Whenever I see a player fall into the trap of “do a bunch of meaningless dribble moves and then jack an 18-foot jumper” I despair for them. Maybe Malik Monk was just trying to catch the eye of Lance Stephenson, but getting a good shot for your team is infinitely more important than trying to impress the guy who makes his defenders “dance” and then does a guitar-themed celebration. The thing with doing that move is that your teammates stop their off-ball movement once they see you get tunnel vision, so even if the defender locks you down, you don’t have anybody to give the ball up to.
Monk was quite a poor midrange shooter in his rookie year, and while he’s a bit better at that shot this season, I don’t think he’s at the point where he gets to just chuck them whenever he wants (unless “whenever he wants” is at the end of the shot clock). Three-pointers, on the other hand, he gets to chuck those whenever he wants even though he’s also below the league average on those shots. That’s because three-pointers are worth one more point. If there was a six-point shot, you can bet every player would be taking those all the time if they even had a 15% chance of going in.
If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to file the papers for my new basketball league. I hope everybody’s ready for the DTBBL.