The Rules of Pacers Digest
Hello everyone,
Whether your are a long standing forum member or whether you have just registered today, it's a good idea to read and review the rules below so that you have a very good idea of what to expect when you come to Pacers Digest.
A quick note to new members: Your posts will not immediately show up when you make them. An administrator has to approve at least your first post before the forum software will later upgrade your account to the status of a fully-registered member. This usually happens within a couple of hours or so after your post(s) is/are approved, so you may need to be a little patient at first.
Why do we do this? So that it's more difficult for spammers (be they human or robot) to post, and so users who are banned cannot immediately re-register and start dousing people with verbal flames.
Below are the rules of Pacers Digest. After you have read them, you will have a very good sense of where we are coming from, what we expect, what we don't want to see, and how we react to things.
Rule #1
Pacers Digest is intended to be a place to discuss basketball without having to deal with the kinds of behaviors or attitudes that distract people from sticking with the discussion of the topics at hand. These unwanted distractions can come in many forms, and admittedly it can sometimes be tricky to pin down each and every kind that can rear its ugly head, but we feel that the following examples and explanations cover at least a good portion of that ground and should at least give people a pretty good idea of the kinds of things we actively discourage:
"Anyone who __________ is a liar / a fool / an idiot / a blind homer / has their head buried in the sand / a blind hater / doesn't know basketball / doesn't watch the games"
"People with intelligence will agree with me when I say that __________"
"Only stupid people think / believe / do ___________"
"I can't wait to hear something from PosterX when he/she sees that **insert a given incident or current event that will have probably upset or disappointed PosterX here**"
"He/she is just delusional"
"This thread is stupid / worthless / embarrassing"
"I'm going to take a moment to point and
/ laugh at PosterX / GroupOfPeopleY who thought / believed *insert though/belief here*"
"Remember when PosterX said OldCommentY that no longer looks good?"
In general, if a comment goes from purely on topic to something 'ad hominem' (personal jabs, personal shots, attacks, flames, however you want to call it, towards a person, or a group of people, or a given city/state/country of people), those are most likely going to be found intolerable.
We also dissuade passive aggressive behavior. This can be various things, but common examples include statements that are basically meant to imply someone is either stupid or otherwise incapable of holding a rational conversation. This can include (but is not limited to) laughing at someone's conclusions rather than offering an honest rebuttal, asking people what game they were watching, or another common problem is Poster X will say "that player isn't that bad" and then Poster Y will say something akin to "LOL you think that player is good". We're not going to tolerate those kinds of comments out of respect for the community at large and for the sake of trying to just have an honest conversation.
Now, does the above cover absolutely every single kind of distraction that is unwanted? Probably not, but you should by now have a good idea of the general types of things we will be discouraging. The above examples are meant to give you a good feel for / idea of what we're looking for. If something new or different than the above happens to come along and results in the same problem (that being, any other attitude or behavior that ultimately distracts from actually just discussing the topic at hand, or that is otherwise disrespectful to other posters), we can and we will take action to curb this as well, so please don't take this to mean that if you managed to technically avoid saying something exactly like one of the above examples that you are then somehow off the hook.
That all having been said, our goal is to do so in a generally kind and respectful way, and that doesn't mean the moment we see something we don't like that somebody is going to be suspended or banned, either. It just means that at the very least we will probably say something about it, quite possibly snipping out the distracting parts of the post in question while leaving alone the parts that are actually just discussing the topics, and in the event of a repeating or excessive problem, then we will start issuing infractions to try to further discourage further repeat problems, and if it just never seems to improve, then finally suspensions or bans will come into play. We would prefer it never went that far, and most of the time for most of our posters, it won't ever have to.
A slip up every once and a while is pretty normal, but, again, when it becomes repetitive or excessive, something will be done. Something occasional is probably going to be let go (within reason), but when it starts to become habitual or otherwise a pattern, odds are very good that we will step in.
There's always a small minority that like to push people's buttons and/or test their own boundaries with regards to the administrators, and in the case of someone acting like that, please be aware that this is not a court of law, but a private website run by people who are simply trying to do the right thing as they see it. If we feel that you are a special case that needs to be dealt with in an exceptional way because your behavior isn't explicitly mirroring one of our above examples of what we generally discourage, we can and we will take atypical action to prevent this from continuing if you are not cooperative with us.
