The first one, I applaud. I really like your running back analogy. When I first got into football in the early to mid 1990s, Running Backs were still considered super-duper stars, unlike the expandable ones today (save for your special talents like Sequan Barkley, among a very few others). I'm thinking of Barry Sanders V. Emmitt Smith. I know this might be an unfair analogy, as Barry Sanders was insanely good. But, I do remember Sanders having one too many very poorly played playoff games. With Emmitt Smith, I think of him winning the final game of the regular season against the Giants with a separated shoulder, to get a bye in the playoffs!
Your second point is to be determined. I think Game 3 and Game 4 in Indiana will tell us what we need to know about this series. Obviously, if OKC runs the table, then the East is clearly weaker than the West. If it's a split, I'd say the team with the home court is the favorite again. And if Indiana protects their home-court...wow! I expect that outcome the least. But, this is why they play the games.
And for the record, even as a disappointed Knicks fan, I am enjoying this year's finals.
I logged on to say essentially this. I loved Barry Sanders like everyone else but there's a reason he never won anything. Not his fault necessarily but...
Let’s put Haliburton aside because he is not the same caliber of scorer, Anthony Edwards, James Harden, Jayson Tatum etc…are B+ shooters who play like they are A+ shooters; combined with natural variance that creates inefficiency.
Ideally there are other B+ shooters on the floor whose best scoring skill is shooting, you want to reallocate some 3 point shots to those guys while reallocating drives/mid-range etc to Edwards et al because they are better than anybody else on their teams at those things.
There is a potential conflict between any given lead scorer being as efficient as possible and the team being as efficient as possible — the former may come at the expense of the latter.
This is kind of what's best and worse about basketball.
The best part is that a singular talent can trump strategy, making it less likely that the game will be ruined by an analytics revolution like baseball was.
The downside is that success leads to pale imitations. Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon begat a generation of iso-ball and post ups. Now, Stephen Curry launched a generation of 3-pointers.
Maybe this is how the game evolves, but there are growing pains.
A smart analytics person would say a bad shot is a bad shot based on the data. A smart analytics person would not say that KD, Kyrie, SGA, Jokic (etc) shots from mid range or floater range are bad shots.
They would say that it's very stupid for Michael Porter to stand 21 feet from the basket and wait for Jokic to pass him the ball (note that this kind of stuff happened all the time 25+ years ago). They would say it's stupid for any large number of players to shoot a ton of 17 foot jumpers.
The Very Best NBA Players Aren't Dependent on Making 3s....but play with guys who can which allows them to do their thing.
Your story appears to have two thesis's:
The first one, I applaud. I really like your running back analogy. When I first got into football in the early to mid 1990s, Running Backs were still considered super-duper stars, unlike the expandable ones today (save for your special talents like Sequan Barkley, among a very few others). I'm thinking of Barry Sanders V. Emmitt Smith. I know this might be an unfair analogy, as Barry Sanders was insanely good. But, I do remember Sanders having one too many very poorly played playoff games. With Emmitt Smith, I think of him winning the final game of the regular season against the Giants with a separated shoulder, to get a bye in the playoffs!
Your second point is to be determined. I think Game 3 and Game 4 in Indiana will tell us what we need to know about this series. Obviously, if OKC runs the table, then the East is clearly weaker than the West. If it's a split, I'd say the team with the home court is the favorite again. And if Indiana protects their home-court...wow! I expect that outcome the least. But, this is why they play the games.
And for the record, even as a disappointed Knicks fan, I am enjoying this year's finals.
Would argue Barry was only boom/busy b/c his team was so bad he sometimes made chicken salad out of chicken shit.
On a real team be would have been ridiculous and consistent.
Sanders would have been incredible behind the Cowboys offensive line. Emmitt probably would have been pretty average behind the Lions line.
I logged on to say essentially this. I loved Barry Sanders like everyone else but there's a reason he never won anything. Not his fault necessarily but...
Let’s put Haliburton aside because he is not the same caliber of scorer, Anthony Edwards, James Harden, Jayson Tatum etc…are B+ shooters who play like they are A+ shooters; combined with natural variance that creates inefficiency.
Ideally there are other B+ shooters on the floor whose best scoring skill is shooting, you want to reallocate some 3 point shots to those guys while reallocating drives/mid-range etc to Edwards et al because they are better than anybody else on their teams at those things.
There is a potential conflict between any given lead scorer being as efficient as possible and the team being as efficient as possible — the former may come at the expense of the latter.
My favorite stupid thing about the modern NBA is at the end of games when a team is down 1 or the game is tied and guys take 27 foot step backs
This is kind of what's best and worse about basketball.
The best part is that a singular talent can trump strategy, making it less likely that the game will be ruined by an analytics revolution like baseball was.
The downside is that success leads to pale imitations. Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon begat a generation of iso-ball and post ups. Now, Stephen Curry launched a generation of 3-pointers.
Maybe this is how the game evolves, but there are growing pains.
A smart analytics person would say a bad shot is a bad shot based on the data. A smart analytics person would not say that KD, Kyrie, SGA, Jokic (etc) shots from mid range or floater range are bad shots.
They would say that it's very stupid for Michael Porter to stand 21 feet from the basket and wait for Jokic to pass him the ball (note that this kind of stuff happened all the time 25+ years ago). They would say it's stupid for any large number of players to shoot a ton of 17 foot jumpers.