Spurs add new shooting coach Jimmy Baron

[Ice009]

Yeah, take steps. First get rid of the side spin. A hitch is easier to fix than that.

I still want a new shooting coach though, if this is all he can do with Jeremy and Blake in two years.

Just finished watching the game (glad that the Spurs at least got the win, so I was happy with that). I think it's time to let this guy go. I watched closely when Jeremy shot his three pointers, and man, those shots looked awful. Did this shooting coach also implement the one handled free throws? He missed both of those two. Didn't even look close.

Bottom line IMO, all the guys that couldn't shoot, their shots look ed up.

I was a fan of Reggie Miller when I was a kid, so I have no issue with guys shooting unorthodox (I also shot unorthodox to start with, but even though it was going in, I tweaked my own shot to be even more efficient - I always had a feel for shooting, though) if they're a good shooter shooting that way, but IMO, if you can't shoot, I believe the shooting coach should be making the player/s shot have a more traditional picture perfect form (it's the best chance of the ball going in IMO if you aren't a great shooter to begin with).

All this bull with one handed free throws and hitches in 3 point shots, I don't believe that's anywhere close to being the right way to go. How is the player supposed to develop any consistency shooting differently when he takes free throws and midrange and 3 pointers? You've got the player thinking. It's going to make the player think before shooting depending where he is on the court, and that is THE worst thing possible. You don't want to be thinking about the shot, it should flow automatically. I am beyond seriously questioning this guy's methods. This guy could seriously up player's shooting doing stuff like this. I mean, I'd also worried that if the team gets a new guy in, Jeremy could be so discombobulated and never end up getting a decent shot.

[exstatic]

Just finished watching the game (glad that the Spurs at least got the win, so I was happy with that). I think it's time to let this guy go. I watched closely when Jeremy shot his three pointers, and man, those shots looked awful. Did this shooting coach also implement the one handled free throws? He missed both of those two. Didn't even look close.

Bottom line IMO, all the guys that couldn't shoot, their shots look ed up.

I was a fan of Reggie Miller when I was a kid, so I have no issue with guys shooting unorthodox (I also shot unorthodox to start with, but even though it was going in, I tweaked my own shot to be even more efficient - I always had a feel for shooting, though) if they're a good shooter shooting that way, but IMO, if you can't shoot, I believe the shooting coach should be making the player/s shot have a more traditional picture perfect form (it's the best chance of the ball going in IMO if you aren't a great shooter to begin with).

All this bull with one handed free throws and hitches in 3 point shots, I don't believe that's anywhere close to being the right way to go. How is the player supposed to develop any consistency shooting differently when he takes free throws and midrange and 3 pointers? You've got the player thinking. It's going to make the player think before shooting depending where he is on the court, and that is THE worst thing possible. You don't want to be thinking about the shot, it should flow automatically. I am beyond seriously questioning this guy's methods. This guy could seriously up player's shooting doing stuff like this. I mean, I'd also worried that if the team gets a new guy in, Jeremy could be so discombobulated and never end up getting a decent shot.

I’m ok with the FTs, because he was shooting 45% last December when the change was made, and finished the year at 74% and is shooting 72% so far this year. That wasn’t the shooting coach, either, it was Pop working with Jeremy before a game, and they rolled it out that night. Using one hand forces a good shooting motion. You can’t flare your elbow, or you will drop the ball. Don’t judge it just on one game.

I can usually tell if it’s a make or a miss before he releases it. If he gets set, and holds the ball for a beat, he’s probably 80-85% makes. If he tries to do it all in one motion without the pause, he’s probably as bad as before, 40ish percent.

[DPG21920]

It for sure raises questions, especially since as a new NBA shooting coach, he doesn't have a pedigree to have some trust in him. It's just that he has been here for a year and a half and I won't throw him under the bus because he hasn't turn Sochan, Wesley and Cissoko into good shooters.

There is also a little bias when looking at other teams. When looking at Spurs, you see the whole picture fails and success (mostly fails, sadly). When looking at other teams you see the successful players and not the failures because you don't notice the end of the bench player who never develops a jumpshot.

At the end, I'm hardly defending Baron. I have no reason to believe he is a good shooting coach. It's just that I don't have enough knowledge about him to say he is a bad one.

Absolutely - we as fans can only use the information we have to make decisions and as you said we are operating on limited info most of the time. But Spurs drafted a lot of non-shooters Keldon, Sochan, Castle etc… and it’s those guys (alongside Wemby) that we need to see make progress as they are the ones that matter. We can surely survive Blake, Branham, Cissoko etc….not panning out - spurs have plenty of draft capital to get those guys replaced with much more talented guys. But Wemby, Castle, Dev, Sochan and to a lesser degree Keldon now are much more critical and it will be tough if most of them don’t develop into good shooters.