Also please be aware that you will not be given a pass simply by claiming that you were 'only joking,' because quite honestly, when someone really is just joking, for one thing most people tend to pick up on the joke, including the person or group that is the target of the joke, and for another thing, in the event where an honest joke gets taken seriously and it upsets or angers someone, the person who is truly 'only joking' will quite commonly go out of his / her way to apologize and will try to mend fences. People who are dishonest about their statements being 'jokes' do not do so, and in turn that becomes a clear sign of what is really going on. It's nothing new.
In any case, quite frankly, the overall quality and health of the entire forum's community is more important than any one troublesome user will ever be, regardless of exactly how a problem is exhibiting itself, and if it comes down to us having to make a choice between you versus the greater health and happiness of the entire community, the community of this forum will win every time.
Lastly, there are also some posters, who are generally great contributors and do not otherwise cause any problems, who sometimes feel it's their place to provoke or to otherwise 'mess with' that small minority of people described in the last paragraph, and while we possibly might understand why you might feel you WANT to do something like that, the truth is we can't actually tolerate that kind of behavior from you any more than we can tolerate the behavior from them. So if we feel that you are trying to provoke those other posters into doing or saying something that will get themselves into trouble, then we will start to view you as a problem as well, because of the same reason as before: The overall health of the forum comes first, and trying to stir the pot with someone like that doesn't help, it just makes it worse. Some will simply disagree with this philosophy, but if so, then so be it because ultimately we have to do what we think is best so long as it's up to us.
If you see a problem that we haven't addressed, the best and most appropriate course for a forum member to take here is to look over to the left of the post in question. See underneath that poster's name, avatar, and other info, down where there's a little triangle with an exclamation point (!) in it? Click that. That allows you to report the post to the admins so we can definitely notice it and give it a look to see what we feel we should do about it. Beyond that, obviously it's human nature sometimes to want to speak up to the poster in question who has bothered you, but we would ask that you try to refrain from doing so because quite often what happens is two or more posters all start going back and forth about the original offending post, and suddenly the entire thread is off topic or otherwise derailed. So while the urge to police it yourself is understandable, it's best to just report it to us and let us handle it. Thank you!
All of the above is going to be subject to a case by case basis, but generally and broadly speaking, this should give everyone a pretty good idea of how things will typically / most often be handled.
Rule #2
If the actions of an administrator inspire you to make a comment, criticism, or express a concern about it, there is a wrong place and a couple of right places to do so.
The wrong place is to do so in the original thread in which the administrator took action. For example, if a post gets an infraction, or a post gets deleted, or a comment within a larger post gets clipped out, in a thread discussing Paul George, the wrong thing to do is to distract from the discussion of Paul George by adding your off topic thoughts on what the administrator did.
The right places to do so are:
A) Start a thread about the specific incident you want to talk about on the Feedback board. This way you are able to express yourself in an area that doesn't throw another thread off topic, and this way others can add their two cents as well if they wish, and additionally if there's something that needs to be said by the administrators, that is where they will respond to it.
B) Send a private message to the administrators, and they can respond to you that way.
If this is done the wrong way, those comments will be deleted, and if it's a repeating problem then it may also receive an infraction as well.
Rule #3
If a poster is bothering you, and an administrator has not or will not deal with that poster to the extent that you would prefer, you have a powerful tool at your disposal, one that has recently been upgraded and is now better than ever: The ability to ignore a user.
When you ignore a user, you will unfortunately still see some hints of their existence (nothing we can do about that), however, it does the following key things:
A) Any post they make will be completely invisible as you scroll through a thread.
B) The new addition to this feature: If someone QUOTES a user you are ignoring, you do not have to read who it was, or what that poster said, unless you go out of your way to click on a link to find out who it is and what they said.
To utilize this feature, from any page on Pacers Digest, scroll to the top of the page, look to the top right where it says 'Settings' and click that. From the settings page, look to the left side of the page where it says 'My Settings', and look down from there until you see 'Edit Ignore List' and click that. From here, it will say 'Add a Member to Your List...' Beneath that, click in the text box to the right of 'User Name', type in or copy & paste the username of the poster you are ignoring, and once their name is in the box, look over to the far right and click the 'Okay' button. All done!
