Tall as liability goes too far but it sure does seem like something has changed dramatically with the game and will keep on changing. Almost like a different sport.
If you ask me, they should go back to the old way of playing the game. With the hoop placed vertically, the players using only their hips, and the heads of the winners chopped off.
Yeah, that's a bit of hyperbole to give people who don't watch much a sense of how dramatically the game is changing.
Assuming Curry isn't a once-in-a-lifetime inimitable freak
Everybody is special in their own way.
What's also interesting is that you had a player who seemed like he was genetically engineered to be the GOAT in the 80s-90s-00s NBA (LeBron), and he is indeed one of the GOAT and still obviously extremely good and useful, and yet the game and its spacing are transforming so much.
Videos aren't showing up for me. Connection to player.espn.com is timing out.
The range at which he is shooting over 35% (let alone 40%) is likely to be unique for a while. But I can imagine an NBA 10-15 years from now in which the majority of forwards can hit 3s at over 30%. You'd need to hit better than 45% from 2 to be more efficient, and the majority of current forwards don't come close to that I think.
Not a basketball watcher, but I remember talk about a past star (either Jordan or Shaq, I forget) that the rest of the team was supposed to just give them the ball and get out of the way. Maybe similar issues with LeBron, at least in skill chasm with the rest of his teams. Whereas with the Warriors, obviously Curry's shooting is something in itself, but the other thing I hear is that the whole team is working together really well-oiled as more than the sum of their parts, not letting anything through. Is that part of the difference as well?
Lebron
Yes. I almost mentioned this, but it's crazy that we can simultaneously talk about LeBron as one of the all-time greats, and also see, even while he's at his peak, that he belongs to an earlier era. I almost feel bad for him. He's an incredible player, and no one is talking about him this year.
Curry's shooting is something in itself, but the other thing I hear is that the whole team is working together really well
This article is a little overheated, but it takes up precisely that question. Short version: the Warriors are really good, but Curry is having an insane year by any measure.
once a player demonstrates that something can be done, future generations make it routine
People have been shooting jumpers for a long time, and I've never seen anyone with as clean a technique or as quick a release. Reggie Miller made a very good career out of hitting spot threes, but there's no comparison.
Maybe similar issues with LeBron, at least in skill chasm with the rest of his teams.
This wasn't really true of the Heat. The secondary stars and role players were slotted in to get him to maximize overall team strengths, rather than just get out of his way.
A bit ot, but do we have a general theory about why this is true: "once a player demonstrates that something can be done, future generations make it routine"?
It's funny; weren't you skeptical about putting Curry on the "best possible 5-man line-up" when we had that conversation a couple of months ago.
He's an incredible player, and no one is talking about him this year.
People aren't talking about him as the GOAT right now, but I definitely see him mentioned in the MVP conversation ahead of, say, Durant.
Whereas with the Warriors, obviously Curry's shooting is something in itself, but the other thing I hear is that the whole team is working together really well-oiled as more than the sum of their parts
That's true, and it's also noteworthy how much Curry's presence makes that happen (the team averages an eFG% of 60% when Curry is on the floor and 51% when he's off the floor). See, for example, this article (warning: auto-play video).
While his raw assists are down, he has seen a bump (1.8 to 2.8) in [passes leading directly to an assist, rather than a basket]. Shadow Curry tends to get teammate's assists in a certain situation called four-on-three.
Assuming Curry isn't a once-in-a-lifetime inimitable freak, which he might be, but almost every time, once a player demonstrates that something can be done, future generations make it routine.
Thinking about this, there's a big gap between "once-in-a-lifetime" and, "every team has a couple of bombers." I think that in the era of basketball we're entering (and which, honestly, the LeBron Heat probably started), the difference between the good teams and poor teams is going to be significantly determined by the quality of shooters they have.*
*Interestingly San Antonio is a bit of an outlier on that front. This season they're currently 24th in the league in 3PA. OKC is 20th, but that's less surprising because (a) they've been a mediocre shooting team for a while and (b) everybody believes that's one of the main things holding them back.
It's the pull-up three that changes the game most dramatically for me. If we get to a world where every team has a player who can hit that shot very routinely then ... I don't know what basketball looks like.
