Magic Johnson: "If I Don't See Another Three-Pointer From A Laker Team, I'll Be Happy"

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/magic-johnson---if-i-don-t-see-another-three-pointer-from-a-laker-team--i-ll-be-happy--203448268.html



Magic Johnson: 'If I don't see another three-pointer from a Laker team, I'll be happy.'
Kelly Dwyer By Kelly Dwyer
49 minutes ago
Ball Don't Lie



During the 1990-91 season, a campaign that saw the Los Angeles Lakers ride a fifth-ranked offense all the way to the NBA Finals, Magic Johnson and Byron Scott led the team in attempting 250 and 219 three-pointers, respectively. No other Laker even broke triple digits in triples attempts, as the aging Laker backcourt relied more and more on the perimeter bombs to contribute.

It would be the last season the two would play together, as Johnson retired the next October after being diagnosed with HIV, and Scott went on to a respected journeyman career as a three-point specialist. Both eventually returned to the Lakers for one final NBA season – Magic in 1996, Scott the next season – with Magic continuing to rely on his push shot from outside the arc, and Scott taking nearly half his attempts from long range.

This is why it was more than a little curious that Magic would offer a particularly nasty take on the shot that has served him so well, in talking up Scott’s recent hire as coach of the Los Angeles Lakers.

From Eric Pincus at the Los Angeles Times:

"The team is better than what we had last season, because we have more guys who can do more things than just shoot three-pointers," said Johnson.  "If I don't see another three-pointer from a Laker team, I'll be happy."
Now, that last line about never seeing another trey thrown up by a member of his beloved team might be a throwaway joke, but Magic has taken his anti-Mike D’Antoni crusade to all time heights.

D’Antoni should not have been hired by the Lakers in 2012. The Lakers’ front office should not have attempted to build a philosophy that resembled Steve Nash and D’Antoni’s former Phoenix Suns squads, as the franchise should have made a better attempt to work around the low post stylings of Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol. It’s just fine to criticize both the hire and D’Antoni’s work, as we all have, without looking tacky at best and downright mean at worst.

I mean:


The Lakers will be better this year, because Kobe Bean Bryant will be there this year. Even if he can’t help but work in a diminished state, he’s Kobe. Don’t count out Kobe.

The Lakers won’t take as many three-pointers next year because Scott won’t replicate D’Antoni’s high end pace, which inflates raw numbers, and specialist Jodie Meeks (who saved the Lakers at times last year) signed with Detroit, but they’ll still fire away. Nick Young has been retained by the team, Bryant will shoot from long range, and point guard Jeremy Lin shot just as many three-pointers per minute last year as former Laker point man Kendall Marshall. A returning Steve Nash relies on the shot quite a bit as well.

And frankly, outside of the return of Kobe, who are these “guys who can do more things?”

Grabbing a solid lottery selection in Julius Randle was nice, and the much-maligned Carlos Boozer may have a bounce back season in Los Angeles, but those are clear downgrades from Pau Gasol; even with Gasol’s injury history. Lin is better than Marshall, but he’s not a knockout, and expecting some exceptional growth from Nick Young as a player after he gets back from his summer out with Iggy Azalea and firing 30-footers at the Drew League seems a bit much.

From there it seems like Magic is expecting quite a lot from Kobe, which is fine, and a steep upgrade as his favorite team moves from Mike D’Antoni to Byron Scott.

That’s an iffy one, even if D’Antoni was a poor fit for Howard, Gasol, and eventually Bryant.

Judging coaches by raw won/loss totals is always just as iffy, but Scott does have over one hundred more losses than wins as a coach, and he’s coming off three seasons in Cleveland that were disappointing even by rebuilding standards. There is a chance his Princeton-inspired musings on offense could do good things for offense-only types like Bryant, Nash, Young, Lin and Boozer, but by and large this roster still looks like a bit of a tire fire.

And only different because Magic Johnson’s former three-point buddy is coaching it, as opposed to the guy he never liked.

We hope Magic gets over the Mike D’Antoni era eventually enough.




bob
MY NOTE: I won't say 'Never', but I'd be a whole lot happier if the Celtics took a lot fewer 3-pointers next year.



.

Get rid of the 3 point line during practice. They'll forget all about it.



