Friday, January 21

Why I'm Ticked Off This Week: Jump Around

All season long, we’ve heard the Sonics live and die by the 3. How that if the Sonics aren't draining from 25 feet, they can’t win games.

The PI’s Danny O’Neil even devoted a few trees to the issue the other day, explaining how the Sonics are only 1-7 when they hit less than 30% from beyond the arc.

Guess what. It’s all a bunch of crap.

Writers love to formulate logic based on their opinions, and there few opinions tougher to shake than the one which says the Sonics are a jump-shooting club. To back up their claims, writers point to Seattle’s poor showing in games which they shoot badly from beyond the arc.

What O’Neil neglects to mention, however, is that NEARLY EVERY TEAM IN THE LEAGUE shoots badly from beyond the arc when they lose.

Phoenix? 30% in losses, 39% in wins.
Cleveland? 28%, 37%.
San Antonio? 29%, 39%.
Sacramento? 31%, 37%.
Seattle? 27%, 42%.

This just in ... when you don’t shoot well, you’re gonna lose. Rather than just accept the simple truth in that sentence, writers like O’Neil grasp at tenuous claims like “long rebounds from missed 3’s” and other such nonsense.

Lost in all this supposition is the truth. The truth is that 68% of Seattle’s shots are jumpers beyond 15 feet. What does that mean, though? Well, here’s how some other teams compare:

Phoenix (67%), San Antonio (63%), Sacramento (67%), Detroit (65%), Indiana (67%), Miami (61%).

With the exception of the Heat, ALL of the top teams this year are within a few percentage points of Seattle, meaning all this talk about the Sonics being a bunch of jump shooters isn’t just dumb, it’s flat-out wrong.

Look, the Sonics, when they’re hitting their outside shots, are one of the best teams in the NBA, excepting no one. When they’re not hitting them? Well, they’re just like every other NBA team that isn’t hitting its’ threes. Lousy.

One point people fail to take into consideration with the injury to Steve Nash is that he gets hurt almost every year. Face it, he’s in his ninth season and he’s played 80+ games twice. Yeah, when he’s healthy he’s a very good player, but the Suns have to pay when he’s hurt, too, and if they think it sucks now, wait until he’s 34. ... Am I the only one sick and tired of retro/alternative jerseys? 20 years ago when I grew up loving the Sonics, they had two uniforms: home and away. For some reason, it was enough for everybody. How about a moratorium: teams can wear retro jerseys no more than twice a season. Except for the Celtics, who wear them every night. ... Is the NBA so desperate for help that Urkel merits his own spot on their website?

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