Maybe I was missing your point, Murphy.
"my point isn't that wallace is a better three point shooter..it is that finley isn't that good of a three point shooter..
i know that finley is a better three point shooter than wallace, regardless of the percentage..however, he's not that great of a 3 point shooter."
Because going by what you were writing...
"...another funny thing..2 of the past 4 years, wallace has actually been a better three point shooter than finley..."
"... the mavs would actually be better from beyond the arc if they didn't have him [Finley] shooting near as many."
"...my argument is that bringing in wallace for finley would actually help the mavs as a threat from beyond the arc."
...it sounded like you were making a case for the Mavericks being a better 3-pt shooting team by substituting Wallace for Finley.
So accepting that you weren't suggesting Wallace as a substitution for Finley...
"Now, the reason i think the mavs would be a better 3 pt shooting team is not because they would now have wallace shooting threes..it is because they wouldn't have finley shooting 3's"
...you seem to be saying that if Finley weren't shooting the 3 and the Mavericks shot fewer 3-pointers, they'd be a 'better' 3-point shooting team.
To the extent that I'm understanding this point, I disagree with it--hitting a higher percentage of a lower number of shots from 3PT range doesn't make the team a 'better' 3PT-shooting team.It makes the team a lesser 3PT shooting team.
In order to establish a threat that will alter defenses and open up the inside, a team has to have players who will shoot the 3 (and who can hit with some minimally acceptable level of accuracy). When 3 players are taking between 250-400 3-pointers a year, the effect on defenses is more than just the number of made shots. Assuming the players make a minimally acceptable percentage of these shots, defenses have to change their schemes to account for the threat. If a team shoots significantly fewer 3-pointers, even if they hit a higher percentage, they will not alter opponents' defensive strategies.
I'm sure you've seen the efficiency analysis of the 3-point shot versus the 2-pointer--if a player/team can shoot 33% from 3 point territory, that's as good as shooting 50% of 2 pointers because it generates the same number of points off of the same number of shot attempts. So Fin, at 35% (his career percentage) from beyond the arc is generating points as efficiently as a 50% shooter from inside the arc. He's an adequate 3-point shooter, if not a great one. Any coach will be glad to get that level of production. Just because he's not hitting as high a percentage as Nash and Nowitizki doesn't mean he's not scoring efficiently. Trade Fin, and the Mavs remove about a third of their longball threat, and without him Nash and Nowitizki would would be easier to defend.
Who's going to step up and take those shots?
Is Griffin supposed to replace Finley as the outside threat? Not likely. Buckner? No way. Hardaway?--and use Nash more at the 2-guard spot? Maybe, but that would be taking Nash away from his strength.
Wallace? I would hope not. For one thing, as you acknowledge, he has not historically been anything like as good a 3-point shooter as Finley. Beyond that, the team would presumably be bringing him in as a low-post threat. If he's out hoisting Fin's shots, where's the benefit to having acquired him?
Dirk and Steve played phenomenally during Finley's stretch on the IR, but they can't necessarily be expected to perform at that level over the rest of the season, and once the playoffs start teams will be even more primed to defend against them. (I guess you saw what Portland threw at Nash the other night?) The Mavericks need Finley's versatility--the longball threat he represents, his mid-range jumpers, and the threat he represents taking the ball to the hoop, all of which will open up the court for Dirk and Steve to work inside and out.
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