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NBA Offseason |OT| "It's a complete shit move, but we're stuck with it now"

L

LyleLanley

Banned
Cn6cxbtUMAMaZAB.jpg


Looks like the RNC is going well.
 
P

phanphare

Banned
Cheebo said:
This is fantastic news. It would have been a huge embarrassment to have it in NC. The only way to get NC to change is pull as much business as humanely possible from the state.
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I agree except mccrory has shown time and again that he doesn't give a single solitary fuck about businesses leaving NC. he's a schmuck. alas he'll be out come november :):knocks on wood::) and charlotte will hopefully get the game in 2019.
 
P

Piecake

Member
Asked on The Dan Patrick Show in early May of last year if the league should change the rule, TNT broadcaster Reggie Miller, one of the greatest shooters in NBA history, said: "Make your free throws. It's disrespectful to yourself and myself who spent countless hours in the gym working on our shooting. ... We worked on our craft."

Practice more! It makes so much sense. Yet according to those who have gone to the trouble of diagnosing the actual root of the problem, it's the exact opposite of good advice.

However, research guru Michael Beuoy, of Inpredictable.com, found some other possible explanations for poor free throw shooting aside from hand size. A deep dive into SportVU-generated granular data revealed to Beuoy that tall players tend to have higher shot trajectories, which means the ball approaches the rim as if it had been dropped from a greater height -- i.e., faster. Dirk Nowitzki's free throws approach the rim at 20.4 feet per second; Kyrie Irving's approach at 19.4.

That doesn't matter if the shot is dead on. But if it catches rim, as many do, Nowitzki's shot would bounce off the rim with more force than Irving's. And in basketball, there are plenty of makes to be had from a softly bouncing ball lucking its way into the net.

Beuoy also found that big men were just all over the place with the ball. The starting position, the release point, the velocity and angle of the ball as it left their hands ... the best shooters had very little variation in these things. The tallest players had a lot, and the worst free throw shooters had a ton.

In other words, the search for physical differences in tall and short shooters uncovered evidence that the actual difference is not physical at all.
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The lesson: Any weakness can doom you in such a competitive field. In this way, a 6-foot NBA player is like an astronaut. To separate himself from millions of similarly sized people who'd like to play in the NBA, he must be strong, mentally and physically, in whatever it takes to have a nicely replicable shooting stroke.

If you're a bad free throw shooter at 7-foot, though? Well, OK, you still have a darned-good chance of making it to the NBA simply because there aren't many 7-footers in the world. David Epstein's 2011 book "The Sports Gene" estimates, based on government population data, that a staggering 17 percent of all 7-foot American men between the ages of 20 and 40 are playing in the NBA.

"The 7-footer pool is incredibly small, and they're not groomed to be good free throw shooters," Cassidy said. "But I'm sure big guys in the NBA ever since they were in seventh grade, they were off on the side of the gym shooting free throws, and it doesn't necessarily make them better. So there's got to be something else going on."

The Rockets tracked Howard's free throws, and he shot "upper-70s"in the practice gym, according to a team source, but he shot 48.9 percent in games this past season. That's a 30 percentage point gap.

"If these guys do much better in practice than the game," Rao said, "it points to psychology."
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"When was the last time you drank from a cup?" Dr. Christian Marquardt is on the phone, and he almost makes me spit, because surely he can't know that I have taken a sip of coffee that instant. He's a leading sports psychologist studying the neurological causes of the yips at the Science and Motion facility in Munich, Germany.

I tell him that I literally just took a sip of my coffee.

"Did you put any attention on it, or any thought? Or did you just drink it?"

No thought.

"Now, imagine it was completely filled up with hot liquid. You don't want to spill it. All of a sudden, you will act very differently."

He's right. Thoughts about how tightly I'm gripping the handle, the precise twist of my arm, the angle of the cup to my mouth ...

"Because," he explains, "you start thinking about the consequences of failure."

Marquardt is not convinced that natural selection totally explains why big men struggle at free throws. He said the heart of the problem goes deeper -- down, for some players, to their very neurological roots.

The yips, Marquardt explains, are not mechanical. They go away if you remove the perceived risks. Take the ball away, and golfers can swing normally. But the yips roar back when the ball is returned to the putting green.

They can be distance dependent, too. Six-foot putt? No yips. Five feet? No yips. Four feet? Yips.
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http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/17115866/real-root-nba-intentional-foul-epidemic

Interesting article.

Seems like the conclusion is that since there are just so many more players competing for the wing positions that it weeds out the mentally weak players, but it doesnt for 7 footers because they are such a rarity and you can live with a player like DeAndre who sucks butt at FTs, but can protect the rim, play good help defense and dunk all over everyone.

FT practice aren't helping these guys since they seem to be perfectly fine shooting FTs in practice. What will help is changing their mindset so they are not afraid of failure and not afraid of humiliating themselves before the world.

If you have that mindset when you go up there to shoot your FTs it is no wonder that some people are just awful at it. That variation in shooting motion among big men is explained by this a lot better than it is explained by physical differences. Being tall might make it slightly more difficult to be a good FT shooter, but the variation caused by mindset is the key.

