Lots of reasons for the loss, turnovers, free throw shooting, Cece's calf cramp, uncontested layup misses, but interesting that Kron won the game late with midrange jump shots. Cats don't take midrange jumpers.
That's an interesting point. I hadn't thought of that, but you are right. We do layups, close range shots and threes and not often anything in between.
Analytically, mid-range jumpers are the worst shot to take. The percentage made is not much higher than 3-pointers, which are worth 1.5 times more, and the percentage made is significantly less than shots near the basket, where you also have a much higher probability of drawing fouls, which has added value.
I understand the analytics, and predicted a response like this one when I wrote my message. But I have to wonder about overall skill development for players who only look for layups and threes, and from a pure viewing standpoint the game is less beautiful IMHO. I also wonder if good coaches find they can defend teams more easily who don't look to shoot from the midrange holes in zones. I must admit I'm not big on analytics taking precedence over more traditional thinking. I'm also sitting in an arm chair in my living room and have a great deal of respect for Bolden.
I agree with you. If the conclusion is that players should not take a 10 foot jumper, I suspect there's something missing in the analysis. I need to study this more closely, I'm just hypothesizing.
When a player has an open 8 or 10 foot shot, won't take it, and instead puts his/her head down and bulls their way to the basket against contact....I have to at least question that.
I started reading Bill James when I was a kid in the early to late eighties when nobody had ever heard of him. My Dad and I were both more nerds than jocks but this is the thing that made me more of a sports fan than my father who is pretty casual. I didn't want to be the next Johnny Bench. My sports fantasy was to be the first Billy Beane. I watched this from the beginning. Sports didn't adopt analytics because it felt right to them. There was resistance from the establishment. It only became widespread when traditional views on the game started losing. An analysis can never take in all pieces on information but a lot of it is pretty definitive. Keep in mind that part of the positive outcome is drawing a foul which is not just high percentage foul shots but a foul on the opposing player. Having said that, I don't know enough about basketball analytics to say for sure, but I doubt that in every instance passing up an open shot to plow into someone is the right move. I'd say that taking an open 10 foot jumper early in the shot clock is almost never the right move.
Now, while analytics are part of the reason that I got interested in sport and I think when people argue against the result the argument is usually emotional and malformed, I think they have made sports more boring. In baseball ballparks have gotten smaller which has compounded the result that analytics were going to find in the first place which is that players should work the strike zone to get a pitch that they can drive much more than they did 40 years ago. This ended up in a game where so many at bats end in strikeouts, walks, and homeruns. Most of the action came from putting balls in play and aggressive baserunning and that was found to be a losing strategy.
In basketball, the charge circle and the three point line probably changed what analytics have found which is most possessions should end in a layup/dunk even if contested, three point attempt, or foul. It made the game a lot more boring. But to me a lot of this was taking a game with more simple elegant rules and making it more complicated than it needed to be. Football, which already has a lot of complicated rules, would have its strategy change a lot if 50 yard field goals were worth five points and scoring a TD from your own territory was worth 10 points and defensive linemen were no longer allowed to use there hands engaging Offensive linemen when snapped inside the two yard line. That's pretty much what happened to basketball.
Last Edited: 3/7/2021 2:51:07 PM by Victory