Dray should be the world's foremost expert on the state of his own mind, but I guess he isn't, because as a matter of fact, he shoots close 2s and 3s almost to the exclusion of all other shots. He basically never shoots long 2s, so LOL at him saying that he isn't aware of where the line is.

Draymond is a moron. That shouldn't surprise anyone. He's hardly representative of all black people. Lol Wilbon.

Fwiw OKC is +675 to win it all (5Dimes) and +285 true line to win tonight.

This tells us that OKC/Cle will be right around even money. Although once Cle actually does beat GS then I think they may get a bump from that.

I think it should be closer to +350, I don't think OKC has a shot.

settled up with everyone except DarO. Get at me bro.

Apparently NBA Facebook page had Cavs v Warriors matchup listed on future schedule. Scott Foster getting skipped over in the ref rotation too.

It's only the last win that counts.

I don't think I've ever been more stoked for a NBA game than game 6. This one feels like a letdown comparatively, weird.

Guess I'm expecting a GS win while not rooting for the underdog is what it is. I was hoping GS would pull out game 6 and this time I see it as a foregone conclusion.

I could see OKC doing basically the same that GS did last game to them though. Stick around and go on a little run at the end where GS doesn't have time to respond.

This is good. Like 30% of the Warriors chances to lose involved Scott Foster going full Donaghy.

what a joke that this is a 9pm game...nobody is working they could have had it at 8 or even 7pm easily

gonna be over by 10 anyway.

6pm is early as it is for weekday WC home game

What do you mean that's not what he did? It's exactly what he did.

Thought Process

1.We inevitably are going to shoot 3s in a game
2. The corner 3 is the shortest 3 so if we are going to be taking 3s that's where we should take the bulk of our 3s.
3. I'll implement an offense that gives us good looks at corner 3s.

I never said that he casually suggested it. I just stated the premise behind what the action on the court was. If we are going to be shooting 3s we should be shooting the closest one which is is the corner one. For all intents in purposes that was his thought process and he developed offense to get good corner 3 looks. I didn't really think I had to state that he developed an offense to do that. Obviously that's what he did.

Again, Pop implementing an offense to get good corner 3 looks and Klay and Steph shooting the volume and range of 3s that they are shooting are two different things.

Also the fact that the game has gone more perimeter and that there are more 3s shot does have something to do with a lack of quality bigs in the game. Not in every single individual team case but from a big picture point the league has been gradually losing quality offensive bigs close to the basket. You really think that the fact G State has no real post offensive has zero to do with the fact that they shoot so many threes? Do you think they'd be shooting this many threes with a prime Shaq? Of course it helps to have two guys that can shoot them very well but again it comes back to opportunity.

Why is it funny? Klay did it.

2011-12 268 Attempts 4.1 per game .414 (Klay's first season shooting 4 per game)
2015-16 650 Attempts 8.1 per game .425

Klay shows the ability to shoot well from deep and is given more and more opportunities to the point where 4 years later he is doubling the amount of the threes he is shooting and shooting them slightly better.

In 88-89 Ellis had 339 Attempts at 4.1 per game .478 (Dale's first season shooting 4 per game)

In 89-90 Ellis had 256 attempts at 4.7 per game .375 (he battled a foot injury and only played 55 games this season)

In his 4 years with Seattle he shot 3.65 threes per game at .404

For the 137 game two season stretch that he shot over 4 per game he connected at a rate of .433 on 595 threes

So Ellis showed more promise from shooting 3s at 4 or more per game in a sample size double that of Klay's

Klay's talent was allowed to flourish and was encouraged. Dale's wasn't.

There's no reason to think that a healthy prime Dale couldn't have kept his efficiency at the same level at double the attempts if he was given the opportunity.

This is how anti 3 coaches were back then.
KC Jones happily let a guy go that was averaging about 25 ppg quite efficiently with a .540ish eFG, and with a 3 point shooting peak of .433 over a 137 game sample at over 4 per game in his 4 seasons with Seattle. He let a better Klay Thompson walk out the door because "He's more attuned to firing it up from the outside" and damn it, we can't have that! Yeah it sounds ridiculous in hindsight the way the game is played now but no one was arguing against this and it's not like Ellis got to Milwaukee and was allowed to launch 8 a game. He shot 397 in 102 games with Milwaukee before he was off to San Antonio.

