Giannis Antetokounmpo did nothing in the NBA Cup finals Tuesday night.
At the same time, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander did a whole lot.
And therein lies the reason the Bucks walked away with the coveted hardware.
We’re talking, of course, about 3-point shooting, where sometimes less is more. Just ask Giannis.
For some inexplicable reason, the unstoppable force often used to drop anchor and shoot a bunch of them. It earned him the distinction of being one of the worst 3-point shooters in NBA history.
Thank goodness for Russell Westbrook.
It wasn’t just the god-awful 28.2 percent success rate with which Antetokounmpo embarrassed himself the past 10 seasons. It was the fact that his 282 makes—in 1,727 attempts—weren’t even good shots.
We all know Giannis. Most powerful wrecking ball in the game today. Yes, that includes LeBron. Can get to the rim faster than most defenders realize to get out of the way.
But for years, Superman thought he was so powerful, he could go head-to-head with kryptonite and win the battle. He was wrong.
So Giannis did something few superstars are willing to try: He listened.
The voices were loud and clear: Stop shooting 3’s.
For the most part, he has. And he’s gotten better. Simply by cutting out the fat. Imagine that.
Remarkably, Giannis has cast just 17 3-pointers in 23 games this season. It was 17 in 22 before he didn’t take the Thunder bait a single time in Tuesday’s showdown.
It was the 12th time this season in which he didn’t send up a prayer. Compare that to just five years ago, a season in which he chucked a total of 293 at a 30.4 percent rate, when he had only three games all season in which he refrained from testing his luck.
He’s a new man, and the Bucks are benefitting.
Now that he’s looking up at Giannis in the national MVP mindset, Gilegous-Alexander might consider a similar red light.
Like his rival, SGA (did you realize if Giannis were ever knighted, he’d be Sir Giannis Antetokounmpo, or SGA for short?) … I digress. OKC’s SGA also has earned the right to do pretty much whatever he wants on a basketball court.
That doesn’t mean it’s all good.
The seventh-year pro is a career 34.8 percent 3-point shooter. That’s not terrible. And unlike Giannis, he’s never been below the dreaded Westbrook Line (30 percent).
But SGA is about as unstoppable in the midrange as any player in the NBA. Despite being just 6-foot-6 and hanging out in and around big-man’s land, he’s made 58 percent of his two-pointers.
You do the math. OK, I will. Like Giannis, a 63-percent two-point shooter this season, every time SGA hears “Go ahead and shoot,” and then does so from beyond the arc, the analytics scream: Bad shot.
Old-timers wanting to erase the 3-point line or at least push it to Death Valley had a field day with SGA’s performance—and the Thunder’s shot chart in general—in Tuesday’s loss. OKC went 5-for-32 from deep. Even Mario Mendoza would tell you: 5-for-32 ain’t good.
SGA gets the blame. He messed up nine times. Two just happened to go in.
Lucky for him, this 2-for-9 won’t go on his record. But he already has one in his log this season, as well as a 1-for-10, a 2-for-10 and a 1-for-6.
He packages those in a playoff series, and the Thunder, no matter all their other weapons, are going spring finishing.
Despite the millions of fans Stephen Curry and Caitlin Clark have brought to the sport with their long-range magic, Adam Silver is considering changes. The options seem limited.
Well, here’s one more:
Each game, a coach gets to assign a libero-type jersey to the one player on his team that he’d like to keep from shooting 3-pointers. If the guy launches from beyond the arc, it’s an automatic turnover… you know, kinda like when Westbrook takes his four a game.
OK, perhaps that’s a bit harsh. So maybe the coach just tries this at practice. I’m guessing the clown outfit will get the message across that’s fallen upon deaf ears ever since the AAU coach preached: Keep firing, son. It’s your ticket to the big time.
Imagine how much better the game would be if the uniquely athletic Westbrook drove more to the hoop, if Jayson Tatum focused on passing from the paint rather than backpedaling and trying to pad his scoring numbers three at a time, and if Jimmy Butler would take the rock to the rim for a game-tying hoop rather than playing hero ball from the arc in Game 7 of an Eastern Finals.
De’Aaron Fox, Marcus Smart and Jalen Green. Yeah, you. DeMar DeRozan, Ja Morant and Draymond Green. You, too. Imagine the level of their potential success if they’d head down Giannis’ path.
I’d even recommend TWO colored jerseys for the self-destructing Orlando Magic, a talented team shooting its way out of Eastern contention as Jalen Suggs and Franz Wagner bomb away.
And then there’s Victor Wembanyama, the impressionable Baby Face of the Game.
Somewhere in the Naismith manual it must say: In order to be the best player of all time, you must shoot 3-pointers. How else do you explain Wemby already having MISSED 390 in just 92 career games?
Tres no bien. Not sure what it means, but it sounds French for something. Maybe “3’s are not good.”
Perhaps it’s the message that saved Giannis. And maybe it’s one Wemby would understand.
Heck, SGA is Canadian. Let’s try it on him.
It’s either that or become a libero.
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