billypootons wrote:
is he talking about kobe's midrange game? there's plenty of chuckers left in the nba. if so, that's a pretty dumb take on a man, his daughter and 7 other people dying in a horrific helicopter crash
Yeah I probably won't go back and listen but I don't get this for the reason you mentioned. There's always going to be gunners and one of the main reasons for that is because it's pretty damn impossible for teams to just mimic Golden State.
The Bulls' entire post-Thibs era can be seen as an illustration of this, as despite paying lip service to pace and space and analytically smart shots, they've relied on Butler in previous seasons and LaVine more and more the last 2 years to carry their offense. I'd also posit one of the main reasons for Markannen's regression this year has been some combo of Boylen and Paxson basically taking away his midrange game because they've decided that the sacred numbers told them those were bad shots. Hell Kawhi Leonard just took a team to the title while playing a ballstopping, inefficient-looking offensive game that drew comparisons to MJ rather than jeers.
This whiggish version of NBA history I often hear guys like Bernstein pushing, where Very Smart Venture Capitalists are effectively right around the corner from completely optimizing the game, just glosses over the actual nuances of the sport. Efficiency cannot be operationalized in a single manner and even if it could be, it's not in the hands of the casual fan to begin with. Proprietary data that teams have is loads more useful than some idiot like me in a forum or some idiot like Dan on a radio show sorting players by PER. Citing Kobe as the last great inefficient also strikes me as a bit strange because part of his inefficiency was chucking 3s (particularly in comparison to someone like Wade), and doing that regardless of efficiency has at times been framed as a triumph of efficiency itself when it comes to proponents of Harden and the Rockets.
In-game tactics and counterplay actually exist as well and they matter a helluva lot more to the outcomes of games than Daryl Morey or Joe Lacob giving us the breathtaking insight that 3s are worth more than 2s. And this also manifests itself in a variety of playing styles that still exists in today's NBA; the Rockets are unwatchable dreck but the 13-14 Spurs and pre-Durant Warriors were actually aesthetically pleasing, despite the notion that all these teams have been equally informed by the numbers and supposedly conforming to a single style of play.