I agree Michael Mac!Originally Posted by MichaelMcNamara
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I agree Michael Mac!
How many times have we seen Reke hit a three and follow up the next possession with a heat check that he misses badly? I saw it a few times in the last few games. He wants to be able to shoot and I'm sure he's put a ton of work into it. Although I would love it if he could shoot I agree that if he could shoot well we'd see him taking more than we'd want. He will never be the second best shooter in the world. He is (in my opinion) the second best player at getting to the rim in the league. I'd rather he get better at finishing if I could only choose one. Although I agree that the game often slows down in the playoffs and opposing teams would play off of him I think if you have Ryan, Davis, Sefelosha (please), and Holiday around him then he will still have plenty of spacing to beat his man or make a play. If anything you'd want him to focus more on his playmaking and passing.
Also, he won't be our primary focus on offense. He should be the third option. If our opponent has to gameplan to take away our third option then we're sitting pretty.
.......if healthy
@Jabberwalker
I think you misunderstand. I'm not saying I want Tyreke to shoot better jumpers to help him drive better in the lane. I'm saying I want him to improve his jumper because no matter what he's going to take some. He's a career 60% finisher at the rim and the last two years he was 65% and 64%. If you are saying ALL TIME GREATS are 70-72% exactly how much more room does Tyreke have? Is it realistic to believe Tyreke can make a jump to all time great at 70%? I tend to believe it's not realistic to expect him to improve that much more than his peak no matter how hard he works there. Is he the best ever at finishing at the rim? I doubt it.
I also believe that no matter what he does this summer he will be a better finisher at the rim next year because a healthy team will make it easier on him. Because of that the jumper makes the most sense to work on. Or if you want to say a post game, sure. That'd be fine too. I just don't agree with him focusing his #1 priority on finishing at the rim. He has that. This was a down year with a new team and playing a new role. Did he really lose 15-20% of his ability or were there other factors? I believe that is more the reason then him needing to work on improving.
I'm curious too. You said he should work on explosiveness by trimming down? How much does that effect his ability to finish through contact? You try and point out that if he improved his jumper he would be a worse player because it would decrease his effectiveness. But what if focusing on finishing is what makes him a worse player because he tries to drive to the basket no matter what? He passes up open shots because he feels he can get to the basket and it lowers his FG%? There's data to back this up so I see it as a more realistic possibility.
Basically what I want is him and Austin all summer trying to take each other off the dribble. Getting to the rim but mainly jump shots. For Tryeke through post ups. I think that is the most productive because it increases their defense and makes them then practice jumpers over and over.
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I think it would yield more points if Tyreke just passed the ball to one of our higher percentage shooters when he knows he can't finish in the paint, than if he tried to add 8% to his jumper. It would also lead to a dimished paint presence, because basically everyone else on our team can shoot, let Reke drive to the rim, and teach him to bump it out to Jrue/Anderson/Davis when the paint is covered in dudes. He's at his best when playing PG, his terrific rookie season, he played point guard. He can just be coached to pay more attention, and it would lead to an unstoppable force.
I never said trimming down, that was someone else.
And I agree, I think he is gonna take the jumpers anyway, so I would prefer if he was better, but like I said in the article, if he improved by 5% (which is a pretty nice leap), that would have barely effected his point total.
And even if I granted the finishing at the rim point, I would never agree to the jumpers over low post argument. Tyreke with a good low post game would just change our offense and would terrorize opposing coaches. An average jumper and teams just play him the same and he occassionally hits a shot he missed this year. Like, imagine you are Monty. I tell you - Hey Tyreke is a slightly better shooter this year. Thats scenario A. How much does that improve your playbook?
Now, I tell you - Hey Tyreke got better in the post and is good down there now. Imagine the possibilities!
@mcnamara247
Sure but you can't ask a guy to never take a jumper. He's going to no matter what. I'm also not advocating running the offense completely through him taking a jumper or driving to the basket.
