Yesterday, I talked about whether or not teams should foul up three.  Today, Kyle Weidie of the great TrueHoop Network Wizards blog Truth About It decided to go to the players and get their take on it:

Eight seconds left in the game. Your team is up three points, having just hit two free-throws making the score 90-87. Your opponent must go the length of the court, i.e., no timeouts left in the NBA or a regular made basket scenario in college.

Do you foul and put your opponent on the line for two-free throws (no fouls to give/in double-bonus)?

Or do you play straight-up defense, allowing the other team a chance to tie the game with a three?

Opponent can be a factor, and that did come up when I posed this basketball strategy question to several Wizards before Sunday’s Nets game: Mike Miller, Quinton Ross, Cedric Jackson, James Singleton, Al Thornton, Randy Foye, Cartier Martin and JaVale McGee.

Head over to the site and check out the video.  Some real interesting stuff there.

I was reading through TrueHoop’s Monday Bullets, and I came across an article on Corey Brewer and his improved shot.  In it, David Thorpe talked about how Brewer improved his shot.  Some of it had to do with shot selection, but a lot of it he says, has to do with the lower half of his body:

And on the second part, the mechanical side, Corey was–and sometimes still does–he gets his head and shoulders far in front of his feet when he’s going to shoot, because he’s trying to stay low. But what happens is this: when you catch the ball and then try to stand up quickly, your head goes flying backward, and that’s kicking your legs out in front of you to counter balance your head or you’re going to fall on you back. So you kick your legs out–it’s an unconscious move–and therefore your balance is awful. Because you have poor balance, it’s very hard to have a great mechanic or stroke with your right arm, and it really threw his whole shot out of whack. So I actually talked a lot about–and I know the Wolves have worked him a ton–on just being more balanced and jumping straight up and landing straight down on two legs and not one leg. Not kicking his legs out in front of him, holding that form, and putting his hand to the rim and leading to all sorts of shooting cues that we worked on a lot this summer that we still talk a lot about literally every game day, almost.

This stuff looked familiar because the Nets had their own player struggling with his shot earlier in the year with Courtney Lee.  The problem was also in the lower half of his body, and over at NetsAreScorching, I took a look at it in depth:

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You might be wondering why I am posting about the WNBA, but with their draft quickly approaching, I was asked to cover the event this Thursday at my other site NetsAreScorching.com (focusing on some New Jersey related prospects) and here.  Here is a little primer.

The main theme of a conference call that involved WNBA coaches and GMs last week was depth.  This 2010 draft class doesn’t have a ton of superstar names, but it is deep and you could still be able to find yourself a quality player late in the draft.  Sparks’ coach Jennifer Gillom:

“I think the Draft this year is going to be very interesting.  There are a lot of great players out there to choose from, who will do well in the WNBA and have the potential to have long and outstanding careers.”

Here is Lynx’s coach Cheryl Reeve’s take on the depth:

“The 2010 Draft, I would say is very intriguing as far as the depth of the players. It’s not filled with great players, but I think it is filled with some very good players that could be helpful to a lot of rosters. It’s certainly a very competitive situation in our league right now to make a team, but I think these players are good enough to be able to provide competition.”

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