According to Doug Smith of the Toronto Star, Jay Triano offered the following evaluation of the Raptors' shooting performance this season:
“Listen, we’re the seventh or eighth best shooting team in the NBA without being able to make a three-point shot. We have one game where we don’t really get it going from a variety of guys so let’s just (bleeping) relax a little bit.”Really? Seventh or eighth? Other than that comment about not being able to make threes, I don't believe you have a handle on the stats, Mr. Triano. Thanks to dougstats, I have the shooting percentages of every team in the league for games played up to 03/12/11. Here's the table:
I still have weird double-scrolling problems going on. Does anybody know how to fix that with this chart gagdet? If you do, let me know in the comments.
Anyways, let's take a look. The Raptors do turn out to be 9th in FG%...but FG% is pretty much a useless number. Why? Several things:
- it doesn't take into account the extra point awarded to three point shots
- it doesn't take into account the number of three point shots taken
- it doesn't take into account a team's free throw percentage
- it doesn't take into account the number of free throws taken
And how do the Raptors fare when we look at those other things? The Raptors are:
- 20th in FT%
- 21st in FTA/48
- 25th in FTA/FGA (free throw tendency)
- 30th in 3P%
- 29th in 3PA/FGA (3pt tendency)
- 19th in AdjFG% (takes 3pt shots into account)
- 19th in TS% (takes 3pt shots and free throws into account)
So really - when we look at all types of shooting - the Raptors are actually around 19th in the league. It appears that Jay Triano doesn't quite know what he's talking about - but at least he understands that his team can't shoot threes.
It could be worse - at least Toronto doesn't shoot as poorly as the Milwaukee Bucks.
- Devin
I dont know what Jay Triano is talking about either. The raptors are NOT a great shooting team. Top 10 best shooting team in the NBA? Not a chance. When there's a few secs left on the clock and its raptors ball, they always screw it up! either its Jay Trianos coaching or the raptors just cant shoot. Missing 3's, missing free throws. Not enough 3's, not enough free throws...no established go to guy. I just dont know why they got rid of 3 point specialists like Kapono, Delfino, Parker, Peja..whos that specialist now? Jose? are you kidding me. Who's the best shooter on the team right now? Andrea? NAH!....Jose?? ...not with that many missed free throws this year alone...no way jose!
ReplyDeleteYou're reading too much into the statement. He's reacting to a specific annoying question by saying that he knows that the team can't shoot 3s so they have to try to be efficient from elsewhere on the floor and shoot a high percentage. He's not saying that 3-pointers and FTs are inefficient.
ReplyDeleteOn a team with 1 great shooter (Calderon), 2 ok shooters (Bargnani and Barbosa) and a bunch of others I'm not sure what you expect. On a team with 2 guys who can get to the line consistently (DeRozan, at a pretty good clip, Bargnani at an average/above average clip for his position) and Barbosa too I don't know what you expect. Triano doesn't expect much.
Anonymous #1:
ReplyDeleteI know why they got rid of Kapono: he was terrible. All he could do is shoot threes, and for the last one or two seasons he was in Toronto, he decided to stop shooting them. Then he was traded to the 76ers for Reggie Evans. Win much? I think so. Delfino was good and it was sad to see him go, but in return Toronto got Amir Johnson. Parker left as a free agent - went ring chasing with LeBron in Cleveland (we know how that turned out). Peja was good in spurts, but old, injured, and had no interest playing on a crappy team like the Raptors.
The best "shooter" (as defined by the player who scores the most points per shot) is Amir Johnson. The rest, in order, are: Ed Davis, Joey Dorsey, Alexis Ajinca, Jerryd Bayless, and Andrea Bargnani. To my surprise, Jerryd Bayless - a guy known for his lack a shooting - is actually ahead of Bargnani - a guy known for only being able to shoot. Figure that one out.
Anonymous #2:
No. Read what he said: "Listen, we’re the seventh or eighth best shooting team in the NBA without being able to make a three-point shot." He thinks the team is good at shooting, when clearly it is not. I'm not arguing that he thinks that shooting 3s and FTs are inefficient; I'm arguing that his definition of the word "shooting" is flawed and that this is a big problem. This explains why the team shoots so many bad shots. This is the reason the team has such a bad TS%. Jay Triano doesn't think the team is shooting poorly! He encourages the bad shooters to keep shooting, and doesn't put the good shooters in a position where they can be effective.
I haven't been hard on Triano all season long - I realize the crappy hand he's been dealt. He doesn't understand who's actually productive and who's not, but most people in the league don't either - including his own GM - so I can't blame him very much there. But this? This is inexcusable. Plain and simple, the Raptors are a bad shooting team.
Great breakdown.
ReplyDeleteJay with some more his condescending douche bag rhetoric. Jay is speaking like a Politician politicking telling half truths & using deceptive speak to fool Raptor fans whom they (BC/Jay) underestimate our collective basketball IQ.
BC fires Sam fired at 8-9 then Jay finishes up at a 25-40 clip (33-49).
OK, Jay needed a training camp to instill his system- done twice over.
Preached defense in 2 training camps yet Rap's rank as one of the worst if not the worst defensive team in the NBA over those two years.
Btw- When did Calderon become a great shooter?
He has been a major liability shooting the ball this season.
You need to come up with bette examples of what Triano thinks "shooting" means. In context, as I pointed out, it's not clear.
ReplyDeleteAlso, his audience for this comment is (i) annoying idiot journalist, (ii) the players themselves and (iii) tribal honking fans. All of them want to hear something good. Jay was pandering. You don't know what he thinks.
Anonymous #2.
Anonymous #2:
ReplyDeleteI think that "we’re the seventh or eighth best shooting team in the NBA without being able to make a three-point shot" is as clear as it gets, but let's go through everything he could've meant and eliminate the highly improbable.
He was not talking about free throw shooting. If he was, he would've used the words "free" and "throws".
He was not talking about three point shooting, as he goes out of his way to mention that his team sucks at it.
He was not talking about 2P%, because the word "without" indicates that his definition of "shooting" includes 3pters.
That leaves us with three possibilities: FG%, AdjFG%, and TS%. But the Raptors were ranked right around where Triano said - 7th-9th - in FG%. It's crystal clear to me that Triano was talking about the Raptors' FG%.
The problem is...if three pointers are part of your measurement of success, shouldn't you take into consideration the extra point awarded when you make a 3pt shot? The best way to evaluate "shooting" - that is 2pt shots and 3pt shots - is AdjFG%. So Jay Triano can't even see that FG% doesn't accurately measure his definition of "shooting", which is somewhat problematic to say the least.
As to what Triano actually "thinks", I can only go by what he says and what he does. Based on what he says - what he said in this very quote - he does not understand the difference between FG% and AdjFG%. Based on his actions - allowing inefficient shooters to take more shots - he doesn't understand shooting efficiency. Everything points to the fact that he has no clue, and until there is evidence to the contrary, I will continue to argue from this perspective.