KJ

I'll be happy to say, "Never" as far as three-pointers by the Celtics are concerned.  I fully understand that a three-pointer counts 150% as much as a two-pointer.  But I also understand that three-pointers carry a much lower average percentage of success than two-pointers.  I believe the tradeoff is in favor of two-pointers.

I also realize that a solid three-point game can open the floor so as to help the two-point game.  But I'm a fan of rhythms and continuity in basketball.  And I believe three-pointers are, on balance, more likely to interrupt rhythm and continuity in an offense than to enhance it.

Most of the time in the NBA (and the Celtics have to be leaders in this respect) hree-poiinters seem to have supplanted sheer effort in attempts to make up a scoring deficit.  In most cases, scoring deficits occur because one team is playing better than the other.  In my opinion, they should be erased by the same means, but with the two teams being reversed.

In other words, I view the three-pointer as a crutch upon which to lean because of lack of ability or effort or chemistry or some other artifact of a team's offense.  It drives me absolutely crazy when I watch the Celtics segue from a balanced attach when they lose ground to opposition, eschewing teamwork and/or an attack down low in favor of bomb after bomb from outside.

Occasionally, the bombs away approach might work.  But, more often than not, it seems to dig the hole deeper.  More important, I believe the availability of the trey creates bad habits among both players and coaches.

Personally, I wish the three-point shot had never been introduced and wonder why the powers-that-be didn't do it in a balanced way by awarding only one point for a dunk.  As far as I was concerned, the worst thing ever to happen to the NBA was the ABA; and, from my point of view, the only positive thing about the ABA was that at least the ball was patriotic.

Sam

Sam,

A missed three pointer can be considered a -2 pointer when missed and the opposing team fast breaks for an easy layup.



KJ

KJ,

Especially because a missed three-pointer generally leads to a longer rebound than a missed two-pointer, increasing the likelihood of an opponent's fast break.

Sam

During the 2013-14 season.

2 point shots averaged 97.6 points per 100 shots
3 point shots averaged 108.0 points per 100 shots

swish

Those figures do not include free throws awarded on shot attempts—a category in which 2-point attempts outnumber 3-point attempts by 11 to 1 (17% on shots in the lane; 2% on 2-point jumpers; and 1% on 3-point shots).

Sam

I've always like Charles Barkley's point here. The traditional phrase is "You live by the "3", you die by the "3". Charles shortened to his own dead-on phrase, "You die by the "3""!

db

I was never a huge fan of the 3 point shot except when certain players took it (Bird, Allen, and a few others), and/or, when the team was down late in the game and needed to come back fast.

Then came the 24 point comeback in L.A. during that memorable Finals. It seemed as though Posey, House, Allen and Pierce took all the shots and they were all 3 pointers and they all went in. I know that wasn't exactly what happened, and KG simply ruled the boards for one long decisive stretch, - nevertheless, it was 3 pointers that put the Lakers away that game, and it turned out to be the pivotal game.

Now this past year's playoffs have demonstrated a successful strategy that one has to call Pop's Own, or maybe, the San Antone Strategy: that is, using 3 pointers to get a double digit lead, then invoking this forgotten tactic called defense to hold that lead. San Antonio did it again and again throughout the playoffs, and not just against Miami. Sometimes the shots weren't falling and they died by the 3 pointer, but it didn't happen that often, and it definitely appeared to be a deliberate strategy. One of the keys was discipline: to stop taking threes when they got the sizable lead, or, when the threes weren't falling. It requires a strong coach like Pop to stay on top of that.

In answer to Sam's attack on the ABA, the best thing about it was that it got Billy Cunningham out of the NBA. The Kangaroo Kid, IMHO, was the main reason Philly won in 1967 (even more than Bill Russell's lack of coaching experience). I remember celebrating for days when he took the big bucks to go to the ABA. He was too good to beat when paired with a center like Wilt. He was taller, faster, and could jump higher than Havlicek, with the same skills, intelligence and competitive zeal.

Spike,

I didn't really attack the ABA.  I just said it was the worst thing to happen to the NBA.  What I meant to say was that the ABA sucked rotten eggs.  That wouldn't have been an attack would it?

Havlicek was within an inch of going to the ABA too.  I was with him, after a practice in Roxbury, on the day he made his decision.  We didn't talk about it, just as I almost never talked basketball with Celtics players.  But I know how utterly torn he was.

So it was entirely possible that Cunningham would no longer have been in the NBA and neither would Havlicek.  Good tradeoff?  Maybe not.

Sam