luka, Steph, etc., but then you have other players without the requisite skill who try it, and it just makes them low IQ players (e.g. Talen Horton-Tucker).

[Kblaze8855]

If you're only judging him by fg %age the "damage" to Tatum was permanent. His rookie year shooting remains the career high in that statistic even though it's been creeping up since the initial drop. I would say it's definitely more about Tatum becoming a superstar scorer. He could probably be a highly efficient off-ball roleplayer if all he did was cut to the basket and shoot open threes but featured scorers get too much defensive attention to play that way. You don't want Tatum to imitate Kobe all game long, the Celtics have too much talent for that to make sense, but you do want him able to create a shot like Kobe could at the end with the game on the line. So for Tatum it was a good thing to work with Bryant even though it had some growing pains.

But for most players you don't want them trying to be Kobe, because most players aren't superstar material.

The tricky part is figuring out who has what it takes to be a superstar. For the young player with "potential" there's no reason not to work on that kind of game because you want to push your talent as far as you can go but a franchise had better be able to tell the difference between JR Smith and Devin Booker. But just working out in the offseason why not push the envelope with your game? Just about every star wing could have been a 3 and D roleplayer. Almost none of those roleplayers could step up and play like a superstar.

I do wonder about the end. How many Jeremy Lin or Flip Murray types are out there who could…if asked…make you wonder why you’re paying a star 20 times their salary if only for a month or so?

Of course there’s a difference between a few weeks and a career…but it’s hard to say just where the cutoff is between ability and opportunity. We say “Well you couldn’t win with him doing that…” but ignore all the superstars who don’t win doing it either.

[Kblaze8855]

Norman Powell for example. Tell him he can shoot 22 times a game forever with no consequences.

How sure are we that he wouldn’t be a star? That guy is nice as hell….sometimes. Is it because he’s only sometimes asked? Or only sometimes capable?

[FultzNationRISE]

“Creating a shot when you need one” is itself a pretty mythologized concept.

Going 3 on 1 and contorting your body as you fall backward is never a high probability shot, and rarely necessary. The amount of times where thats the only way a team can possible get a shot off, is very very small compared to the compromise of having a guy play the wrong way for 38 minutes over 82 games plus playoffs.

At the end of the game you can either run a play to get Steve Novak a spot up look, or if you dont wanna risk turning it over you can bring Marshon Brooks off the bench to “create his own” and heave something up. Theres as much chance his shot will go in as there is Tatum’s.

Having a ‘superstar’ compromise your team potential (and take up disproportionate cap room for his impact) all game and justifying it with “well we need him in situations where someone has to create a shot” is the kind of convoluted argument fans come up with to support a conclusion theyve already made, which is that their fav player is highly valuable.

Jason Tatum playing like Kobe instead of maximizing his ability to contribute within the team concept is not a boon to the Celtics winning chances. If you wanna argue it’s what fans wanna see at the end of the day, thats fine, altho its a debatable conclusion.

But acting like they “need” that is contrived, pretzel logic.

[dankok8]

A lot of people shoot higher percentages not due to more skill…but less. Not being able to convert anything but the easier looks makes someone who stays in his lane shoot better from the field. But he doesn’t shoot better because he’s better. He shoots better because he’s worse. But that’s a discussion that a lot of people just won’t accept despite years of seeing guys with good shooting numbers turn useless when you need a shot.

People are hesitant to make the distinction between good scoring and efficient scoring because somewhere down the line it’s gonna conflict some other argument they wanna make.

Which gets us here:





You don’t need to make a consistent argument across all situations. We are talking ball. It isn’t science. It isn’t math. The answers are not definitive and don’t need to be.

Its all case by case.

Right...

Going further with the Kobe example. If we simply look at his scoring statistically, he's a high volume scorer that was slightly (2-3%) above league efficiency in the playoffs and yet his teams were dominant offensively in the postseason. We have to look at the situations in which a player is scoring and look at relative efficiencies in those type of situations. For example Kobe from 2006-10 took the most isolation shots in the playoffs and had a 0.98 PPP in those situations compared to league average of 0.86 PPP.

[imdaman99]

Mamba mentality. I haven't come across anyone that skilled that they can make those kinda shots regularly when the defense is playing that well on them.

[Carbine]

I'd argue vigorously that the only reason Kobe isn't a consensus top 10 GOAT is because of his hero ball shot selection.

[tpols]

Only stat dorks obsess over things like efficiency when comparing all time greats.

Results are all that matter.

For scorers it matters even though there is a contextual thing to this where Kobe is providing elite spacing and doing this in a high level ball movement system ~ the triangle.