In the past, I've seen suggestions that the court should be expanded/basket raised to account for bigger, more athletic players -- is there a point where that gets to be a non-silly suggestion?
do we have a general theory about why this is true
The simplest explanation is probably that the hardest part of innovation is having the idea to do something, not so much the actual doing (not to say that the doing is easy).
is there a point where that gets to be a non-silly suggestion?
The Curry phenomenon makes this less necessary, not more. That's the point about spacing. If the offensive threat ends about 23 feet (distance of the three point line) from the basket, you have ten guys in a 23x50 = 1150 sq. ft area. Expand the zone of offensive effectiveness to thirty feet, and it's 1500 square feet, for a 30% increase.
20--no, I disagree. you NEED a bigger court if you want to move back the 3-point line (due to the corners--the corner 3 can't be moved back without being moved off the court).
Curry to the NBA three is like Ruth to the home run, almost. (Except that college ball had already provided an example of a game where the 3 could be the central fact of play...)
If you want all layups and dunks, just make the hoop move a bit.
"the hardest part of innovation is having the idea to do something"-- this seems less convincing in a lot of the salient cases. It's not like no one wanted to run the four minute mile, or, in this case, no one could have thought to hit 3s more frequently.
Those counterexamples aren't very convincing. If you don't think a four-minute-mile is possible, you don't train for it. Then someone runs it, and everyone trains for it. And it's in fact true that people undervalued the three--statistical analysis is partly responsible for the realization that a three-point shot, made at percentages attainable for a lot of NBA players, is more valuable than many two-point attempts. Plus, what Curry is doing is more than just making more threes, he's making them consistently from a distance that no one else even attempts, and that's the potentially huge change.
Assuming Curry isn't a once-in-a-lifetime inimitable freak
It might well turn out to be something like like consistently hitting over .300 in modern baseball. Not impossible but only being done here and there rather than something every team routinely has.
But a bunch of people were trying and failing the 4:00, then Bannister does it and the floodgates open. PS I have no idea if this is actually true.
This homer wants to mention Jason Terry and the destruction of LA and Miami in 2011
438, 373, 400, 442, 500, 441 in consecutive playoffs
Obviously not on the level of Curry, but the idea was there.
I am not paying attention to b-ball anymore, but one part of this scheme that was partly around in the crazy 70s and 80s is that great jumpshooters can play in the middle 70 feet of the court, run quite a bit less, and exhaust the opposition
Mile records are here. There's definitely a long lag between 4:01 and 3:59, but since that coincides with WWII, and the fastest guy during that time was from neutral Sweden, I'm going to say it wasn't because 4:00 was a real barrier, but because a lot of dudes were more busy trying to outrun bullets.
Oh, the other snide thing I should have said is that you can train to break 4:00, or you can train to go as fast as possible, and break 4:00 as a consequence. You know who ran a great mile, is Thomas Aquinas. But on that chart, the last record before Bannister is 1945, so all those fit GIs had nine years to hit their stride.
Roaming Wikipedia a little, I notice Ray Allen.
I am not sure Curry is all that unique strategically, he is just the gunner. I am old enough to remember Dave Bing.
He is just insanely good at it.
Read the Ben Morris thing I linked upthread. Three things are going on: the Warriors as a team play for the three, and they have a bunch of great shooters; Curry makes threes at a crazy rate; Curry makes long threes at a crazy rate.
The fourth thing is that sometimes he makes elaborate threes with many embellishments, which is known as "Curry with a fringe on top."
What one man can do, another can do
Except make html links. No one can do that consistently.
Various people are thought to have done it before Bannister, but in circumstances that didn't count because there wasn't an official timekeeper. One guy is supposed to have run a 4 minute mile in a road race in the 18th century, but they were timing him with 18th century watches, so who knows? It's like Mallory probable reached the top of Everest, but he didn't make it down to tell people, so it doesn't count. You don't just have to break a record, you have to be shown to have broken it.
I've heard that as "what man has done, man can do." Time to google...
No idea why that comment is italicised, I didn't mean it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9ajZhH-yds
I am not sure Curry is all that unique strategically, he is just the gunner. I am old enough to remember Dave Bing.
He is just insanely good at it.
What is unusual about Curry, as a Shooter, is the way in which they use his shooting ability to set up the offense -- unlike Ray Allen, a shot from Curry isn't the end result of an offensive set, it's the first move that the defense has to guard against.