Rule #4
Regarding infractions, currently they carry a value of one point each, and that point will expire in 31 days. If at any point a poster is carrying three points at the same time, that poster will be suspended until the oldest of the three points expires.
Rule #5
When you share or paste content or articles from another website, you must include the URL/link back to where you found it, who wrote it, and what website it's from. Said content will be removed if this doesn't happen.
An example:
If I copy and paste an article from the Indianapolis Star website, I would post something like this:
http://www.linktothearticlegoeshere.com/article
Title of the Article
Author's Name
Indianapolis Star
Rule #6
We cannot tolerate illegal videos on Pacers Digest. This means do not share any links to them, do not mention any websites that host them or link to them, do not describe how to find them in any way, and do not ask about them. Posts doing anything of the sort will be removed, the offenders will be contacted privately, and if the problem becomes habitual, you will be suspended, and if it still persists, you will probably be banned.
The legal means of watching or listening to NBA games are NBA League Pass Broadband (for US, or for International; both cost money) and NBA Audio League Pass (which is free). Look for them on NBA.com.
Rule #7
Provocative statements in a signature, or as an avatar, or as the 'tagline' beneath a poster's username (where it says 'Member' or 'Administrator' by default, if it is not altered) are an unwanted distraction that will more than likely be removed on sight. There can be shades of gray to this, but in general this could be something political or religious that is likely going to provoke or upset people, or otherwise something that is mean-spirited at the expense of a poster, a group of people, or a population.
It may or may not go without saying, but this goes for threads and posts as well, particularly when it's not made on the off-topic board (Market Square).
We do make exceptions if we feel the content is both innocuous and unlikely to cause social problems on the forum (such as wishing someone a Merry Christmas or a Happy Easter), and we also also make exceptions if such topics come up with regards to a sports figure (such as the Lance Stephenson situation bringing up discussions of domestic abuse and the law, or when Jason Collins came out as gay and how that lead to some discussion about gay rights).
However, once the discussion seems to be more/mostly about the political issues instead of the sports figure or his specific situation, the thread is usually closed.
Rule #8
We prefer self-restraint and/or modesty when making jokes or off topic comments in a sports discussion thread. They can be fun, but sometimes they derail or distract from a topic, and we don't want to see that happen. If we feel it is a problem, we will either delete or move those posts from the thread.
Rule #9
Generally speaking, we try to be a "PG-13" rated board, and we don't want to see sexual content or similarly suggestive content. Vulgarity is a more muddled issue, though again we prefer things to lean more towards "PG-13" than "R". If we feel things have gone too far, we will step in.
Rule #10
We like small signatures, not big signatures. The bigger the signature, the more likely it is an annoying or distracting signature.
Rule #11
Do not advertise anything without talking about it with the administrators first. This includes advertising with your signature, with your avatar, through private messaging, and/or by making a thread or post.
Whether your are a long standing forum member or whether you have just registered today, it's a good idea to read and review the rules below so that you have a very good idea of what to expect when you come to Pacers Digest.
A quick note to new members: Your posts will not immediately show up when you make them. An administrator has to approve at least your first post before the forum software will later upgrade your account to the status of a fully-registered member. This usually happens within a couple of hours or so after your post(s) is/are approved, so you may need to be a little patient at first.
Why do we do this? So that it's more difficult for spammers (be they human or robot) to post, and so users who are banned cannot immediately re-register and start dousing people with verbal flames.
Below are the rules of Pacers Digest. After you have read them, you will have a very good sense of where we are coming from, what we expect, what we don't want to see, and how we react to things.
Rule #1
Pacers Digest is intended to be a place to discuss basketball without having to deal with the kinds of behaviors or attitudes that distract people from sticking with the discussion of the topics at hand. These unwanted distractions can come in many forms, and admittedly it can sometimes be tricky to pin down each and every kind that can rear its ugly head, but we feel that the following examples and explanations cover at least a good portion of that ground and should at least give people a pretty good idea of the kinds of things we actively discourage:
"Anyone who __________ is a liar / a fool / an idiot / a blind homer / has their head buried in the sand / a blind hater / doesn't know basketball / doesn't watch the games"
"People with intelligence will agree with me when I say that __________"
"Only stupid people think / believe / do ___________"
"I can't wait to hear something from PosterX when he/she sees that **insert a given incident or current event that will have probably upset or disappointed PosterX here**"
"He/she is just delusional"
"This thread is stupid / worthless / embarrassing"
"I'm going to take a moment to point and
/ laugh at PosterX / GroupOfPeopleY who thought / believed *insert though/belief here*""Remember when PosterX said OldCommentY that no longer looks good?
