RE: Its the shot selection..sheesh.

["Wright, Cecil" <Cecil.Wright@JUSTICE.GC.CA>]

This is interesting.  There is the possibility that Obie feels with the
opposing PF guarding him, it may provide an increased shot at us grabbing an
offensive board on his misses.  Of course that logic flies in the face of
our weak offensive rebounding stats.

I think we will know the true value of the guy when he has a low post
presence to dump it inside to and get a healthy ROI.  In the meantime, he is
obviously being encouraged to fire away.  It's great when he hits them and
ugly when he doesn't.  The burning question is does he have a reasonable
alternative?  In Pierce and Rogers, I think so.  Battie, at times.  Williams
is hot and cold.  Kenny isn't there, etc and so on.

Toine must be more judicious in his shot selection, but he is not killing
this team with it, at this point anyway.  The playoffs is when he will be
forced to increase his shooting percentage if we are gonna have a hope and a
prayer.  A good point was made when someone noted that he does not get to
the line as much as we would like.  That may be something that is changed at
playoff time.  I personally would like to see him increase his low post
presence because I think he is just too quick for most PFs who will guard
him and force the fouls, so long as Joe Crawford and his ilk call them as
committed.

It will be interesting for sure.

Cecil Wright, Nova Scotia Community Coordinator
Community Mobilization Program
Department of Justice Canada
Duke Tower - Suite 1400
5251 Duke Street
Halifax, NS  B3J 1P3
Tel: (902) 426-5950
Fax: (902) 426-8532
Email: cecil.wright@justice.gc.ca 
Web: www.crime-prevention.org


-----Original Message-----
From: Kestutis.Kveraga@dartmouth.edu
[mailto:Kestutis.Kveraga@dartmouth.edu]
Sent: April 02, 2002 4:21 PM
To: celtics@igtc.com
Subject: Re: Its the shot selection..sheesh.


--- You wrote:
Your missing the point. Its not that Walker is shooting to much, its that he
is taking the wrong shots. I think he could shoot 45% if he had the shot
selection of Rodney Rodgers. Walker might have a high basketball IQ but
he PLAYS out of emotion lots of time. 
--- end of quote ---

True, he shot 47% on 2pt in '99-'00. I agree with the rest of this post,
too. 

Spurred by this debate, I checked out some of Walker's career trends. It
turns
out that his shots per game (spg) negatively correlates with his overall
shooting %, although we're only talking about a range of ~16-22 spg. Yet, if
you look at the correlations between spg and % for 2-pointers and 3-pointers
separately, they're both positive . 
The catch is that his ratio of 2FG-attempted to 3FG-attempted has shifted
dramatically to a higher and higher % of threes taken - from 88/12 in his
first
season to his current split of 62/38, and that's with 4+ more shots taken
per
game. Even though he's improved his 3-point shooting, 3-pointers' being such
a
large proportion of his shots hurts his shooting %. Moreover, his current
12.9
2pt-attempted are probably too low. Based on his (limited) data, it seems
that
his best spg range for 2-pointers is 15-17 spg, whereas he shoots threes
about
as well when he takes 4 per game as when he takes 8. To summarize, if he
upped
his 2-point attempts by 3-4, and shot fewer, but 'better', threes, his
shooting
% might be better.  

This is only based on Toine's shooting % and and the assumption that the
unaccounted-for factors - and there are many - don't have a large influence
on
his shots and shooting %. So, take it FWIW.

Kestas