[Thinking about it that way, it's almost like the threat of a guard penetrating off the pick-and-roll -- it's a potential attack which the defense has to commit to stopping -- and that does
suggest a strategic change]
But the "insanely good at it part" matters as well. Over the last couple of seasons, prior to Curry, the guy who hit the most extra-long 3-pointers was (IIRC) Jamal Crawford. That was part of what made him a dynamic bench scorer, but nobody talked about it as a game-changing shot because he wasn't good enough for defenses to adjust to it.
Curry makes long threes at a crazy rate.
It is possible that he's just on a hot streak at those longer ranges. It will be really interesting to see if he's still taking pull-up 27ft shots in the playoffs.
The one I've heard is attributed to Marcus Garvey (sometimes).
40.last is the big question. There's a lot of noise in 3-point statistics. Just a few months ago I was making an argument here about Curry being particularly lights out from the left corner, but this year he's doing much worse from the left corner than from elsewhere. So I don't expect his rate on super long shots to last. (Of course, de'd still be breaking the game anyway, just because of volume and percentage on normal length threes.)
Hrm, the chart I was looking at wasn't up to date. Anyway his left corner was 69% last season, but "only" 55% this season. I'd expect the long shots to come down a similar amount. When someone hits as many as many different kinds of 3's as Curry you're going to hit at least one kind at a crazy rate.
Records in team sports are different than in individual sports because of the strategy involved. You set a world record running and you will win that race. You hit a 65 yard field goal and you still just get 3 points, so when you see people approach the field goal record it's usually end of half situations where missing is low risk.
The big difference with Curry and the Warriors is they're showing there's a percentage in shooting threes at times and from distances most teams would consider strategically questionable.
I don't know they'll really change the game that much because it's probably not easy to put together a team where that strategy makes sense. Maybe guys will start training for consistency at shooting early in the offense from 27 feet. Most people would still call those bad shots.
no one could have thought to hit 3s more frequently
From the second video, it seems like Curry developed a new way to throw (generate force from forearms, not from knees) that isn't widely adopted yet.
Look at you, clicking links and watching the videos. An informed commenter is a great commenter!
That kind of effort is why my commenting numbers are way down.
Watching that, it boggles my mind to think about how strong his wrists/forearms must be -- one of those things which is just completely outside of my personal imaginable athletic potential.
You're probably overestimating the strength involved. Just like throwing a ball fast requires coordination instead of brute strength, shooting a long jump shot is about smooth transfer of force from your feet to the ball.
my commenting numbers are way down
Your efficiency is unparalleled. You could make top 5 all-time, if you give up your anti-almond crusade.
it's the first move that the defense has to guard against.
Like I said, the Mavericks in their contending years started a possession with Nowitzki at the center three point line, drawing the double team and a tall defender, then passing to Terry or Kidd at the 3 pt wings, or turning around for a pick-and-roll
One guess is that as the talent gets better in the NBA, you can no longer rely on driving through the lane to the hoop, Jordan-style, because the fouls aren't gonna be called anymore, and the close defense is better
But a bunch of people were trying and failing the 4:00, then Bannister does it and the floodgates open.
ISTR reading somewhere that Bannister ran his mile with a different strategy than the previous attempts: before him, people would pace themselves for the first three laps, then go all-out on the last one, whereas Bannister aimed to keep his splits consistent. At the very least it's too good a story to Google.
Gladwell wrote a long and well-researched article about Bannister, how he did it and what was changing in sport when he did it. That may be what you're remembering, and it may be fairly easy to find.
shooting a long jump shot is about smooth transfer of force from your feet to the ball.
Yeah, I get that, and the Sports Science video may be overstating how unique Curry's release is.
But, still, it's like Kevin Durant's four-point play against the Grizzlies -- I can shoot 3-pointers when I have my legs under me, but the arm and wrist strength involved in that shot is really impressive.
46: No it's not. She's basically betrayed the rest of us by working at commenting.
Gladwell wrote a long and well-researched article
The first part of this clause contradicts the second!
The Durant shot is nuts.
Gladwell was a pretty serious runner at one point, right?
I went to my first basketball game in years recently on a business trip
Maybe it was just this play:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAVye7pJN_k
but shooting from the inside looked a lot more brutal than it does on TV
Kevin Love was making threes and that just seemed less grueling
they also put up photos of roethlisberger on the jumbotron when the other team was shooting foul shots to get the crowd to boo which I thought was funny.