[Pauleta14]

It for sure raises questions, especially since as a new NBA shooting coach, he doesn't have a pedigree to have some trust in him. It's just that he has been here for a year and a half and I won't throw him under the bus because he hasn't turn Sochan, Wesley and Cissoko into good shooters.

There is also a little bias when looking at other teams. When looking at Spurs, you see the whole picture fails and success (mostly fails, sadly). When looking at other teams you see the successful players and not the failures because you don't notice the end of the bench player who never develops a jumpshot.

At the end, I'm hardly defending Baron. I have no reason to believe he is a good shooting coach. It's just that I don't have enough knowledge about him to say he is a bad one.

I get your point but are the Spurs supposed to be a developmental school for coaches to satisfy Pop's willigness to develop them at his image or should they from time to time hire proven competent coaches?

[Bruno]

I get your point but are the Spurs supposed to be a developmental school for coaches to satisfy Pop's willigness to develop them at his image or should they from time to time hire proven competent coaches?

A shooting coach is a little particular since he mostly works alone. Regarding Baron's background: he is closely linked to Rob McClanaghan, who was a renowned personal trainer few years ago. They are close friends and they have worked together with a lot of NBA players during offseasons.

I agree with you that it's problematic to have only assistant coaches who have learned their job under Pop like Bret Brown, Matt Nielsen or Mitch Johnson. However, it has changed a little this summer. Darius Songaila left and Spurs didn't go with an in house solution. They could have promoted Kenny Trevino after his good SL coaching but they instead went with Michael Noyes, who has previously spend 5 years in Memphis. Spurs also went with someone form the Knicks org to coach in Austin.

[Jordan Jackson]

I guess the question is - is the jumpshot so broken it can’t be fixed?

Chip would evaluate pre-draft whether the shot was broken beyond repair and not worth the development time or if it was one he could fix/improve. Who does that now - if at all?

Right now it’s looking like it’s never going to happen for a few of these guys. And I don’t think you can have players under 36-37% from 3 (at a minimum) around Wemby.

[Pauleta14]

Thx Bruno, I didn't know that.

Let's hope they found some gems

[scott]

[BackHome]

I’m ok with the FTs, because he was shooting 45% last December when the change was made, and finished the year at 74% and is shooting 72% so far this year. That wasn’t the shooting coach, either, it was Pop working with Jeremy before a game, and they rolled it out that night. Using one hand forces a good shooting motion. You can’t flare your elbow, or you will drop the ball. Don’t judge it just on one game.

I can usually tell if it’s a make or a miss before he releases it. If he gets set, and holds the ball for a beat, he’s probably 80-85% makes. If he tries to do it all in one motion without the pause, he’s probably as bad as before, 40ish percent.

I think ICE makes a valid point in that shooting two totally different ways is going to have an impact on shooting percentages. To me even if the one hand shooting helps Sochan with his free throws I think it negatively impacts him on his 3 ball or any motion shooting. If Sochan was just a rebounding/shot blocking center you maybe able to live with that but he is a PF in today’s NBA he has to bring his percentages up.

My other question is how evolved was Pop in coaching shooting was he micro managing or was he allowing the coach to do what he thought was the best? Either way shooting is an issue and watching Vassell miss his free throws is just something I don’t see that often from a player of his caliber

[ginobilized]

I think I get your point here. Welcome to San Antonio Keegan Murray, Kyshawn George and KPJ!
This would give us 5 of the top 10. That would be formidable. For a masonry company called Bricksville USA.

A little surprised to see Dejounte and Sengun in the upper reaches of this list.

[exstatic]

I think ICE makes a valid point in that shooting two totally different ways is going to have an impact on shooting percentages. To me even if the one hand shooting helps Sochan with his free throws I think it negatively impacts him on his 3 ball or any motion shooting. If Sochan was just a rebounding/shot blocking center you maybe able to live with that but he is a PF in today’s NBA he has to bring his percentages up.

My other question is how evolved was Pop in coaching shooting was he micro managing or was he allowing the coach to do what he thought was the best? Either way shooting is an issue and watching Vassell miss his free throws is just something I don’t see that often from a player of his caliber

Shooting the FTs one handed forces a good repeatable shooting motion. You can’t flare your elbow. I don’t see how that hurts shooting from 3.

[exstatic]

I think I get your point here. Welcome to San Antonio Keegan Murray, Kyshawn George and KPJ!
This would give us 5 of the top 10. That would be formidable. For a masonry company called Bricksville USA.

A little surprised to see Dejounte and Sengun in the upper reaches of this list.

Sengün has never been a good 3 point shooter. That, and defense are his weaknesses.

[Ice009]

Shooting the FTs one handed forces a good repeatable shooting motion. You can’t flare your elbow. I don’t see how that hurts shooting from 3.

I disagree, it's ed up his shot, and this shooting coach should have been fired already.