"In general, if a comment goes from purely on topic to something 'ad hominem' (personal jabs, personal shots, attacks, flames, however you want to call it, towards a person, or a group of people, or a given city/state/country of people), those are most likely going to be found intolerable.
We also dissuade passive aggressive behavior. This can be various things, but common examples include statements that are basically meant to imply someone is either stupid or otherwise incapable of holding a rational conversation. This can include (but is not limited to) laughing at someone's conclusions rather than offering an honest rebuttal, asking people what game they were watching, or another common problem is Poster X will say "that player isn't that bad" and then Poster Y will say something akin to "LOL you think that player is good". We're not going to tolerate those kinds of comments out of respect for the community at large and for the sake of trying to just have an honest conversation.
Now, does the above cover absolutely every single kind of distraction that is unwanted? Probably not, but you should by now have a good idea of the general types of things we will be discouraging. The above examples are meant to give you a good feel for / idea of what we're looking for. If something new or different than the above happens to come along and results in the same problem (that being, any other attitude or behavior that ultimately distracts from actually just discussing the topic at hand, or that is otherwise disrespectful to other posters), we can and we will take action to curb this as well, so please don't take this to mean that if you managed to technically avoid saying something exactly like one of the above examples that you are then somehow off the hook.
That all having been said, our goal is to do so in a generally kind and respectful way, and that doesn't mean the moment we see something we don't like that somebody is going to be suspended or banned, either. It just means that at the very least we will probably say something about it, quite possibly snipping out the distracting parts of the post in question while leaving alone the parts that are actually just discussing the topics, and in the event of a repeating or excessive problem, then we will start issuing infractions to try to further discourage further repeat problems, and if it just never seems to improve, then finally suspensions or bans will come into play. We would prefer it never went that far, and most of the time for most of our posters, it won't ever have to.
A slip up every once and a while is pretty normal, but, again, when it becomes repetitive or excessive, something will be done. Something occasional is probably going to be let go (within reason), but when it starts to become habitual or otherwise a pattern, odds are very good that we will step in.
There's always a small minority that like to push people's buttons and/or test their own boundaries with regards to the administrators, and in the case of someone acting like that, please be aware that this is not a court of law, but a private website run by people who are simply trying to do the right thing as they see it. If we feel that you are a special case that needs to be dealt with in an exceptional way because your behavior isn't explicitly mirroring one of our above examples of what we generally discourage, we can and we will take atypical action to prevent this from continuing if you are not cooperative with us.
Also please be aware that you will not be given a pass simply by claiming that you were 'only joking,' because quite honestly, when someone really is just joking, for one thing most people tend to pick up on the joke, including the person or group that is the target of the joke, and for another thing, in the event where an honest joke gets taken seriously and it upsets or angers someone, the person who is truly 'only joking' will quite commonly go out of his / her way to apologize and will try to mend fences. People who are dishonest about their statements being 'jokes' do not do so, and in turn that becomes a clear sign of what is really going on. It's nothing new.
In any case, quite frankly, the overall quality and health of the entire forum's community is more important than any one troublesome user will ever be, regardless of exactly how a problem is exhibiting itself, and if it comes down to us having to make a choice between you versus the greater health and happiness of the entire community, the community of this forum will win every time.
Lastly, there are also some posters, who are generally great contributors and do not otherwise cause any problems, who sometimes feel it's their place to provoke or to otherwise 'mess with' that small minority of people described in the last paragraph, and while we possibly might understand why you might feel you WANT to do something like that, the truth is we can't actually tolerate that kind of behavior from you any more than we can tolerate the behavior from them. So if we feel that you are trying to provoke those other posters into doing or saying something that will get themselves into trouble, then we will start to view you as a problem as well, because of the same reason as before: The overall health of the forum comes first, and trying to stir the pot with someone like that doesn't help, it just makes it worse. Some will simply disagree with this philosophy, but if so, then so be it because ultimately we have to do what we think is best so long as it's up to us.
