technical basketball details etc

huh, his release point looks like it's close to his shoulders!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wu9ig4mbouo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMzIGECoaVQ

pretty funny that rick barry, one of the greatest shooters ever, shot free throws underhand

with some of those you have to feel for the teammates who had to dap them up at the line, like "um... good job?"
i've always be been a fan of nelly's weird one handed thing

iirc Rick Barry was and remains outspoken about the underhand free throw. I know I heard an interview once about how he got Wilt to do it for a game or part of a season or something and he was able to make a much higher percentage, but wilt wouldn’t stick with it bc it didn’t look cool.

It’s pretty amazing how many dudes in that video actually had dece percentages. More than one way to skin a cat!

i remember that barry/wilt anecdote too, from basketball gypsy

https://www.npr.org/2017/05/28/530504774/why-rick-and-canyon-barry-stay-true-to-the-granny-shot

In his autobiography Chamberlain said using the "granny" shot made him "look silly" and "like a sissy."

i didn't realize until recently that elena delle donne is a significantly better ft shooter than any nba player. her holding the ball out with her elbow at a 90 degree angle seems notable, but her shot looks pretty conventional.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEHbB-9JvUo

the smaller ball would help with shooting % imo

so silly they shd use the same ball

uh why

cause its the same sport

I could watch Pistol Pete Maravich demonstrate ballhandling drills to Red Auerbach all day ...

pic.twitter.com/BWWbqcVFbH

— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) March 11, 2021

"hip mobility" is the new scouting buzzword lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1Eid7669zY

marcus would be an amazing player development coach someday. he talks the game really well.

such obvious passion too

yeah i could see him really wanting to do a job like that

never been clear to me who the guys are who help the players do drills, are they on the development staff or what they tend to be young theyre not coaches theyre not ball boys

Andrew Wiggins struggling a bit at Warriors practice. 👀

(via @LetsGoWarriors, h/t @dubs4o8)pic.twitter.com/convmX6EFR

— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) October 1, 2021

https://www.nba.com/stats/events/?GameEventID=429&GameID=0022100172&Season=2021-22&flag=1&title=Clarkson%20REBOUND%20(Off:0%20Def:1)&sct=plot

never seen this play before. the pacers used it to break the jazz zone. it's like the elevator doors play but in reverse

this is cool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2T4bJh165g

Ralph Miller, the coach of the Oregon State Beaver hoops team from 1970-1989 favored a similar heavily pass-oriented offense. I think he cribbed it from Phog Allen. He hated to see his guards dribbling more than twice.

Fascinating video

that was great, thanking u

Ya watched that a couple weeks ago and been telling all my bball friends about it

NEW Breakdown: Ty Lue shows again why he is one of the best X's & O's coaches in the NBA - NASTY ATO counter! pic.twitter.com/U4MAFvOKCd

— Half Court Hoops (@HalfCourtHoops) December 7, 2021

love it

I made diagrams of 34 types of ballscreens, from Angle PnR to Wedge Roll

If you see a pick-and-roll but don't know its name so you can't look it up, try looking for it on this page and hopefully you'll find the right one

Lmk which ones I've left out!https://t.co/aBO1HPCn7T

— Bowser2Bowser (@bowser2bowser) January 21, 2022

that is excellent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyA_wTOzza4
Alex Caruso talks defense

i want to thank caruso for shaving his head

love that

hes really thinking about the shot clock good stuff

chasing down the origin of the shamgod https://theathletic.com/3139815/2022/02/24/the-unknown-history-of-the-shammgod-crossover-or-as-philly-calls-it-the-pooh-allen

guess nba assistant pooh allen did it on national tv when shamgod was still in high school lol

“If you know Pooh,” Rozier said, “you know he’s going around showing people that clip.”

finally track down the penn coach who taught it to pooh and

O’Hanlon said he doesn’t remember when he first did “The Reach Across.” He was always trying to come up with new moves and discovered this one on his own and never saw anyone do it before him. “I did come up with that,” he said. “I didn’t steal it from anyone.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN8vvtQ4ir8

whats going on with DSJs shot form? looks like hes fumbling it right before he releases it

Highlights from Dennis Smith Jr.’s private workout this week in Las Vegas in front of several NBA personnel. pic.twitter.com/MiidVmp0uo

— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) July 14, 2022

it looks like he's using some wrist action to generate backspin rather than like flicking it off the fingers as one does. definitely a little weird.

looks like hes catching then adjusting so his hand is way on top and to the side of the ball then compensating for that weird placement by thumbing very intensely, good luck man

yeah some sort of pre-shot rotation. takes him so long to set it up yikes.

Former Toronto Raptors center Lucas Nogueira released these team scouting reports on John Wall and Bradley Beal from round one of the 2018 NBA Playoffs.

