as arbitrary as any other rule
July 23, 2016 12:52 PM Subscribe
"It turns out rewriting history is pretty hard, but I did it. Because I'm bored. And because I love you." Jon Bois takes a look at what the 2015-2016 NBA Season would have been like without the 3 point line.
Now do it with the crazy notion that all-stars will get called for travelling.
posted by srboisvert at 2:02 PM on July 23, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by srboisvert at 2:02 PM on July 23, 2016 [5 favorites]
Stephen Curry is an outlier in a very literal sense.
posted by codacorolla at 2:07 PM on July 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by codacorolla at 2:07 PM on July 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
i haven't watched the whole video yet but just dropping in to say that i love jon bois so much and he is easily my favorite sportswriter
posted by burgerrr at 3:00 PM on July 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by burgerrr at 3:00 PM on July 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
What if the NBA did what baseball did with the DH and have it in one conference but not the other? Surely that would settle this once and for all.
posted by antonymous at 3:00 PM on July 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by antonymous at 3:00 PM on July 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
Really well done, and I don't even watch basketball that much. Plus, extra bonus points for using original Sim City zones.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 3:04 PM on July 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 3:04 PM on July 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
I'm totally for this, exclusively because it means Thunder would've beaten the Warriors.
posted by brecc at 3:12 PM on July 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by brecc at 3:12 PM on July 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
Amazing as this is, he could have gone even farther. What about adjusting shooting percentages for players to reflect that threes are harder to make? People wouldn't be attempting nearly so many 24 foot shots if they weren't worth more, so surely the model should somehow account for that? Of course, that way lies madness, but if you're going to go crazy, go really crazy.
It also would have required an extra year to do that kind of analysis though.
posted by zachlipton at 5:20 PM on July 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
It also would have required an extra year to do that kind of analysis though.
posted by zachlipton at 5:20 PM on July 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
Stephen Curry is an outlier in a very literal sense.
It's even better than that. Steph has an average around 50% from 30+ feet out, and not a small sample size either (17 for 33 at that point in March).
It was completely amazing. If you pulled that shit in the old NBA Jam games you couldn't hit them. He has literally broken the game.
posted by sanka at 5:32 PM on July 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
It's even better than that. Steph has an average around 50% from 30+ feet out, and not a small sample size either (17 for 33 at that point in March).
It was completely amazing. If you pulled that shit in the old NBA Jam games you couldn't hit them. He has literally broken the game.
posted by sanka at 5:32 PM on July 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
Very thorough & interesting, in how little difference it made at the end of the day. I joke that any shot from beyond halfcourt should count as 4 - I mean, why not?
As to the point of the 3 point line being shorter from the sides because they ran out of court space, this is true, but the backboard figures into the difficulty from there, in that there are no banked-in 3's from the edge of the baseline.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:55 PM on July 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
As to the point of the 3 point line being shorter from the sides because they ran out of court space, this is true, but the backboard figures into the difficulty from there, in that there are no banked-in 3's from the edge of the baseline.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:55 PM on July 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
Even though the three point line has been in its modern incarnation for a while I figured it was important for the modern version of the game because in 1999-2000 the league heads got together and decided they wanted the game to be less about beating the shit out of one another in the post and more about athleticism, and that this actually made the game faster paced despite what people believe. Popovich's offensive style and small ball gameplay have combined to make the court have more spacing, which means more opportunities for players to make scoring attempts, whether that's shooting, or driving through the post without there being 3 dudes there to fuck you up. This cuts down on injuries and allows players to play for more seasons. In my opinion it's a lot more entertaining to watch guys to tactical ball movement in order to get an open shot or bust out an awesome move than 3 dudes in the paint fouling someone.
posted by gucci mane at 9:43 PM on July 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by gucci mane at 9:43 PM on July 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
Also, I watched the USA vs. Argentina game last night and the shorter three point line is no match for people like Durant. I don't see any point in making the three point line any further than it already is, but it definitely shouldn't be shorter. People like Curry have pitfalls, Durant defended him exceptionally well during their series.
posted by gucci mane at 9:45 PM on July 23, 2016
posted by gucci mane at 9:45 PM on July 23, 2016
What about adjusting shooting percentages for players to reflect that threes are harder to make? People wouldn't be attempting nearly so many 24 foot shots if they weren't worth more, so surely the model should somehow account for that?
