{"id":98681,"date":"2016-06-14T12:21:04","date_gmt":"2016-06-14T20:21:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=98681"},"modified":"2016-06-14T12:41:04","modified_gmt":"2016-06-14T20:41:04","slug":"are-the-splash-bros-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=98681","title":{"rendered":"Are The Splash Bros Real?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Comments at Steve Sailer<\/a>:<\/p>\n

* The two GSW splash brothers, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson:<\/p>\n

1. Their fathers were both relatively lighter skinned black men who themselves played in the NBA, Dell Curry and Mychal Thompson<\/p>\n

2. They were both married to lighter than themselves wives who both played volleyball in college, a very light skinned black woman, and a white woman, respectively<\/p>\n

3. Because the two splash brothers are from two parent households and their mothers were lighter than they, and not some dark skinned proto-thug from a single BT-1000 mother household, black people don\u2019t think Curry or Thompson are \u201creal.\u201d Viz: ESPN, The Undefeated.<\/p>\n

* I think Curry\u2019s long bombs will have a greater impact than Kareem\u2019s sky hook because Curry isn\u2019t doing anything fundamentally different than what everyone else does \u2014 he\u2019s just doing it better, from farther away. A bunch of kids are going to start shooting like that, and (unlike before) their coaches won\u2019t bench them, and a few will really be able to do it. So you\u2019ll have lots of Steph Currys, instead of just one, and maybe even a Super-Curry.<\/p>\n

People who think Curry couldn\u2019t have succeeded w\/out rule changes really don\u2019t need to be lecturing anyone else on their knowledge of basketball. Partly because of his delicate features and skin color, there\u2019s a perception that Curry is a fragile little waif. Not so. And because he\u2019s got a great drive to the basket and can hoist up accurate shots instantly from way out, you have to defend more of the court against than you do against anyone else. He would have been a star in any era, and a monster star in any era with a three-point line.<\/p>\n

* Curry\u2019s benefited from the fact that the NBA finally clamped down on hacking\/fouling after letting it run wild in the 1990s (which put a lot thuggish streetball players in the NBA, to detrimental PR results) and less so in the 2000s, but still there.<\/p>\n

If this were 1995 or 98, Curry would be getting heavily bruised every night by some shadowing defender, which would hamper his accuracy and force him to get a wee bit closer (after juking a defender who was out for blood).<\/p>\n

In contrast, the 1990s saw the re-emergence of the towering center becoming dominant (Shag, Olajuwon, Alonzo Mourning) and big muscular smaller guys (steroid-enhanced, of course, which explains a lot of the over-the-top aggression) who could take the hacking and fouling and dish it out better.<\/p>\n

The three-point line was of course invented to bring the smaller (and whiter) dudes back into the game, allowing them to avoid being blocked closer to the basket and rewarding skill over brute athleticism.<\/p>\n

* I think it\u2019s a revolutionary advance in how basketball is played. <\/p>\n

I suspect their remarkable technical revolution in long distance shooting is the result of genes (obviously), but also because they avoided the \u201cinner city\u201d style of hoops, dunking, in addition to the \u201csuburban style,\u201d i.e. pass it around a lot and don\u2019t even think of shooting from anywhere beyond the very edge of the three point line and only if you\u2019re wide open.<\/p>\n

If you can throw in three out of five three-pointers, while your opponent throws in three out of five non-three-pointers, you win 9 to 6! And if you can foul the opponent on a couple of those forays and they miss a foul shot, it\u2019s 9 to 5\u2026 a blowout!<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t watch much NBA basketball these days, but this is more or less what happened when Oklahoma City collapsed against Golden State: OKC would grind and grind and occasionally get a two-point basket and sometimes get to the foul line. And then one of the Warrior\u2019s Terrible Twosome would fling the ball into the net from 3 feet beyond the arc.<\/p>\n