Kinda nuts that if you are over 7 feet tall in the US you basically have a 1/5 chance of playing in the NBA. And who knows how many 7 footers never really bothered to try.
 
M

MetalFearSolid

Banned
"My guys were telling me that Bleacher Report says we'll win 59 games," Crowder said. "That's a lot of wins, but I want to get past the first round of the playoffs. Two seasons in a row getting swept" (Note: The Celtics lost in six games this past year) "that's my goal to be honest with you. I think our ceiling is the Eastern Conference Finals. Toronto is not a team we're worried about. I think Cleveland is the top team. That's what it comes down to."
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Jae Crowder is not giving the Raptors the respect they deserve.
 
S

spyder_ur

Member
Piecake said:
http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/17115866/real-root-nba-intentional-foul-epidemic

Interesting article.

Seems like the conclusion is that since there are just so many more players competing for the wing positions that it weeds out the mentally weak players, but it doesnt for 7 footers because they are such a rarity and you can live with a player like DeAndre who sucks butt at FTs, but can protect the rim, play good help defense and dunk all over everyone.

FT practice aren't helping these guys since they seem to be perfectly fine shooting FTs in practice. What will help is changing their mindset so they are not afraid of failure and not afraid of humiliating themselves before the world.

If you have that mindset when you go up there to shoot your FTs it is no wonder that some people are just awful at it. That variation in shooting motion among big men is explained by this a lot better than it is explained by physical differences. Being tall might make it slightly more difficult to be a good FT shooter, but the variation caused by mindset is the key.

Kinda nuts that if you are over 7 feet tall in the US you basically have a 1/5 chance of playing in the NBA. And who knows how many 7 footers never really bothered to try.
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That's an interesting article; thanks for sharing. I'm a bit torn on how far to go to accommodate players who are hurt by Hack A Shaq, but the common refrain of "Just practice more" is silly.

It assumes that these elite professional athletes a) guys don't know about their weakness b)don't practice at them hard enough or c)are total headcases.

MetalFearSolid said:
Jae Crowder is not giving the Raptors the respect they deserve.
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I feel he's giving them exactly the respect they deserve. At least he mentioned them, right?

LyleLanley said:
It really seems like Danny has no interest in trading Jae. He's not untouchable but I imagine he would have to be a part of a big trade.
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Sandfox said:
The Celtics are still being linked to Okafor.
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This is crazy but I'm not sure I would trade Jae straight up for Okafor. He's a perfect fit, gets better every year, and that contract has to be possibly the best non-star contract there is.

One of the backcourt guys along with BK picks still make the most sense as the backbone of a large deal.
 
B

Bread

Banned
spyder_ur said:
This is crazy but I'm not sure I would trade Jae straight up for Okafor. He's a perfect fit, gets better every year, and that contract has to be possibly the best non-star contract there is.

One of the backcourt guys along with BK picks still make the most sense as the backbone of a large deal.
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ew

we could have had him for the 3rd pick this year, why would we give up Jae (arguably our most valuable player on the roster) or a brooklyn pick (could be #1 in a stacked draft). If Okafor goes to the Celtics it's for a guy like Bradley straight up.
 
S

spyder_ur

Member
Bread said:
ew

we could have had him for the 3rd pick this year, why would we give up Jae (arguably our most valuable player on the roster) or a brooklyn pick (could be #1 in a stacked draft). If Okafor goes to the Celtics it's for a guy like Bradley straight up.
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I wasn't considering Okafor a big deal. I meant for the Boogie, Griffin, Butler type tier of player.
 
B

Bread

Banned
spyder_ur said:
I wasn't considering Okafor a big deal. I meant for the Boogie, Griffin, Butler type tier of player.
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Ok then yeah i agree. I want Cousins, I watched his 56 point game highlights and his skill set is insane. He can drive like a small forward in a center's body. Get him here and bring in Russell to show him the way to act.
 
J

Jarate

Banned
LyleLanley said:
I'm still not convinced Okafor is even a good fit on the Celtics.
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Okafor demands a double team almost all the time when he had the ball as a rookie on offense. His rim protection was fine, he just couldn't switch to smaller players or play on the perimeter well, which was exacerbated by the fact that Browns defensive system bases everything on switching the PNR.

Okafor's main issue is that he didnt fit with the Sixers team, which will change dramatically with ben Simmons, as suddenly an elite post finisher who can possibly hit an open jumped consistently will mix really well with Simmons.

I still think Noel is a better fit for the Celtics. His defense and athleticism allows him to guard anyone on the court, and his only real weakness is his inability to cover the absolute hugest of big men like Deandre Jordan. This can be nullified by Horford's ability.

Both players can fit fine with the celtics roster, I think noel is a better fit, but they're both probably going to take Avery Bradley and another piece to get. There's really no hurry for the sixers, Noel is basically Biyombo on steroids, and ive alwyas thought those high energy defensive bigs always do best off the bench. Embiid is going to be on a heavy minutes restriction and we dont even know how he's going to play (although most signs still point to him being an elite talent, but I'd like to see him on the court first)

I think the fact we havent traded either of them is a sign that we arent desperate to get rid of them.
 
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