If you see a problem that we haven't addressed, the best and most appropriate course for a forum member to take here is to look over to the left of the post in question. See underneath that poster's name, avatar, and other info, down where there's a little triangle with an exclamation point (!) in it? Click that. That allows you to report the post to the admins so we can definitely notice it and give it a look to see what we feel we should do about it. Beyond that, obviously it's human nature sometimes to want to speak up to the poster in question who has bothered you, but we would ask that you try to refrain from doing so because quite often what happens is two or more posters all start going back and forth about the original offending post, and suddenly the entire thread is off topic or otherwise derailed. So while the urge to police it yourself is understandable, it's best to just report it to us and let us handle it. Thank you!
All of the above is going to be subject to a case by case basis, but generally and broadly speaking, this should give everyone a pretty good idea of how things will typically / most often be handled.
Rule #2
If the actions of an administrator inspire you to make a comment, criticism, or express a concern about it, there is a wrong place and a couple of right places to do so.
The wrong place is to do so in the original thread in which the administrator took action. For example, if a post gets an infraction, or a post gets deleted, or a comment within a larger post gets clipped out, in a thread discussing Paul George, the wrong thing to do is to distract from the discussion of Paul George by adding your off topic thoughts on what the administrator did.
The right places to do so are:
A) Start a thread about the specific incident you want to talk about on the Feedback board. This way you are able to express yourself in an area that doesn't throw another thread off topic, and this way others can add their two cents as well if they wish, and additionally if there's something that needs to be said by the administrators, that is where they will respond to it.
B) Send a private message to the administrators, and they can respond to you that way.
If this is done the wrong way, those comments will be deleted, and if it's a repeating problem then it may also receive an infraction as well.
Rule #3
If a poster is bothering you, and an administrator has not or will not deal with that poster to the extent that you would prefer, you have a powerful tool at your disposal, one that has recently been upgraded and is now better than ever: The ability to ignore a user.
When you ignore a user, you will unfortunately still see some hints of their existence (nothing we can do about that), however, it does the following key things:
A) Any post they make will be completely invisible as you scroll through a thread.
B) The new addition to this feature: If someone QUOTES a user you are ignoring, you do not have to read who it was, or what that poster said, unless you go out of your way to click on a link to find out who it is and what they said.
To utilize this feature, from any page on Pacers Digest, scroll to the top of the page, look to the top right where it says 'Settings' and click that. From the settings page, look to the left side of the page where it says 'My Settings', and look down from there until you see 'Edit Ignore List' and click that. From here, it will say 'Add a Member to Your List...' Beneath that, click in the text box to the right of 'User Name', type in or copy & paste the username of the poster you are ignoring, and once their name is in the box, look over to the far right and click the 'Okay' button. All done!
Rule #4
Regarding infractions, currently they carry a value of one point each, and that point will expire in 31 days. If at any point a poster is carrying three points at the same time, that poster will be suspended until the oldest of the three points expires.
Rule #5
When you share or paste content or articles from another website, you must include the URL/link back to where you found it, who wrote it, and what website it's from. Said content will be removed if this doesn't happen.
An example:
If I copy and paste an article from the Indianapolis Star website, I would post something like this:
http://www.linktothearticlegoeshere.com/article
Title of the Article
Author's Name
Indianapolis Star
Rule #6
We cannot tolerate illegal videos on Pacers Digest. This means do not share any links to them, do not mention any websites that host them or link to them, do not describe how to find them in any way, and do not ask about them. Posts doing anything of the sort will be removed, the offenders will be contacted privately, and if the problem becomes habitual, you will be suspended, and if it still persists, you will probably be banned.
The legal means of watching or listening to NBA games are NBA League Pass Broadband (for US, or for International; both cost money) and NBA Audio League Pass (which is free). Look for them on NBA.com.
