Welcome to the B-Ball Brunch. Enjoy reading about my NBA musings about last night during your brunch hours.
The masters of the midrange.
(PHOTO CREDIT: Mark Sobhani/Getty Images.)
A lot of NBA pundits love to say that the worst shot to take is from the midrange. That would be the non-painted area inside the three-point arc from about 16-23 feet away from the basket. And it makes perfect sense. Everything inside the arc is worth two points and the farther away the basket, the worse it is. Why not just go a couple feet more back so that it can add ONE MORE POINT to the basket? And those points add up. It’s why we see a lot of shots outside the arc nowadays.
It’s not necessarily the best for everybody, though.
If you have deadeye marksmen like Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson on your team, it makes the most sense to chuck away from three. If you have someone like a James Harden, who can get ANY shot he wants and IS a decent three-point shooter, the volume of three-pointers can overwhelm a team. The Rockets are doing that by eschewing the midrange (more on this later).
And then there are the San Antonio Spurs.
A lot of people that cover basketball analytics seem to get easily angry by the Spurs. The Spurs are the kings of the midrange. After all, they have two of the most prolific midrange shooters in the game today in LaMarcus Aldridge and DeMar DeRozan. They’re not the greatest at shooting behind the arc but they will shoot those 18-footers like it’s going out of style. Wait. They ARE out of style.
And I’m sure this infuriates the analytics specialists: it works for San Antonio. They’re currently 10th in offensive rating (yes, it can be higher but they don’t struggle to score points). They are scoring 109 points per 100 possessions. In the last five seasons (including this two-week-old campaign), the Spurs have been in the top three in terms of shooting the most midrange shots. In that same time span, they were in the top ten in offensive rating (that is points per possession) four of the last five seasons. Again, they don’t have a hard time scoring. The reason why they’re not as scary as they used to be is because of their defense.
As mentioned, Aldridge shoots a lot of those midrange jumpers. But let’s not forget that Kawhi Leonard puts up those Js, too. He was in the top five in terms of shooting the most midrange jumpers per game last season. The top two? Aldridge and DeRozan (the man the Spurs acquired off the Kawhi trade). By the way, #3 and #4? Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson. I recall those Warriors doing very well.
So who are the top five so far this season? I thought you’d NEVER ask.
We see familiar names there! C.J. McCollum is another practitioner of the midrange. He got plenty of criticism for taking midrange jumpers last season, too. LeBron James had to sound off about it.
Oh, yeah. We talked about the teams that take the midrange. If you have Aldridge and DeRozan on your team… well…
We also talked about the Rockets barely touching the midrange zone. You probably don’t notice it, sometimes, but they really do put up very few shots from there:
So what is my point about this entire exercise?
I’m not saying that NBA teams should shoot the midrange jumpers all day. Yes, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant used to make a killing off the midrange. But they’re also… Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. And there was a time when putting up a three-pointer on the fastbreak was considered the worst shot there was in basketball. The times have changed.
And again, I DO agree with analytics that the midrange shot IS the worst shot. Like I said earlier, why not back up a couple of feet more so you can try to get the extra point?
Unfortunately, though, not everyone has that three-point range. Eight games have been played and noted midrangers DeRozan and Aldridge have not put up many shots from there (3 and 12 three-point attempts, respectively!). But they DO keep defenders honest by putting up shots from the midrange.
While analytics have become more prominent in basketball, you don’t really think of those things when you’re actually playing the game. Basketball is a lot about feel. The player sees what goes on in the court and they run what they think is the right play (whether individually or using the entire team) to get the best possible shot. A lot of players have the three-point range. A lot of players can only go to the midrange. And a lot of players can’t even shoot past 10 feet so they go for slashing or/and power moves inside the basket.
Some might be comfortable at shooting an elbow jumper from 18 feet even though the percentages don’t tell you it’s a good shot for them. But it’s all about context. It’s probably their go-to shot and in some cases, players have a bad game or even a bad season. Most players are smart enough to change it up when it’s not working. And, sometimes, they’ll work their way out of the slump. Again, basketball is about feel.
Players will do what’s comfortable and what’s best for them. It doesn’t matter about their range (of course, it helps; I’m not saying it doesn’t). As long as they can get a bucket (preferrably in an efficient manner), that should be all that matters.
I mean, don’t YOU do what’s comfortable for you?
Bullet Passes
The load management rage continues. Kawhi played the latter game of the back-to-back and came away with 27 points and 13 boards in a win against Portland. As I’ve said many times before, he’s probably only going to play 60-65 games per season the rest of his career. After all, he was an injury protocol last season with the Raptors and he’s now on a similar protocol with the Clippers.
Sometimes, you just hear noise from Michael Jordan about playing all 82 games. I just think that if players have an injury history or/and want to prolong their careers, rest won’t hurt them at all. It’s great that Kemba Walker played 82 last season. LeBron James also achieved that goal himself, which he did in the 2017-18 season.
But all the data and proof are right in front of us. Unfortunately, the fans that come out to watch the stars lose out on this because they never really know when these players are going to sit. This will continue to be debated for a long time.
We mentioned Kemba. Well, he returned to Charlotte for the first time since leaving the Hornets. He got a nice tribute from the team and the fans.
(VIDEO CREDIT: Bleacher Report.)
The Celtics would win, 108-87. Walker ended up with 14 points.
The Miami Heat are 6-2 and continue to surprise people with their fast start. People like to look at Kendrick Nunn‘s story (yeah, yeah, I know). Jimmy Butler will always make noise (like he did last night by scoring 30 of his 34 points in the first half). Tyler Herro gets a lot of recognition, too.
Let’s just not forget about Goran Dragic, though, who has resuscitated his career coming off the bench. Dragic is scoring 16.4 points per game and is shooting a career-best .457 from the arc. The 33-year-old guard is certainly an early candidate for Sixth Man of the Year.
Finally, let’s circle back to LaMarcus Aldridge. His Spurs won against the Thunder on Thursday night. Aldridge scored a game-high 39 points by going 19 for 23 in the game.
I am SURE you’re curious about his shot chart! Here it is:
Aldridge was 11 for 13 from the midrange and only had one three-point attempt. Once again, players will shoot what they feel they’re comfortable with. And you know how it is: sometimes, players will have bad shooting days no matter what their range is. And sometimes, players will do awesome. Like Aldridge did with the midrange game on Thursday night.
Watch This Play
Cody Martin (not from The Suite Life of Zack & Cody) from the Hornets (I talked a lot about the Hornets in this entry!) did a little number on the affectionately-named Time Lord, Robert Williams.
(VIDEO CREDIT: Silent Assassin.)
It was a good highlight in an otherwise bad game for Charlotte.
Rey-Rey is on Twitter at @TheNoLookPass.
TNLP on FaceBook.