You dont hear me talk about rebounds or assists because he's already pretty darn good there. He had his highest assist % ever this year.
To be honest we haven't seen the core 4 together enough to see what will work best but even just getting back to his last year's % for 3pters would do wonders for this team.
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Sure. If your argument is he should focus on the post that's fine. I haven't looked at Synergy to see his numbers or anything but a post game would be great. It'd basically force other teams to double him because I can't think of an opposing PG or SG who could defend him 1 on 1 in the post.
My only point has been focusing on something I see him as an A- at to get it up to an A (I think A+ is doubtful) is worse than focusing on something that is a D- and making it a C+/B-. I choose the more rounded game every time. Jumper/Post doesn't matter to me. I'd just rather he add something new to his game.
If someone asked me if I wanted AD to focus on finishing at the rim or jumper/post up more I'd say the same thing. AD could grow better at finishing at the rim too. But his game would be better overall if he focused on adding another skill. Why is it ok for people to want AD to add something new but not Tyreke? I'd be willing to bet if we crunched the same numbers it'd be better if AD focused on finishing at the rim too from a basic statistical standpoint. But in reality it's different.
I put all the post up numbers in the article. All you gotta do is look there; dont need Synergy.
I might have been too kind when I said D-
Yeah, I watched all the post up situations and the big problem was that he didn't survey the court before he made his move, so quite often he would get past his guy or back him down, but then another guy would come and he would get flustered. Turnover. Also, no finesse move to speak of. Just back down, back down, back down. Occassional spin, but that is it.
Imagine him with Andre Miller's game on the low block. You couldn't single him and if you doubled him, all the other guys would eat. Offense would be unstoppable IMO.
I agree about Tyreke. To be fair if AD added a post game like Hakeem the same thing would be said. Man, AD with the dream shake. . . .Honestly, on offense just being healthy we will be pretty darn unstoppable already.
I can't wait to start next season.
If we trade Rivers and Jackson, Professor Miller wouldn't be a bad vet minimum guy on this roster.
http://www.thebirdwrites.com/2014/4/...n-how-to-shoot
response to MM's article
never assume
Yeah, wasnt terrible but was too simplified. Not being catty or anything, but some of you guys made better arguments IMO.
I mean, the idea that teams will ever go over picks to defend Tyreke is a little crazy to me. He would have to go from a D+ shooter to a B shooter or better for that to happen. Great in theory, but not very realistic.
I agree, it would take more than one offseason to get a good enough shot for players to start going over picks on Tyreke.
MM's wrong about Tyreke needing to focus first on finishing at the rim. But this article does not fully explain why. He touches on some things like why it's silly to say Evans will fall in love with his jumper and using Rondo as an example. But trying to argue that Tyreke will improve his jumper so much that it will change how teams guard him is the wrong argument.
Tyreke should improve his jumper because that's the area that has the most room for improvement and when you factor in the expected improvement that focusing on finishing at the rim would yield as opposed to focusing on a jump shot, the gains won't be nearly as beneficial for him if he focuses on finishing at the rim. Combine this with the fact that Tyreke gets less efficient at the rim the more he takes shots there and the argument for him to focus on a jump shot (or post up for that matter) is even stronger.
Saying this is like saying you'd rather see Austin Rivers become an awesome 6th man, rather than AD become the best NBA player in the league. Just because there is more room for improvement, and you'd get more net improvement, when you have the chance to make something elite, you do it.
Then why is AD working on his jumper instead of focusing on finishing at the rim better?