I misremembered. The article, from 2001, was a defense of drugs in sport, of the difficulty of drawing lines. I was right to remember the Bannister bit was about the changes in sport, though. The Bannister references are all in section 5, which contrast Bannister's methods with a middle-distance runner's today.
Search for "Bannister" here: http://gladwell.com/drugstore-athlete/
The Durant shot is nuts.
I remembered another example. There was a MIN/OKC game in which Kevin Love hit a shot (link should go to 1:25) to force overtime, and he barely uses his legs at all. He catches the ball with his back to the basket, spins, and tosses in a three-pointer.
There's a bit of knee bend, but not much.
44: Sort of. But world record attempts in the marathon are run very differently than attempts to win races on courses where a world record is unlikely.
The sports stuff I've read is about running, and I'm not sure there's a good reason beyond handwaving at mental blocks, central governor theory etc. Landy's the interesting case: declares after several attempts that it's beyond his ability to break 4 minutes, Bannister does it, then Landy smashes it shortly thereafter. It's not clear what to think about that.
Certainly in some cases (e.g., high jump) progress is due to a new technique that can be widely copied. I know nothing about basketball, but if part of Curry's success is that the team is using his skills differently, one could expect that to be copied.
An informed commenter is a great commenter!
Bullshit. For max value you want your commenters semi-informed and semi-unhinged.
Ideally, the uninformed side is also the unhinged side.
Welcome back to the Unfogged @Home, the carpentry and woodworking discussion forum. Today's topic: Doors! Why bother?
Landy's the interesting case: declares after several attempts that it's beyond his ability to break 4 minutes, Bannister does it, then Landy smashes it shortly thereafter. It's not clear what to think about that.
I've seen similar things years ago in climbing. There's this sick bouldering problem out at Joe's Valley called Black Lung. A lot of of the routes out there had been developed by a local, Steven Jeffries, who was at the same gym I was and was a legit world class hardman. He's tried that problem probably a couple hundred times at a minimum. Then Ben Moon came out here on a road trip and sends the first ascent. Steven then sends it shortly after and I'm pretty sure it was nothing more than him getting really pissed that someone else beat him to the first ascent on HIS route.
Sure, I just mean sports like running are set up so the incentive to set a record and push individual limits matches up with the incentive to win on a regular basis. Certainly, you don't see too many world record attempts at middle to long distances at major championships because you want to win and the risk of failing to set a record either by setting up someone else to beat you and get the record even if you also beat the old record, or by just plain losing by going out too hard is pretty high. I think sports like basketball are much more on the winning over pushing human limits side of things.
Curry is obviously a once in a generation talent. I don't think we're going to suddenly see a bunch of players like him. That said, if you look at someone like Kawhi Leonard, who was not a shooter in college, and is better at other things than he is at shooting, but is still hitting 2/4 on 3s a game, you can see what the future will look like.
That clip of Andrew Bogut tossing the ball to a wide-open Curry and then immediately jogging back to the other end of the court before Curry even shoots is hilarious (first video, about 2:07 in).
It's the Unfogged curse! They might lose to the Celtics tonight.
Pretty crazy that the W's are without two of their best players, having a crappy game (helped by some amazing man defense on Curry), and it's still going to OT.
Yup. It's just embarrassing that the Warriors have failed twice to make a decent inbounds pass on the brink of each overtime. Bring back Steve Kerr!
I think you might be making a vulgar joke that's completely inappropriate for late 2015 Unfogged.
Strong words from the man who titled this post.
They showed a lot of spunk at the end. Really left it all out there on the floor.
re: Curry and LeBron
Akron, birthplace of the greats.
Some Warriors facts:
In the 804 minutes that Curry and Green have been on the court the Warriors outscore their opponents by almost 22 points per 100 possessions.
In the 390 minutes that Curry, Green, and Iguodala have played together they have outscored their opponents by 32 points per 100 possessions.
That's really frightening in crunch time.
That's really frightening in crunch time.
[I]t's the San Antonio Spurs, who have quietly accumulated the league's best scoring margin (+342) and average point differential (+13.2) while winning 21 of their first 26 games. . . . .
San Antonio is first in defensive rating (91.8) by nearly five points over second-place Miami (96.5), who are closer to 15th-place Atlanta (101.0) as they are to the Spurs. They're second in opponents' field goal percentage (41.8 percent), and are the best in the league at defending 3-pointers (30.6 percent).