Rule #7
Provocative statements in a signature, or as an avatar, or as the 'tagline' beneath a poster's username (where it says 'Member' or 'Administrator' by default, if it is not altered) are an unwanted distraction that will more than likely be removed on sight. There can be shades of gray to this, but in general this could be something political or religious that is likely going to provoke or upset people, or otherwise something that is mean-spirited at the expense of a poster, a group of people, or a population.
It may or may not go without saying, but this goes for threads and posts as well, particularly when it's not made on the off-topic board (Market Square).
We do make exceptions if we feel the content is both innocuous and unlikely to cause social problems on the forum (such as wishing someone a Merry Christmas or a Happy Easter), and we also also make exceptions if such topics come up with regards to a sports figure (such as the Lance Stephenson situation bringing up discussions of domestic abuse and the law, or when Jason Collins came out as gay and how that lead to some discussion about gay rights).
However, once the discussion seems to be more/mostly about the political issues instead of the sports figure or his specific situation, the thread is usually closed.
Rule #8
We prefer self-restraint and/or modesty when making jokes or off topic comments in a sports discussion thread. They can be fun, but sometimes they derail or distract from a topic, and we don't want to see that happen. If we feel it is a problem, we will either delete or move those posts from the thread.
Rule #9
Generally speaking, we try to be a "PG-13" rated board, and we don't want to see sexual content or similarly suggestive content. Vulgarity is a more muddled issue, though again we prefer things to lean more towards "PG-13" than "R". If we feel things have gone too far, we will step in.
Rule #10
We like small signatures, not big signatures. The bigger the signature, the more likely it is an annoying or distracting signature.
Rule #11
Do not advertise anything without talking about it with the administrators first. This includes advertising with your signature, with your avatar, through private messaging, and/or by making a thread or post.
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Re: Greatest Shooters Ever
http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insid...PERDiem-100309
Greatest shooters ever
PER Diem: March 9, 2010
John Hollinger
ESPN.com
Steve Nash may be known more for his passing skills, but his shooting ability ain't too shabby either.
You'll often hear casual basketball fans lament the lack of shooting in today's game, especially from the free throw line. But actually, we have the opposite problem: The current NBA is littered with great shooters. In fact, several of the best shooters of all time are currently on NBA rosters, and most of them are more or less in their prime.
Without leaving the top half of the Western Conference standings, for instance, I can point out names like Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki, Peja Stojakovic, Kevin Martin and Chauncey Billups, all of whom have put together multiple seasons that rank among the best shooting performances in history. That's to say nothing of the other great shooters in the league -- Ray Allen, Jason Kapono, free throw-record holder Jose Calderon, Ben Gordon, Kyle Korver … the list goes on and on.
But which one is the best of the best? Aye, there's the rub. We've never had a clear metric for ranking the game's best shooters … well, at least until today's ill-advised endeavor. That's right -- we're going to try ranking the best shooters in the game's history.
First, a caveat: By "history," we're limiting ourselves to the 3-point era. There were plenty of great shooters who played prior to that point, but we have no way to verify their cases statistically. In particular, it appears Calvin Murphy and Rick Barry -- two players from the 1970s who were renowned for their shooting range and rank among the top six free throw shooters of all time -- are slighted by today's methodology. Bill Sharman, Mike Newlin and Fred Brown also get my apologies.
OK, now for the method. My first step is to require players pass through a couple of fairly low "gates:" shooting 85 percent from the line with at least a 45 percent mark on 3s, or shooting 87.5 percent from the line with at least 42.5 percent made on 3s, or shooting 90 percent from the stripe with at least 40 percent made on 3s.
The point at this stage isn't to determine the best shooter of all time but to eliminate all the players we know darn well aren't the best shooter of all time. This does an efficient job, narrowing our list to 44 players.
From there, I set about creating a formula to rank the best shooters. I thought I'd have to dream up something very complex to adjust for all the variables involved, but it turned out a simple formula worked far better than any of my more exotic concoctions. I simply added a player's 2-point, 3-point and free throw percentages. We'll call this "Combined Shooting Rating," or CSR for short.
CSR works for a few reasons. First, the free throw is a pretty fair arbiter of shooting ability. It's the only true apples-to-apples measurement we have, because it's always 15 feet from the hoop and unguarded, regardless of what system the team runs or how the player is used. It's only one shot among many that need to be in a player's arsenal, but it's an important one.