* Working like she has done over years doesn\u2019t just change the muscles; it changes the skeleton from what it would have been otherwise. (There have been studies of the evolution of bone mass in pitchers\u2019 arms; the bones in the pitching arm become big and heavy; after retirement they lose some mass but retain volume, as I recall.) There are limits, of course, especially in achieving elite levels of ability, but the shape of our bones is shaped by how we use them.<\/p>\n

* Rodman would watch film of individual players to scout how their shots tended to bounce off the rim. He had a whole package of things he did to rebound, like tipping the ball to himself, and he was tall, had a quick bounce and extreme laterally quickness. I\u2019ll take lateral quickness and lose several inches over very tall and sluggish. Rodman over just about anyone over 7 feet.<\/p>\n

* The skyhook took finesse. Today\u2019s players have never heard of finesse inside the 3-point line; it\u2019s all about lowering your shoulder and shoving. The skyhook\u2019s not a shot that\u2019s likely to succeed when defenders are allowed to hack at you and most fouls don\u2019t get called.<\/p>\n

* It\u2019s like how Rick Barry set the all-time record for career free-throw percentage by shooting underhanded but since then nobody has tried to copy him.<\/p>\n

* The NBA has made a lot of changes since the 1990\u2032s and since the Pistons\/Pacers brawl in 2004 to make the game more friendly to offensive players like Curry and he benefits greatly from that as have other players like Kevin Durant. He wouldn\u2019t be putting up those numbers if he played in the 80\u2032s or 90\u2032s.<\/p>\n

One thing I\u2019ve noticed watching Curry and Klay Thompson over the past few weeks is how high they keep the ball after catching it, especially Thompson. This helps them get their shot off a lot quicker. The fact that they are so accurate while shooting so quickly is really impressive. Most great outside shooters have always been set shooters like Curry\u2019s dad Dell.<\/p>\n

* Most big guys today are mostly relegated to finishes off the pick-and-roll, and putbacks on offensive boards. The day of the center as post player is over, or at least in hibernation, as sophisticated double-teams and semi-zone defenses disrupt entry passes and tangle up the big guys before they have a chance to put a post move on. Also, three points is so much better than two . . . .<\/p>\n

I think the development of Kareem\u2019s sky hook may also have benefited from the NCAA rules when he was at UCLA, i.e. no dunking meant that even a point-blank finish had to be via a \u2018finesse\u2019 layup or finger roll, so taking the slightly-less-certain but much-easier-to-launch and difficult to block sky hook made lots of sense.<\/p>\n

* “[The skyhook] might be the most awesome weapon in the history of any sport.” \u2013Pat Riley<\/p>\n

* The legalization of zone defense has significantly weakened post play for sure. Someone like LeBron who has both the physical strength to win 1v1 and the passing skill to exploit zones\/double teams can still be effective, but a big man who\u2019s a mediocre passer isn\u2019t going to be able to dominate nowadays even though the league\u2019s gotten smaller. Also a big man who can\u2019t stay in front of a guard on a pick-and-roll is a defensive liability against modern offenses, even if he\u2019s strong offensively. An athletic 6\u20199\u2033-6\u201910\u2033 big who can both move defensively and shoot is generally more valuable than a slow-footed 7-footer who needs to be near the rim, though such players are still around and can be useful, but they\u2019re far less prominent.<\/p>\n

* I remember Bjorn Borg had a hellacious topspin on his forehand. More than any other player, ever. The way he managed to do this was to hold the racket by the underside of the handle, instead of the side of the handle like everybody else. He said he acquired this strange way of holding a racquet because it\u2019s the same way he held his hockey stick, before he ever picked up a racquet. An added benefit was he didn\u2019t have to change his grip for his backhand. His dad, who was his early coach, never corrected him, because the kid\u2019s topspin was so hellacious from the get go, he let it slide, and Bjorn perfected it.<\/p>\n

When I read about it, I tried holding the racquet that way for about a week. It DID give me a helluva topspin, but I couldn\u2019t get control of it to be consistent, and didn\u2019t want to change my \u201cway of life\u201d to accommodate mastering it, especially since there was no guarantee that I ever could.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t want to spend a couple of years on it, discover it didn\u2019t work for me, and consequently fuck up my whole game.<\/p>\n

