Post by eric on Feb 5, 2018 16:07:54 GMT -6
Actually, no. They don't. Let's look at the Rockets and the Warriors of the past four seasons to illustrate this.
The Rockets are not a great three point shooting team. This year they're at 36.3%, good for 11th in the league, which is a slight improvement over previous years: 15th, 19th, 14th. What they are historically great at is the number of threes they take. They are on pace to break their own record with 43 per game this year after 40 last year. The only year in the past four they weren't #1 by at least five per game was 2016 when they were second and a scant 0.7 per game off the leader.
The Warriors, meanwhile are a great three point shooting team, leading the league for the third time in four years with a team 39% average, but their volume is far from prodigal: tenth this year with 30 a game, fifth last year with 31, first with 32 in 2016, fourth with 27 in 2015. Certainly high, but consider that the gap between Houston's aggregate 147 per game and their third place (yeah that's right I said third place) 120 is the same as the gap between them and 23rd(!!) place Washington. Randy Wittman, you the real MVP.
We can find even more differences in the type of threes they take. The Warriors have the better percentage so they obviously take more from the corners, except they are in fact dead last in the NBA this year in percentage of their threes that come from that area with 16%. This is only a slight exaggeration of the trend they established in previous years: 20th, 21st, 23rd. The Rockets meanwhile have declined dramatically in this stat: 17th, 22nd, 4th, 1st. They have gotten better percentages by taking less from the corners.
.
A quick tangent on corner threes. There used to be a lot of chatter about how to solve it, how it was taking over the game, yadda yadda yadda, but it turns out the percentage of threes taken from the corners peaked way back in 2009(!!!) at 27%, was roughly stable until 2013, and has been in decline ever since, with the two lowest years on record (2001-present) being last year's 23% and this year's 21%.
.
We also know Steph Curry takes every shot off the dribble, so it's no surprise the Rockets are by far the lowest in the league in assist rate on threes, and are shooting to be #30 for the second year running. The team Steph Curry actually plays for (the Warriors) are also on the less assisted side with ranks of 23, 18, 27, and 21, but the true home of the iso bomb is clearly in Houston.
.
.
Plenty of people have clutched their pearls about the evolution of the NBA vis a vis the three pointer. The actual reality has been a lot more interesting than anyone expected.
-The Warriors make it work with an abundance of shooting talent, so they can take any old three point shots and still lead in %.
-The Rockets similarly eschew the focus on getting the best three point looks and go instead for the most three point looks.
-Then there's a team like the Heat which post-LeBron have emphasized the corner and assisted three to a comical degree, never finishing below 4th in either category in the past four years and even leading the league in both in 2016.
If you can build more than a better way to skin an apple with a mousetrap, they ("society") will come.
You have to take threes now, just like you have to have guys over 6'5" and under 35% skin albedo now, 1947 Champion Philadelphia Warriors be d@rned. (And judging by their logo, they probably have been.) But what kind of threes is still very much up for debate, and we've only barely scratched the surface of how each team gets them. Two of these squads have three players with the ball in their hands between 26-35% of the time and generate assists 20-30% of the time, and then there are the Rockets where Harden and Paul co-monopolize the ball at ~55% but generate a lot more assists while doing so at ~45%.
It's not the same.
It's not the same.
The Rockets are not a great three point shooting team. This year they're at 36.3%, good for 11th in the league, which is a slight improvement over previous years: 15th, 19th, 14th. What they are historically great at is the number of threes they take. They are on pace to break their own record with 43 per game this year after 40 last year. The only year in the past four they weren't #1 by at least five per game was 2016 when they were second and a scant 0.7 per game off the leader.
The Warriors, meanwhile are a great three point shooting team, leading the league for the third time in four years with a team 39% average, but their volume is far from prodigal: tenth this year with 30 a game, fifth last year with 31, first with 32 in 2016, fourth with 27 in 2015. Certainly high, but consider that the gap between Houston's aggregate 147 per game and their third place (yeah that's right I said third place) 120 is the same as the gap between them and 23rd(!!) place Washington. Randy Wittman, you the real MVP.
We can find even more differences in the type of threes they take. The Warriors have the better percentage so they obviously take more from the corners, except they are in fact dead last in the NBA this year in percentage of their threes that come from that area with 16%. This is only a slight exaggeration of the trend they established in previous years: 20th, 21st, 23rd. The Rockets meanwhile have declined dramatically in this stat: 17th, 22nd, 4th, 1st. They have gotten better percentages by taking less from the corners.
.
A quick tangent on corner threes. There used to be a lot of chatter about how to solve it, how it was taking over the game, yadda yadda yadda, but it turns out the percentage of threes taken from the corners peaked way back in 2009(!!!) at 27%, was roughly stable until 2013, and has been in decline ever since, with the two lowest years on record (2001-present) being last year's 23% and this year's 21%.
.
We also know Steph Curry takes every shot off the dribble, so it's no surprise the Rockets are by far the lowest in the league in assist rate on threes, and are shooting to be #30 for the second year running. The team Steph Curry actually plays for (the Warriors) are also on the less assisted side with ranks of 23, 18, 27, and 21, but the true home of the iso bomb is clearly in Houston.
.
.
Plenty of people have clutched their pearls about the evolution of the NBA vis a vis the three pointer. The actual reality has been a lot more interesting than anyone expected.
-The Warriors make it work with an abundance of shooting talent, so they can take any old three point shots and still lead in %.
-The Rockets similarly eschew the focus on getting the best three point looks and go instead for the most three point looks.
-Then there's a team like the Heat which post-LeBron have emphasized the corner and assisted three to a comical degree, never finishing below 4th in either category in the past four years and even leading the league in both in 2016.
If you can build more than a better way to skin an apple with a mousetrap, they ("society") will come.
You have to take threes now, just like you have to have guys over 6'5" and under 35% skin albedo now, 1947 Champion Philadelphia Warriors be d@rned. (And judging by their logo, they probably have been.) But what kind of threes is still very much up for debate, and we've only barely scratched the surface of how each team gets them. Two of these squads have three players with the ball in their hands between 26-35% of the time and generate assists 20-30% of the time, and then there are the Rockets where Harden and Paul co-monopolize the ball at ~55% but generate a lot more assists while doing so at ~45%.
It's not the same.
It's not the same.