Why? I don't know. But cool. pic.twitter.com/qGUWz2FbwA

— Quinton Mayo (@RealQuintonMayo) July 27, 2022

i wonder how common it is for teams to include stuff like ppp and ts% in communicating with players

The Bucks have tweaked their approach to pick-and-roll defense this season and the early results are extremely promising - they're taking away all of the juiciest options and forcing teams to settle for more tough shots. https://t.co/k7gm0R1zdi pic.twitter.com/0DNjv3GYnu

— Todd Whitehead (@CrumpledJumper) November 11, 2022

i like those visualizations!

found these defensive mistakes videos which look at more minute details than most breakdowns positioning routes on screens etc and the guy is just bitching the whole time hes really disappointed in the players lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpDYP4Xzkjw

Love that. Luka not shaking the harden comparisons lol. That Javale signing looks crazier by the day. Do they have even a single plus defender on the roster outside of dorian?

hes like harden who shows up in the playoffs

Harden made the conf finals a couple times

he made finals once even but his playoff numbers are bad where luka has killed it, which makes sense to me hardens game has always been a little gimmicky but luka is a flat out baller

omg that defensive mistakes video had me in tears.

he just stands around when he doesnt have the ball and that includes defense its really bad its harmful not sure what else to say about that hes giving back a bunch there

xp didnt say the suns were mediocre tho they did have some issues what i said was the mavs barley squeaked through (seven game series) then got wrecked (five games series)

sorry but beating the 1 seed on the road in game 7 by 40 points does not count to me as squeaking through but whatever

i watched that celtics game too and maybe your analysis of it is correct, it's subjective. luka was out of his mind incredible in the first half and did not match that in the second half. but my take away from that game was that the mavs are built on the concept of having two high level star players and if kyrie is going to go 9-23 and 1-7 from three vs a team as good as boston then the mavs are not going to be competitive

you're presenting a theoretical scenario where luka tries less hard and passes more in the first half of that game, gets his teammates involved more and is able to have more stamina to dominate in the fourth quarter. i would submit that if luka wasn't playing like the best basketball player of all time in the first half the mavs would've been down by 20+ and nothing that happened in the second half would've even mattered. so i guess it's a matter of perspective

but again people have been talking about luka figuring out a better balance between domination and stamina since he was putting up first half triple doubles vs the clippers in the 21 playoffs and i don't think he has taken a serious critical approach to that aspect of his game so all of that stuff i agree w/

that celtics game they were targeting him on defense was part of the reason he was so tired the other part is he plays a very tiring style, good teams are going to do the same until theres a solution for it, he could get in better shape we dont have any idea how much hes capable of increasing his stamina, its seems like probably some but also he likely doesnt have naturally high stamina, his style of expending a ton of energy with the ball then resting the rest of the time just makes him vulnerable to scheming

you really want your perennial mvp candidates to elicit the reaction from opponents wtf are we supposed to do with that, like whatre you gonna do vs joker whats the plan here you got nothing, giannis youre like wall him off hope the bucks dont hit threes its not great but its what you have, embiid the obvious plan is to have al horford haha jk he has stamina issues too, but luka the plan is pretty clear youre gonna go after him on d which tbf is just good for scoring points and it will tire him out and then you hope he fades in the second half it has a decent chance of working

maybe in the regular season where he's not playing as hard sure, that is real. in that suns series they were putting luka in every single pick and roll every single time they could and some games it was fruitful and in other games it was a disaster. he is big so you can only take so much advantage of him on defense, i don't think ppl feel like we're dealing w/ a trae or early steph curry level point of attack defender where just purely from a size perspective there is very little that person can do, tho steph is also a great example of how guys can continue to get stronger and better at defense over the years to the point where the defense is no longer dragging down the offense. you can also more easily scheme away from having the same guy getting picked on every time in the playoffs than you can or do in the regular season. so yeah idk

luka is legitimately an extremely bad defender hes not close to where he should be

i agree that he is not close to where he should be but the individual numbers on his defense do not suggest that he is extremely bad specifically and the mavs have played great defense for long stretches w/ him on the floor

if you took shai off OKC and put luka in his place and told j dub and chet that they had to stand around for 5 extra possessions a game as they watched luka cook i think OKC would prob be a worse regular season team but i don't think their playoff ceiling would be lower and it quite possibly could be higher. and if shai was on dallas i don't think anyone would be saying that they have a significantly better shot of winning a playoff series. so how much of it is the warts of the player vs the warts of the roster

the mavs have played great defense for long stretches w/ him on the floor

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Thursday, April 4, 2024 2:11 PM (twenty-eight seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

mavs playing good team defense in the regular season in stretches against just ok teams is one thing, throwing luka and kyrie out there against a quality prepared playoff opponent is a completely different proposition, the mavs could just try to effort and swarm their was through it switch a bunch fly around and so forth it could even work thats what they did in that suns series, but what they cant do is just play solid and make minor adjustments, a fwiw they are for the season a not good defensive team