Second, the yin and yang of 2-point and 3-point ability balance each other out. Some players are more effective midrange shooters than long-range marksmen, while others are more comfortable bombing away. And using this method makes the system more fair to players from the 1980s and early '90s, when teams didn't utilize the 3 as often or as effectively.
The one thing I left out was frequency. Obviously, players who pick their spots get higher-percentage looks than those who are the focal point of the offense on play after play. On the other hand, it's extremely difficult for players in the former group to shoot well enough from the line to crack the elite on this list, simply because of the lack of in-game repetition. Several snipers with great numbers from the floor (Brent Barry, for instance, or Hubert Davis) couldn't get into the top 10 because of free throw percentage, and even the second-ranked player on our list (one of the all-time snipers) has the worst free throw percentage of anybody in the top 10.
Also, I did set two minimum standards: 10,000 career minutes and 250 made 3-pointers. I didn't want anybody getting onto the list with a lengthy career sparsely populated with 3-point attempts; that seemed counter to the point of the exercise. While arbitrary, 250 nicely separated the truly deadly long-range shooters from the guys who merely hit midrange J's and made their free throws.
So now that our rather simple CSR method is clear, let's get to our list of the top 10 shooters, which also apparently doubles as a great predictor of post-career broadcasting, coaching and front-office opportunities. According to CSR, they are:
Top All-Time Shooters By CSR
Player 2-Pt% 3-Pt% FT% CSR
Steve Nash .515 .431 .903 1.849
Steve Kerr .494 .454 .864 1.812
Reggie Miller .525 .395 .888 1.807
Mark Price .501 .402 .904 1.807
Jeff Hornacek .515 .403 .877 1.795
Chris Mullin .533 .384 .865 1.783
Peja Stojakovic .485 .400 .895 1.779
Larry Bird .509 .376 .886 1.770
Ray Allen .482 .396 .893 1.770
Dana Barros .488 .411 .858 1.757
Min. 10,000 career minutes
That's right: Steve Nash. By a mile.
I've always written that his shooting is his most underappreciated skill, but even so, this blows me away.
It makes sense, though -- run through the numbers, and Nash crushes every possible competitor. And it becomes even more impressive when one considers nearly all his shots from the field have come off the dribble. Nash and the fourth-ranked player on this list, Mark Price, are the only two players in history to shoot better than 50 percent on 2s, 40 percent on 3s and 90 percent from the line for their careers. And as it happens, Nash's general manager in Phoenix, Steve Kerr, is second on the list.
One strong point of this list is that it acknowledges a few of the game's great midrange shooters. Neither Chris Mullin nor Jeff Hornacek shot the 3 with great frequency, for instance, but both were deadly accurate when they did, and they were exceptional from 2-point range.
Fans of "Larry Legend" undoubtedly will be disappointed to see him ninth on this list and to see one player of his own size -- Stojakovic -- rank just ahead of him. But Bird's greatest asset was his ability to make high-difficulty shots, which would need to be part of a different list entirely -- a list that would include different players. (Kobe Bryant, for one obvious example, is nowhere close on the above list but would have to rank high on any list of tough-shot makers.)
If you're wondering about Nowitzki, he is 13th, and easily the best among players 6-foot-10 or taller. Players 11 to 20 on this list are Barry, Hersey Hawkins, Nowitzki, Davis, Korver, Mo Williams, Danny Ainge, Allan Houston, Scott Skiles and Glen Rice.
Before I exit, some players who didn't make my list warrant mentioning.
The first is Drazen Petrovic, who just missed my minutes cut-off because of his untimely death in 1993. Petro's rating of 1.799 would have put him fifth on the list, a fact that becomes even more impressive when one considers he was only 28 when he died -- most players improve their numbers on the above criteria well into their 30s.
The second is Calderon, who needs only 779 more minutes to crack the list; his 1.805 career mark would place him fifth. Calderon also has only 238 made 3s on his career and needs to make 12 more of those. You might think his free throw percentage carries him into the top 10, but actually it's his amazing 2-point field goal percentage that does it. Calderon has shot 53.4 percent for his career on 2-point shots, the best mark of any of the 44 players in this study.