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...that analogy does not work at all, you can't say austin is a lot worse than AD so he has a lot more room for improvement and therefore it would benefit the team more for him to improve more than AD, that just doesn't work, you aren't looking at it the right way. Look at it this way, Ryno mainly takes 3's, he's really good at threes, should he focus this offseason on A:working even more on 3's to get even better at 3's or B: work on either adding something new to his game or improving on the weaknesses in his game. I think MM was saying that this logic is too simple sometimes but I don't see it that way, to get better you work at what you are bad at so that you aren't a liability to your team in anyway. If all tyreke worked on was explosiveness and getting to the rim and finishing at the rim, what happens when that gets taken away by a good defensive team, or injury, or age, or anything? being one dimensional is not good. Look at this past finals, the spurs just let lebron shoot, thats all, thats how they defended him, just give him the outside shot, and it almost worked, except lebron started making open outside shots. Sometimes you have to take what the defense gives you and if tyreke can't get to the rim he needs to have something to fall back on(jumper or post game) that can help the team
I like MM article because it showed a different perspective on things. But at the end if the day, I have to go with improve jump shot. I am not expecting Reke to improve drastically his outside shot from year to another. But what he needs is to become a threat from 10ft - 15ft. I don't know what % he needs to be to become this "threat" but...just enough to make defenders think for a millisecond would be enough.
Because AD is young enough, that his jumper can (and has) improved considerably. How much improvement do you think Tyreke would make on his jumper if he tried real hard? He isn't covered on them now and makes hardly any. If he improves his open jumper by 8%, he won't even be guarded really. He'd have to improve it a lot to be guarded out there, which is the only reason it would help his overall game (because he'd have space to get around his man). MM is right about him needing to work on his low post game, he also needs to work on vision. A guard that can drive in to the basket and realize he isn't going to make the shot and kicks it out to a Ryno or even AD, is tremendous. Tyreke doesn't really do that. And that is something that can be coached by Monty and perfected. Teaching a jumper is much more just repetition. I want Tyreke to spend his precious minutes with Monty becoming more cerebral, and thats how he would improve finishing at the rim. It's not going to be practice as much as its learning how to break down tape of defenders weak points, and attention to details that he doesn't have yet. It will benefit him way more than a marginal increase in his jump shot.
But AD takes more shots at the rim so it would be better if he increased finishing at the rim. He will never be as efficient at a jumper. Why increase a skill that will be average at best when he has a chance to be elite at something? Plus he will start falling in love with his jumper and take it more instead of going to the rim.
Also. You're trying to merge my argument with others as to why Reke should focus on finishing. I have never said that he should do it because he will be guarded differently. He should focus on a jumper (or low post for that matter. I don't care which as much) because those have the highest gains. He is already above 60% for finishing at the rim for his career and the previous 2 seasons was right at 65%.
As far as being more cerebral. He had to read his name off of a card for a commercial. I love Reke. He's one of my favorite players. But I don't think he will improve in the cerebral area much no matter the coaching. He's an instinct guy and that's fine. The thing he can improve though is repetition like you stated. It's also not mutually exclusive. He can't spend all his time watching game tape and he can't spend all his time on the court shooting jumpers or posting up.
I think the problem with MM article is that he automatically assume that if Evans improves his jumper it means he'll take more.
Westbrook is an example of a person who substantially increase his value in the league by adding a consistent jump shot and there are others. So sure Evans becoming a better shooter can have a down side however that's more about Evans IQ and coaching than anything else.
Last edited by da ThRONe; 04-20-2014 at 02:59 PM.
For Evans to be an elite player, he has to improve defensively and become a better shooter. Like Da Throne said: If he takes bad shots simply because he improved his JS, that speaks poorly of his shot selection. You not only have to be skilled; you must also have sound descision making. It's not out of the realm of possibility for Tyreke to improve in these areas; I do agree he also needs to improve his finishing at the rim. He needs to at least add a 3 pt shot to his game.
But Westbrook does take more now, no?
And if people actually read my article, it does say I want him to improve the jumper. Just that there are two other things that would help more.
Again, if he does improve it, he will take it more. I can't believe that is debatable. That is human nature. And that is what is called an unintended consequence.
But it will help too. Just not as much as a post game and an elite ability at the rim. If anybody can point out in the article where it says that I don't want him to improve his jumper, I would love to see it.
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