luka on okc is an interesting thought experiment would we even know that jdub is a good player, prob not, maybe close watchers of the team would figure it out, tho would okc let luka play the way he likes to idk hard to say

but yeah putting luka on a better team would be good for him he should look into that, not the nugs tho that would just be unfair

it would be interesting to see if joker could get him to play better ball tho

they’re bffs it is fated I’m afraid

Luka really hit Coach Shammgod with his own move 😅🔥

(via @NBATV) pic.twitter.com/4yLXfKUlB6

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) June 6, 2024

no dip finals

No idea how Sam Hauser did this pic.twitter.com/utQW58rlYu

— Savage (@SavageSports_) June 7, 2024

no dip zone

does “dip” refer to the ball or knees?

the ball

this finals was a great series for my revolutionary theory of the step back three is a bad shot unless youre steph or something maybe but even then why not take an easier shot

classic case of "just bc you can doesnt mean you should" *stares at luka's 32% 3pct*

tatum shot awful all playoffs but managed to not kill the celtics because instead of doing his favorite thing, taking step back threes, he drove the ball

i mean he still took some step backs but not that many, progress!

he led the finals in assists despite the famous passer luka also playing in the series

on one of the pods someone made the point that luka always going left w/ his step back is the kinda thing you can routinely get off in the regular season but once you get 4 rounds deep, that level of granular scouting that every player is put thru, it’s not sustainable to just have a move where you only do one thing. we know this, but watching horford guard luka was a really good example. we know everyone was making a big deal out of luka hitting a step back off his right foot vs gobert … this is prob the sorta thing — whoops this move you use all the time w/o thinking just got exposed in the finals — that should be happening to luka

i actually think there is a good argument for having the step back in one’s playoff bag bcuz sometimes you do need to be able to create a decent shot when you have nothing going on offense. in the recent playoff games where james harden has been really great the stepback features prominently. i think there are some similarities in footwork for luka too in terms of how he gets some midrange jumpers off when teams start to overplay his 3 shooting and driving

iirc luka is also statistically just a lot better at that shot than everyone else. i think the thing that really bothers ppl about the tatum stuff is that the shots rarely go in

heres some numbers from a few years ago not sure where to find the current ones, someone was much better at stepbacks but it wasnt luka lol

Step-Back 3P% (Min. 100 3PA)
1. Steph Curry ......... 47.2%
2. Zach LaVine ........ 36.9
3. Jamal Murray .......36.9
4. James Harden ..... 36.8
5. Dame Lillard .........36.0
6. Luka Doncic ......... 35.7
7. Jayson Tatum ....... 34.6
8. Jordan Clarkson ... 33.3 pic.twitter.com/nsmV9Xw33C

— Kirk Goldsberry (@kirkgoldsberry) May 26, 2021

luka did have his best 3pt shooting year this year 38% compared to 34 for his career but he was prob at least partially just hot, and indeed he was at 32% for the offs

those are some ok percentages but aside from steph theyre not great and more importantly its just the kind of shot that can turn to dust against a good prepared defense an already very difficult shot becomes impossible with a defender in yr face, if you want to take it at the end of the shot clock fine yr already kinda fucked whatever, could also step in and take a long two going towards the basket tho

relatedly in saw a clip of luka taking a catch and shoot three in the finals and it was so bad he just kinda flung it there was no intentional foot work going into the catch he looked confused, his game isnt normal

they also showed him pregame practicing movement catch and shoots where he caught and turned on the move he was miced up telling someone "this is me next year" buddy try the easy ones first why not

start with just moving off ball see what happens

nba tracking data has luka as going 169-421 on step back threes this year which is 40.1%. i don’t see a leaderboard for this stat but obv a big improvement from 2021 and a rate that would’ve been way ahead of everyone in the league aside from steph

in the playoffs this year luka was 38-118 on step back threes which is 32%

in the finals he was 6-28 which is 21%

i don’t think the exact link is working on my phone but if you go to his NBA player page and select “splits” and “shooting” and scroll all the way to “shot type detail” you’ll see it

https://www.nba.com/player/1629029/luka-doncic/

a lot of his game plays off the step back, guys jumping up on him and then he uses that to get in front of the guy and pin him on his back and then he’s going to the rim exactly how he wants etc. you see this happen all the time when he plays. it’s a fine line to where the threat stops being worth it bcuz the shots keep missing but at 40% in the regular season he was far above the red line so to speak. 32% is a diff convo, 21% is not one at all

ah very nice thats a lot of data https://www.nba.com/stats/player/1629029/shooting

it declined from 39% to 34 in the mavs playoff run two years ago which is not that bad but idk i just feel like cant you find a better shot its not only difficult its also static iso offense, i think one reason he does it is compared to how he gets his other buckets its not that tiring