Finally, two young players on the Golden State Warriors have established a great chance of finishing their careers near the top of this list. Rookie Stephen Curry is at 1.770 thus far in his brief career, and should that number hold up, he'll finish his career in the top 10. Since players' shooting often improves dramatically in their second through fifth seasons, he could finish as one of the top-ranked players of all time.
Then again, he also might finish second among current Warriors. Curry's teammate, Anthony Morrow, has played two NBA seasons as a part-time starter, and posted career marks of 48.8 percent on 2s, 45.9 percent on 3s and 87.6 percent from the line. That's good for a CSR of 1.822, which is better than every other player in history except Nash.
Obviously we're dealing with smaller sample sizes with those two, and it's possible they'll regress in future seasons. But when we discuss the great all-time shooters, those two are worth tracking in future seasons to see if they warrant a spot in the conversation."I had to take her down like Chris Brown."
-Lance Stephenson -
Re: Greatest Shooters Ever
[edit] whoops BRush beat me to it.There are two types of quarterbacks in the league: Those whom over time, the league figures out ... and those who figure out the league.Comment
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Re: Greatest Shooters Ever
The stats must have been calculated wrong; I see neither Kareem Rush nor Travis Diener on that list.Comment
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Re: Greatest Shooters Ever
Interesting. I don't believe you can judge the best shooters on stats alone, but interesting nonetheless.Comment
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Re: Greatest Shooters Ever
Or Sarunas Jasekevicius, eitherOriginally posted by LoneGranger33 View Post
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Re: Greatest Shooters Ever
Exhibit A why John Hollinger should never be allowed near a basketball, ever. Not that i think he's ever been close enough to touch one anyway.
It wasn't about being the team everyone loved, it was about beating the teams everyone else loved.
Division Champions 1955, 1956, 1988, 1989, 1990, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
Conference Champions 1955, 1956, 1988, 2005
NBA Champions 1989, 1990, 2004Comment
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Re: Greatest Shooters Ever
Gotta be allergies to leather or something.Originally posted by Kstat View PostComment
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Re: Greatest Shooters Ever
Everything Hollinger does is judged on stats alone.Originally posted by microwave_oven View Post"I had to take her down like Chris Brown."
-Lance StephensonComment
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Re: Greatest Shooters Ever
Hollinger doesn't use the bathroom until its statistically favorable to do so.
And even then he has a big *** chart telling him when to use the handle to flush.Last edited by Kstat; 03-09-2010, 03:34 PM.
It wasn't about being the team everyone loved, it was about beating the teams everyone else loved.
Division Champions 1955, 1956, 1988, 1989, 1990, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
Conference Champions 1955, 1956, 1988, 2005
NBA Champions 1989, 1990, 2004Comment
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Re: Greatest Shooters Ever
I forgot how good a shooter Dana Barros was. Stats are stats, but it's still pretty interesting.Comment
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Re: Greatest Shooters Ever
I never liked Jeff Hornacek, but that guy could shoot.
Damn, Nash is a good 3-pt shooter. Hudathunk?First time in a long time, I've been happy with the team that was constructed, and now they struggle. I blame the coach.Comment
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Re: Greatest Shooters Ever
Where's Dell Curry from the list?
Johnny Neuman?
Even more egregiously - Chris Jackson/ Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf?Why do the things that we treasure most, slip away in time
Till to the music we grow deaf, to God's beauty blind
Why do the things that connect us slowly pull us apart?
Till we fall away in our own darkness, a stranger to our own hearts
And life itself, rushing over me
Life itself, the wind in black elms,
Life itself in your heart and in your eyes, I can't make it without you
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Re: Greatest Shooters Ever
http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-tr...nce-stephenson
"But, first, let us now praise famous moments, because something happened Tuesday night in Indianapolis that you can watch a lifetime’s worth of professional basketball and never see again. There was a brief, and very decisive, and altogether unprecedented, outburst of genuine officiating, and it was directed at the best player in the world, and that, my dear young person, simply is not done."Comment
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Re: Greatest Shooters Ever
Obviously, that list is irrelevant (!) because only two of those players ultimately had seasons that culminated as winning efforts, Steve Kerr who obviously was the key piece to the Bulls success, and that Bird guy. Whatever happened to that Bird guy, anyhoo?Comment
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