Jump shooting rarely wins championships

If you watched those runs, were built almost entirely on a single premise. Dump it in to Hakeem. Watch him work. If the defense collapses, everyone else, bomb threes.

It was extremely effective.

So, while you don’t want a team full of jump shooters, you need jump shooters in order to make your paint play effective, and vice versa. So, dumping a pair of guys because they’re primarily jump shooters isn’t necessarily the soundest plan (although one could make other arguments to include with that).

over on this thread—it wasn’t said quite as succinctly, but here’s a good summary.

Teams that have efficient offenses, tend to get good shots. Shots at the rim, post-ups, or outside shots that are wide open, and with the defense scrambling to cover.

Teams that don’t, tend to have to force shots—and the shots that the defense will concede are contested jumpers.

Shooting excessive jumpers, then, is (I believe) a symptom of a poorly-functioning offense, not a cause of it. A jumper taken by a player who is wide open and in his range is not a bad shot.

When Barkley says “jumpshooting teams don’t win” he’s right—but he’s switching cause and effect. Teams that can be forced into taking perimeter jumpers with the clock running out and a hand in the shooter’s face are gonna lose—because they’re being stopped. FTMP, they aren’t losing because they are eschewing better shots for outside shots—they are being forced to take what the defense is giving them. The good shots inside aren’t there.

Of course, it isn’t entirely cut and dried—the problem with offenses that do rely excessively on jumpshots (even if the wide open variety) is that a cold streak can shut them down. Dunks and layups are less dependent on energy levels and other such things than are jumpers—many jumpshooters will “go cold” if something interferes with their mechanics. This affected the Blazers somewhat—too many members of the team don’t have effective post or penetration games. Slow down Roy and LMA while staying home on the shooters, and the team can be beaten.

Larry Bird was the exception? So the Bird-Parish-McHale era Celtics were a jump-shooting team. The quite possibly best front court in NBA history? Someone has to explain that one for me. Not that it detracts from your point, at all. Maybe we should get a Bird-type small forward. Sorry, I kid. This post got me looking at the Legend’s highlights again. (In my defense, I grew up on the east coast without a local team.)

When did I enter Bizzaro world?