We are always talking about who from the past could be dropped into the present day game and have some success and when I see Klay Thompson I always thought of him as the second coming of Dale Ellis and the numbers bear that out. It would've been fun to see Dale get the opportunities that Klay has gotten during his prime years to max out his shooting ability.

that's why Klay is special, that's why a team with him as a #2/#3 won 73 games. It's not something that you should expect out of every other guy that ever hit .400 at 4 3PA per game.

Btw, did you really think it was a coincidence that Klay did it and those were the exact numbers I used as an example?

Not speaking to Ellis specifically but the basic premise that tons of guys from the past would be better in today's game is fine. A lot of the top 3pt shooters or elite PnR guards probably would. There would also be a lot of guys that wouldn't be able to play today or would be significantly worse.

Not exactly earth shattering stuff tho...

Haha, how many guys do you think shot over 4 a game at .400 or better in the 80s-90s? My guess is 5 or less. It can't be that many so we are dealing with a special group of shooters to begin with and you can put Ellis in that group. Yeah he is special but he was given the opportunity to be special. Imagine if he was shipped after his rookie season because the coach thought he shot too many threes? It only took GSW 1 season to see what they had in Klay and turn him loose. Seattle had Ellis who was a better version of Klay Thompson over 4 seasons compared to just the one rookie year klay had and they let him go. Maybe he would've been able to keep up the efficiency maybe he wouldn't but he never got the chance because it was just a different era back then. Klay did get the opportunity and he had excelled so kudos to Klay but to act like opportunity and era doesn't factor into any of this is kind of silly.

Other aspects of Ellis game may not have translated to the modern era. There is a fine line between being Anthony Morrow and Klay Thompson.

Game is obv more 3pt friendly now, but I disagree that the "lack of quality bigs" is mostly responsible for it. People have gotten better at shooting and the margins changed as a result. If you put shaq on the dubs they would still shoot a lot of 3's-- they would generate them differently though

It's not even about Ellis playing now. It was never about that. It was about opportunity in his own era. Initial comment I made was that it probably tilts him that he never got to play in a system where the 3 is encouraged and not frowned upon. Dude showed more promise from 3 than Klay in his prime Seattle years over a bigger sample and was already a better scorer than Klay. Klay is given the opportunity to flourish from 3, Ellis is traded for shooting too many 3s.

I don't know how much of the pie it gets but it's definitely a factor.

People have gotten better at shooting but it helps immensely when your skill is being encouraged and not discouraged.

Ok yeah, if that is all you are saying then there is some validity to that. Ditto for Reggie Miller, Mark Price, few other guys.

As far as the bigs, the reason they have faded has more to do with speed of the game, zone rules and just overall variance. There are still a lot of players that are 6'10 and up that are stars, they're just doing it in different ways.

If Shaq played today he would struggle mightily in defending the pick and roll. Someone like Ewing, I'm not sure how long he would stay healthy.

You had tons of guys playing 39-40 minutes a game and playing almost every game for 8-9 years straight back then. Seems impossible now.

I agree that Ellis would have benefitted from more 3-friendly offenses. But it would be a mistake to underestimate Klay as a shooter. As best I can tell, only Curry, Kerr, and Korver have ever had better five year stretches of shooting than Klay did his first five years in the league. Ray Allen and Reggie Miller had five year stretches that were comparable.

The main thing that jumps out at you when you look at shooting statistics is how far ahead of the pack Curry is. No one else is really within shouting distance except Kerr, and his volume was dramatically less because of how limited his game was.

Who would have guessed that Danny Ainge was touch better form 3 over his career than Bird was?

Bird didn't start hitting 3's at a high rate until 1/2 through his career but during his 3 straight MVP years I believe he was around 40% on low volume all 3 years.

mid 80s is weird though. I can see why they wouldn't want guys shooting 3's then, you could could get to the basket and get high %'s 2 point shots all game because the D sucked. Especially in transition there was no need to ever run to the 3pt line.

Ellis was a bad man



this def plays today. Good example BC.

I'm not sure if I did or not, but I was going to include him as a guy that could play today as a specialist in one of these threads. I'd never really watched him though, knew of him more of from video games as a kid.

That's closer to Klay than Morrow. Looks better than Korver tbh. It's like Ray Allen and Anthony Tolliver mixed.