This isn't Shaquille O'neal (when they tried to get him to shoot underhanded), who is so dominant that he doesn't need a jump shot and you can afford to mess with his shot (Shaq didn't go for it anyway). This isn't Jacob Purdle where he's not a shooter, so you can mess with his free throws a little bit. Jeremy actually needs a jump shot. There is no way I could have learned to shoot if I had to take one handers then try and shoot with two hands in other areas. It's just messed up and I don't like the strategy at all. This jump shot he now has looks worse than ever. A slow disgusting looking shot.

[RC_Drunkford]

at least OKC got Chip now...

[exstatic]

I disagree, it's ed up his shot, and this shooting coach should have been fired already.

This isn't Shaquille O'neal (when they tried to get him to shoot underhanded), who is so dominant that he doesn't need a jump shot and you can afford to mess with his shot (Shaq didn't go for it anyway). This isn't Jacob Purdle where he's not a shooter, so you can mess with his free throws a little bit. Jeremy actually needs a jump shot. There is no way I could have learned to shoot if I had to take one handers then try and shoot with two hands in other areas. It's just messed up and I don't like the strategy at all. This jump shot he now has looks worse than ever. A slow disgusting looking shot.

Since the 1960s, no one actually shoots with two hands. When the ball is released, you only have one hand on it. It’s a matter of when you drop the guide hand off. If you watch the YouTube where Tony hosts Jeremy at his house in SA, they even talk about shooting, and Tony mentions that the improvement to HIS shot was dropping his left hand off earlier.

The reality is if Pop didn’t change FT Jeremy’s motion, we’d have another Ben Simmons on our hands. He was shooting 45% from the FT line, and timid about going to the rack because he didn’t want to go to the line. He finished that year at 70% on 2.1 attempts. His second year he was at 77% on 1.9 attempts. This year, he’s at 73% on 3.1 attempts.

The FT change didn’t break his jump shot, working on it did. His tendency was to always have the ball too close to his centerline, forcing his elbow to flair, and keeping his guide hand on too long imparted that weird 45 degree axial spin. I’ve watched the last couple of games, and his shot is flatter and no longer has that axial tilted spin.

When you radically change someone’s shot, it doesn’t immediately improve, it goes backwards first. You don’t go from 30%, then change the shot, and start going up 31,32,33%. His new shot is not natural to him yet, but the old one had to be thrown in the trash.

[CGD]

Wonder where Sochan ranks? He shot still hideous and the misses look awful, but it does seem to be going in more this year than last.

[Seventyniner]

Wonder where Sochan ranks? He shot still hideous and the misses look awful, but it does seem to be going in more this year than last.

This looks to be a ulative stat rather than a rate stat, so Sochan's bad shooting hasn't taken much off the table because he doesn't shoot that often.

Meanwhile, Keldon takes a ton of threes and is shooting terribly, same with Giannis and free throws.

[Knoxxx]

The problem with Sochan 3 point shooting is his low release point, making it easy blocked. He needs to shoot like Jokic, fling it from overhead which is almost unblockable.

[KingKev]

at least OKC got Chip now...

Funny thing is we likely offered way more money. Wonder why he still left?

[Ice009]

Since the 1960s, no one actually shoots with two hands. When the ball is released, you only have one hand on it. It’s a matter of when you drop the guide hand off.

Come on man, you know I know this. I didn't mean put two hands behind the ball and do a push shot. You've obviously taken that literally. Obviously the second hand is the guide hand and you take it off as you're shooting the ball. Do you actually think I shot the ball with two hands as a push shot.

Are you a decent shooter yourself? If you were, you'd know that shooting with one hand and then using the second hand as the guide does make a big difference. You can shoot with one hand closer to the rim, but try shooting a three pointer (especially NBA range) with one hand and no guide hand at all. It will make a huge difference without that guide hand. I could never picture myself even trying to shoot it with one hand from three point range. It would have been so much different. You need that guide hand on the ball the further the distance you're shooting from.
Since Jeremy was a shooter to begin with and doesn't seem to have much of a feel for shooting the ball, I believe it's messing with him mentally, and once you get messed with mentally as far as shooting the ball goes, it's hard to recover from that, and in some cases, you're done as a shooter if it starts affecting you mentally.

Tony's right about dropping the guide hand earlier, because shooting with two hands is just as bad. I used to see someone I played against shoot the ball with two hands like a push shot, but in this guy's case, his shots were actually going in. Terrible shot and form, but hey, he was making them.