I suspect most people who acquire a unique way of reaching an athletic goal come about it the same way: spontaneously, subjectively, haphazardly, and that\u2019s hard for onlookers to duplicate.<\/p>\n

* Another interesting example is Jerry West\u2019s effective jump shot. Despite being the logo of the NBA, West\u2019s mid range jumper is a lost art. It\u2019s as dead as the hook-shot.<\/p>\n

* Re Kareem, he is obviously quite intelligent. Although basketball has its share of high-talent low-IQ stars (Shawn Kemp, Antoine Walker) a lot of the very best basketball players are noticeably intelligent. Magic Johnson built himself a small business empire. Michael Jordan is doing OK running a team. Lebron James has managed his business career extraordinarily well (on the path to becoming a billionaire) and has even leveraged his stardom into a successful sports management business featuring his high school buddies \u2014 something I thought would be a disaster but has been shrewdly done. David Robinson has a BA in mathematics and has been very successful in his post-basketball career. etc.<\/p>\n

* I once made up a list of the top ten basketball centers of all time, and only Moses Malone would appear to clearly have a 2 digit IQ.<\/p>\n

* First, Curry\u2019s phenomenally accurate from long distance, so he\u2019s definitely \u2018one of the best\u2019 in terms of three-point accuracy. But there have been plenty of very accurate shooters in the NBA with impressive range, from Larry Bird and Mark Price to Reggie Miller and Ray Allen to Kyle Korver and Klay Thompson.<\/p>\n

Second, it\u2019s the speed of his shot release that may be the innovation \u2014 there have been lots of very accurate three-point shooters, but I\u2019ve never seen one who got rid of the ball as quickly as Curry. Watch his shots vs Klay Thompson\u2019s. Thompson got a classic, conventional set-up and shooting motion that seems to take just that bit longer to wind up and release than Curry\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Third, players such as Curry and Thompson had to be granted the blessing of their coaches to launch seemingly-reckless long-range bombs with total impunity. The shots Curry takes routinely now, especially in high-stakes game situations, would have had his ass on the bench in seconds in past years. I think this is one reason it took Curry a while to emerge as a superstar \u2014 he had to be given utterly free rein to become what he is, and that\u2019s a big step in terms of coaching.<\/p>\n

* Does anybody else imitate Nowitzki\u2019s wrong-footed jump shot that\u2019s pretty much impossible to block?<\/p>\n

* Curry\u2019s speed of release of the basketball is like Dan Marino\u2019s throwing a football: Marino would be standing there and suddenly his left arm would come straight up to his helmet and the ball would rocket 40 yards downfield. I don\u2019t think Marino has been all that influential on how quarterback is played simply because nobody can imitate him. You could tell your son to study Peyton Manning to figure out all his many tricks for maximizing his output from his physical abilities, but you couldn\u2019t tell him to release the ball like Marino.<\/p>\n

* Curry\u2019s release is so fast it\u2019s sometimes quite hard to see his hands squaring up and launching the ball, and he often has either no follow-through at all, or else a weird exaggerated one that looks off-balance. He only sometimes seems to have the classic \u2018goose-neck\u2019 follow-through coaches were always harping on us about when I played high school hoops.<\/p>\n

* Although basketball has its share of high-talent low-IQ stars (Shawn Kemp, Antoine Walker)…<\/p>\n

* Please add Allen Iverson to that list. His older son had to be placed in behavioral treatment facilities so apparently there is a genetic problem. Larry Johnson is bankrupt and has nine children. Derrick Rose had to cheat on the SAT and get his grades changed to be eligible to play in college.<\/p>\n

The average SAT score for college football players is higher than college basketball players because football has a higher percentage of whites. Basketball players are less aggressive and animalistic, better social skills and speaking ability.<\/p>\n

