Isiah Thomas on CP3: "Chris Paul is a very safe player...However, I don't see Chris going outside the box to take extraordinary risks...Chris has to push past safe"

Efficiency and stats are important but only reveal one facet of the game and usually don’t include context. Now that the game is all about analytics and stats and efficiency, barely anyone takes mid range jumpers. The math supports this shift away from them, but I feel like the most lethal playoff scorers even in this era have a self-created mid range jumper in their bag. Luka, Giannis, Bron, Jokic, Embiid, KD, Kawhi, and so on all have a solid mid range jumper to fall back on.

Even going back - some of the kids here who never watched Kobe claim he was overrated because of efficiency; dude had a higher career TS% than Tim Duncan until he tore his Achilles and that’s even with him constantly “chucking”. And that entire era from late 90’s-2010 or so was inefficient as hell with borderline nonexistent spacing and barely any analytics. Yeah he sometimes shot his team out of the game and could’ve found the open man from a double or triple team but you generally want to give the ball to the best player on your team in the clutch, especially when he’s one of the greatest shot makers of all time.

/r/nba Thread Parent