So today I got out of the shower and my brother told me I had just missed an interesting debate between Kornheiser and Wilbon on PTI. They were discussing Dwayne Wade's steal/buzzer beater play from the other night and whether that was more impressive and better than the Devin Harris shot from earlier this season. Apparently Kornheiser sided with Harris while Wilbon claimed Wade's was better because he stole the pass, ran down the court and lofted up a 3-pointer off of one foot while still on the run. At first I figured Wilbon was getting racial and only voting for Wade because he's black, but then I realized that Harris isn't exactly all white, so that theory wasn't exactly holding any water. But after thinking about it, I've gotta side with Kornheiser on this one. Harris' shot was better for a couple reasons. First and foremost, he was behind half court. If you had Harris and Wade take ten shots from half court and ten running shots from the three-point line, I'm pretty sure they'd hit far more from the three-point line. Let's face, it's closer. Not only that, but Wade's shot was more or less uncontested. He didn't have anyone on him because he'd pretty much blown by both defenders after stealing the pass. Harris, meanwhile, had someone all over his grill. Which brings me to an even more salient point. Harris had the ball stripped from him, recovered the loose ball, then had the presence of mind and god given ability to still go up with it and get a shot off...and make it....from half court. Wilbon argued that Wade had to "make a play" before even getting a chance to take a shot. I'll argue that Harris did the same thing in recovering the ball after getting it stripped and still getting the shot off...and hitting it...from half court.
Anyways, I posted YouTube clips of each shot below. Take a look. Which one do you think is better?
-Bess
2 comments:
The D-Wade one is very similar to the Jeff Capel shot at Duke vs. UNC back mid 90s. Cept the Heat went on to win the game...
That's impressive and all, but look at Devin Harris' shot. Come on. I don't think it's that close. Degree of difficulty is through the roof.
Obviously both are very impressive, but I have mixed feelings about the Wade play. He made an incredible gamble by leaving his man to go double on Salmons (I think). Had he not come up with the steal it would have likely been an easy two points and the game for the Bulls. Does this gamble make it more or less impressive? I guess I'm leaning to more, since it paid off, but we'll see if he gets burned a gamble like this in the future.
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