I had an unorthodox shot that was going in when I first started playing/learning to shoot the ball (Reggie Miller was one of my favourite shooters/players when I first started following the NBA as a very young kid and I developed an unorthodox shot myself - this is why I don't ever mind someone shooting it differently if he/she can hit a higher percentage of shots, and if it's also not affecting their release time shooting it in an unorthodox manner, that's fine with me), but I didn't like the speed of my release, so eventually I changed to a more traditional form (I watched a lot of other players/shooters and did the changes myself). I didn't need a shooting coach or got told by anyone what to do, I did it myself and my shot didn't get worse while making those changes, but I didn't have to worry about spending time learning everything else (I just took hundreds of shots a day until it became second nature. Again, I didn't play anywhere near the level of these guys, so I don't have all their responsibilities. I could just focus on shooting and I always had a feel for shooting the ball). I know what you're saying about it getting worse when fixing someone's shot, but to me, that is mostly for players that never had a feel for shooting the ball in the first place. If you don't have a feel for shooting the ball, you're never likely to be a great shooter no matter how much you tweak/change your shot. These types of players/shooters unravel sometimes and they never become a good shooter. Players that have a feel for shooting the ball, you're likely to still hit shots with even non-picture perfect form. If you're going to draft someone that doesn't have a feel for shooting the ball, you're taking a huge risk as they are never likely are to improve their shot in any meaningful way no matter how much you tweak it or change it. This is why I think Chip had success with Kawhi and TP. They both could shoot it a little bit even with their uneven forms beforehand, and the tweaks weren't major. I believe both of those guys had some feel for shooting the ball which IMO makes a huge difference when you're changing someones shot.

I hope Jeremy does somehow become a good shooter and that this pays off for him if he can stay mentally focused on it, but as of right now, it looks ugly, and I don't see any confidence in him as a shooter when he's taking those outside shots. His release is so slow and he's mostly been taking them when he's wide, wide open. It looks like he's just trying to do what he's told (to his credit, some of these outside shots are going in for him, but he's also being left completely open and any competent NBA shooter would hit those same wide open shots). It doesn't look like he has much of a feel for shooting the ball (This is the bit I'm worried about).

The problem with Sochan 3 point shooting is his low release point, making it easy blocked. He needs to shoot like Jokic, fling it from overhead which is almost unblockable.

Perfect example of someone who doesn't have an orthodox or traditional shooting form/shot mechanics. I'd be more than happy if you shoot a good percentage and also can get your shot off like Jokic does (he may not have a super quick release, but at least he has a high release point and can get that shot off most of the time - rare exception being when Victor can get to some of his shots), this is no problem. Jeremy does shoot from a lower relese point, has a very slow shot motion and also some sort of extra slowdown in the middle. It's not even close to being a smooth shooting motion. I'm not impressed at all with the work Jimmy Baron is doing. I'm not saying it because he left as I wasn't happy when Chip left, but I would have offered him more money or a more prominent assistant coaches role if that is what it took to keep him. If he still wanted to leave even with all that, OK, fine, at least you tried.

[scott]

Jeremy's wind up on 3PA looks similar to the slow, methodical wind up for those 3-handed FTAs, so what you're saying makes sense, Ice009.

He doesn't do them as much anymore, but Jeremy used to have a pretty decent looking turnaround jumper in the paint where he kept the ball above he head as he was turning. I'm not a shooting expert, and it seems like Ice really knows what he's talking about here so I'm curious as to your further takes... but it just seems really bizarre and counterproductive for Jeremy to have so man different motions.

[SpurSpike]

Funny thing is we likely offered way more money. Wonder why he still left?

OKC offered 10 million and a seat on the bench as an assistant coach which was an offer he couldn't refuse and that the Spurs were unlikely to match. So better job le and more money pulled him away.

[Splits]

This looks to be a ulative stat rather than a rate stat, so Sochan's bad shooting hasn't taken much off the table because he doesn't shoot that often.

Meanwhile, Keldon takes a ton of threes and is shooting terribly, same with Giannis and free throws.

yeah, from 15+ feet on the year:

Sochan is 13/47 for 27.6%
Castle is 42/157 for 26.7%
Keldumb is 35/131 for 26.7%

god those are some hideous ing numbers

[KingKev]

OKC offered 10 million and a seat on the bench as an assistant coach which was an offer he couldn't refuse and that the Spurs were unlikely to match. So better job le and more money pulled him away.

Thanks, I didn’t know that I actually would have thought we would have taken care of someone like Chip and he just still wanted to go to a winner given all the BS going on here these days.

Either way we lost out BIG TIME.

[Ocotillo]

I wonder if the impact of a shooting coach can be overstated. The vaunted Chip did not turn Giddey into a shooter while he was under his tutelage, so maybe it has more to do with the player than the coach. Coaches can have an impact as long as said player puts in the work and has the talent to implement. OKC solved the lack of progress on Giddey's part by shipping him out rather than investing Chip's time and the salary that they would have to pay Giddey to turn him into a shooter. Nephew got his marching orders on what to do from Chip over the lock out and became a better shooter.

Maybe Sochan and Castle (shudder) are not destined to be good shooters regardless of who the coach is.