Walker's shooting

["Stathis Avgoustiniatos" <stathisa@email.msn.com>]

>As far as Walker , your right !  Who wouldn't want the 4 hanging around the
>perimeter shooting  10 3's a game and shooting 39% from the field! This is
>just too logical and something all the other teams in the history of the
>league just haven't figured out yet.

FG% is a meaningless number since it includes both 2- and 3-pointers.
All over the world they report 2-p % and 3-p % separately except for here,
the land of basketball.  It makes no sense.  33% in 3s is the same as 50%
in 2s point-production-wise (the number of rebounds, long rebounds, and
fast breaks are/may be different).  So, without taking into account the % of
3s a player takes you can not judge him from his overall FG %.  Had Walker
been shooting only 3s (yikes) a 39% percentage would be awesome :-)

In any case, it is unfair to compare his FG % to those of other players who take much fewer 3s.  Walker is taking 13.4 2s per game at 41.2% and 8.6
3s per game at 35.9%.  His combined FG % should be adjusted as follows:

(13.4 x 41.2% + 8.6 x 35.9% x 3/2)/(13.4+8.6) = 46.1% (equivalent in 2s only)

which is not bad at all.

So you can focus on the 2s (of which we want him to take more) and 
say that his 41.2% shooting is bad.  I agree - I think that his 17-18 ft shot
sucks, so I'd rather see him driving to the basket and taking 3s and
forget about other jumpers.