Btw what do you guys make of skilled players who can obviously shoot and developed a three point shot later on during their careers? Will you credit their earlier years as capable three point shooting campaigns or will you stick to what their slash line says? Would also want to know if you guys will make an adjustment for good pre-three point line shooters (eg. players who shoot well at the line and have a smooth jumpshot on tape from distance).
I tend to be pretty lenient with my judgement of a player’s ability to shoot. The way they shot in a certain season definitely influences which season I choose, but if they’re obviously talented shooters I’m not going to penalise them for a wonky 3PT season. Say someone had Paul Pierce and for some reason had to choose 02-03 or 03-04. For whatever reason PP couldn’t hit the side of a barn from 3 in those seasons - we still know he could shoot it, as he shot 39% from 3 prior to those 2 years and 38% afterwards.
However, if it’s a streaky inconsistent shooter like a Shawn Marion (lights out one year, bricklayer the next), I think I’d weigh it more importantly.
I also trust an old-school player who could shoot to be able to shoot now. It’s why I had so much faith in Jerry Lucas when I had him on an old historic draft.
There’s my rambling 2 cents
Pierce is different than someone like Magic Johnson or Jason Kidd though. They were poor to bad shooters (and very inconsistent) early before they became much better shooters later in their career. If you take an earlier season then you don't get the benefit of them being good shooters just because they learned how to shoot later in their career.
Thing is, would they have developed their shot earlier if they had been playing in today's NBA? For instance, nobody expected from Magic to shoot 3s in the 80s. Everybody would expect from him to develop his shot in today's game.
Obviously, there's no defenitive answer to that. At the end of the day, we all value players differently. This is why I love participating in these drafts!
You can't really do that though because everything would change. It is one thing to project that a good shooter, like Jerry West, would have been a good 3 point shooter in modern ball, it is entirely a different thing to project a bad shooter as being a good shooter in a different era. You can't just change skill sets, the players are who they are.
Fair enough. How about a bad shooter who became a good shooter later on though? We know for a fact that Magic developed a good 3pt shot. It's only logical to assume that he would have started working on his shot way earlier than he actually did.
No. Because his game would be different. Are you going to give up the uber rebounding, assists, and free throws because he is now bombing 3's and not working on his inside game, passing, etc.? Of course you wouldn't, so you can't just create skills that players didn't have. Magic was a terrible shooter early on, you can't just say because he had 1 full season where he shot above 32% later in his career that he all of a sudden would have been a great shooter much earlier in his career.
Magic could only make shots out to about 15-18 foot consistently. He was a very good free throw shooter but rarely did he attempt a shot from 20 feet out (just wasn't his game to do so) but if he did it was not successful. I think most people would agree with you that even though Magic learned to shoot the 3, that was more of him aging and needed to add to his game, as opposed to him just not shooting them.
I feel, coming into the league today, magic still would not be a great 3pt shooter, nor would he be taking any of them.
Compare him to my last pick Drexler. Drex shot alot of long midrange shots and midway through his career increased his 3pt percentage to a modern day respectable %.
For me I see know reason to assume that if a rookie Drexler were coming into the league today he would already be a 36%+ 3pt shooter.