Jamal Mashburn has a huge fast food empire. Shaquille Oneal skipped the first grade and has a doctorate in education. Apparently Shaq has never touched a dime of his basketball earnings and lived off of his endorsement money, or vice-versa. Shaq\u2019s son Shareef is a high school player and sounds intelligent in interviews.<\/p>\n

David Robinson\u2019s son was a national merit scholar and is on the Notre Dame football team. One of Kareem\u2019s sons is a cardiologist and yoga instructor.<\/p>\n

* And Marino is still the best quarterback of all time. Sportswriters can argue about stats or, absurdly, championships but you can just listen to the people who played against him.<\/p>\n

Rod Woodson went apoplectic on some TV broadcast counting down the top players of all time when Marino was announced with other qbs still on the board. His response was something like, \u201cWHAT? come on, man. Get out of here. Dan Marino is the greatest. This is nonsense. I played against Elway, Manning, Brady\u2026please. Theyre fine but they can\u2019t touch Marino\u201d<\/p>\n

Darrell green said a receiver could be short, fat and slow but if he even had average hands Marino would torch you.<\/p>\n

Bill Walsh said Montana was a good QB in a system but that Marino WAS the system.<\/p>\n

A defensive coordinator said something like it probably wouldn\u2019t matter if you had an offensive line. If a center could hike him the ball hed still get the ball where he wanted.<\/p>\n

The man could not run to save his life but he was harder to sack than Elway, Montana, Young, etc. because he was fearless and had that release.<\/p>\n

As for techniques, Terry Bradshaw held the ball at a different spot than almost everyone, I think, and he had a cannon. It\u2019s hard to say if people are outliers or if coaching is just prone to groupthink. These days white quarterbacks are likely to be guys with rich dads from Orange county or wherever who can afford to send their kids to private coaches who all teach the \u201cright\u201d technique.<\/p>\n

* I\u2019ve always wondered about Dennis Rodman\u2019s ability to anticipate where a missed shot would bounce to off the rim. Is that something that could be taught to young players, or is it just a knack that Rodman had? When I played basketball, it was always a huge surprise to me which way the rebound would bounce.<\/p>\n

My impression is that other guys weren\u2019t as 100% clueless as me. For example, since the Rice basketball team never came close to making the NCAA tournament, I used to watch tournament games with a Rice basketball forward named Dave who had a hilarious talent of being able to predict missed freethrows just as they left the shooter\u2019s fingertips. If he\u2019d say \u201cbrick\u201d as the free throw was released, 98% of the time the free throw would then clang off the rim. This was a watching a fuzzy 1977 19\u2033 TV.<\/p>\n

I suspect Rodman could have predicted where the rebound would bounce to.<\/p>\n

Some of Rodman\u2019s skills were due to him not bothering about some normal basketball duties like shooting the ball. But, still, he remains one of the more uncanny athletes of my lifetime.<\/p>\n

* Dave Bing, who led the NBA in scoring one year despite being blind in one eye, made a post NBA fortune owning a mini-mill steel company. His term as mayor of Detroit wasn\u2019t very successful, but that seemed like something he took on out of noblesse oblige.<\/p>\n

* Curry is possible, like Nash before him, because of the changes in rules and resultant spacing. The hand-check was fully banned in 2004, just as Nash became the league\u2019s MVP; before that, he was a lame version of Mark Price.<\/p>\n

The NBA used to be dominated by bigs. This was even the case when Jordan was at his height \u2014 the other top players in the 90s were Malone, Olajuwon, Barkley, etc.<\/p>\n

Today the NBA is much more of a finesse game. There\u2019s less power and arguably less athleticism than 20 years ago. This is by design.<\/p>\n

The days of defensive slugfests in the mid-80s as ppg standard are over. Not because the players have improved, but because the rules have fundamentally changed and softened the game. What used to be a physical, often ugly battle \u2014 the playoffs \u2014 now looks more like an 80s all-star game. Curry and the rest are given huge amounts of space to operate and go where they want; thus they\u2019re often given favorable looks from deep, rather than bounded for 90 ft.<\/p>\n