But they're not really harder. The shooting percentage at 24 feet is 36%, compared to roughly 37% - 39% from 23 feet - 21 feet, and then roughly 40% all the way in to 3 feet. There's very little drop off with distance, a few percent at most. He speculates that players would continue taking those same shots that are currently worth 3 even if they were worth 2 because the defense is lighter there. (Or I guess you can say that the drop in defensive effort compensates for the added distance.) He even goes as far as to say that if they were worth 2 the defense would let up even more, and percentages for long shots would go up, making it even more flat.
posted by Rhomboid at 2:04 AM on July 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
But they're not really harder. The shooting percentage at 24 feet is 36%, compared to roughly 37% - 39% from 23 feet - 21 feet, and then roughly 40% all the way in to 3 feet. There's very little drop off with distance, a few percent at most. He speculates that players would continue taking those same shots that are currently worth 3 even if they were worth 2 because the defense is lighter there. (Or I guess you can say that the drop in defensive effort compensates for the added distance.) He even goes as far as to say that if they were worth 2 the defense would let up even more, and percentages for long shots would go up, making it even more flat.
posted by Rhomboid at 2:04 AM on July 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
Jon Bois, the guy who makes sports interesting.
He's done another Chart Party, about, in the NFL, the saddest 21 points of all time.
posted by JHarris at 4:55 AM on July 24, 2016 [3 favorites]
He's done another Chart Party, about, in the NFL, the saddest 21 points of all time.
posted by JHarris at 4:55 AM on July 24, 2016 [3 favorites]
Maybe the greatest basketball quote of all time comes, of course, from Antoine Walker. He was once asked why he shot so many 3s, and he responded "because there are no 4s."
posted by antonymous at 6:34 AM on July 24, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by antonymous at 6:34 AM on July 24, 2016 [7 favorites]
On mobile so can't be bothered to link to the tweet where he says so, but I like how he uses Google Earth to make these videos.
posted by tss at 3:16 PM on July 24, 2016
posted by tss at 3:16 PM on July 24, 2016
As someone who is desperately thinking about leaving Bulls fandom and becoming a Knicks fan (and *all* that that entails), I guess I'm all for it. Wade and FuckRondo made something like 150 3s combined last year. Their combined % from three was still under forty percent. Playing Shooty McNickname at the four is not an option, and Mirotic had better take a giant leap this year, or, well... Sadness.
posted by Ghidorah at 7:50 PM on July 24, 2016
posted by Ghidorah at 7:50 PM on July 24, 2016
On mobile so can't be bothered to link to the tweet where he says so, but I like how he uses Google Earth to make these videos.
Here's an SBNation page where he talks about a previous video and he says he uses multiple tools: "I leaned heavily on five pieces of software: Photoshop Elements, iMovie, Google Earth, SketchUp (a program that allows for designing 3D models in Google Earth), and GIFFun (a simple GIF creation tool)."
I did feel entertained by the video. And the last chart with the stars was really nice. The premise of the video, like much of basketball (advanced) analytics, was pretty useless unless you just like randomly talking about things that have no basis in basketball reality. As long as you don't take the conclusion and run around trying to make claims with it, it's okay. Just another addition to the fantastyland that basketball's advanced analytics is.
posted by cashman at 7:07 AM on July 25, 2016
Here's an SBNation page where he talks about a previous video and he says he uses multiple tools: "I leaned heavily on five pieces of software: Photoshop Elements, iMovie, Google Earth, SketchUp (a program that allows for designing 3D models in Google Earth), and GIFFun (a simple GIF creation tool)."
I did feel entertained by the video. And the last chart with the stars was really nice. The premise of the video, like much of basketball (advanced) analytics, was pretty useless unless you just like randomly talking about things that have no basis in basketball reality. As long as you don't take the conclusion and run around trying to make claims with it, it's okay. Just another addition to the fantastyland that basketball's advanced analytics is.
posted by cashman at 7:07 AM on July 25, 2016
So I was looking through some of Jon Bois' other videos, and found Pretty Good episode 7, on the TV show 24, with the subtitle "I Wish Everyone Else Was Dead." It's hilarious.
posted by JHarris at 6:55 PM on July 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by JHarris at 6:55 PM on July 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
« Older "...one of the lowest points in Batgirl’s 40+ year... | If you want to understand Kabali from a Malaysian... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by drezdn at 1:23 PM on July 23, 2016