[Syd Thrift]

Kobe got hurt and then was horrible when he came back. End of career Kobe is not a great comparison.

The midrange in general isn't a good percentage shot but if you hit around half of them (I think the leaguewide percentage on them is around 40%) and draw fouls (which isn't easy with the new rules but Kobe did this back in the day and I see KD and DeRozan drawing plenty of fouls on these shots as well) then it becomes a question of, regardless of whether or not it's supposed to be an efficient shot, if you make it efficient then there's no reason you shouldn't be putting the shot up.

It's a little like the skyhook in its way. A big should generally be scoring 3 feet in on post-ups (things have gotten a lot different in today's day and age when even top post players like Joel Embiid are asked to shoot 3s as well, but this still applies) and one of the big reasons why post offense is such a big deal is that in addition to the shots being crazy high percentage, you also tend to draw a lot of fouls. You don't do that with the skyhook. The skyhook is a terribly low percentage play... unless you're Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and you consistently sink them 65-70% of the time.

Maximizing your team's chances to win often means zigging where the rest of the league zags. Like I said, basically nobody else outside of the 4 guys I mentioned - you can probably find an odd player or two on some other team but those guys are basically it - even tries the midrange shot. If a player tries shooting them a lot they are quickly dissuaded. DeRozan, like I said, is kind of an insane outlier (and his game is one of the reasons TBH why I've enjoyed basketball so much this year - just the fact that you can still be successful playing this way) but the guy has a usage rate of over 30% and *still* manages a true shooting % of close to 60%. KD, who I will always be a fan of since he's the last former Sonic left in the league, is even better, with a usage rate just as high but a 61% TS%. Nearly half of KD's shots this year have come from 10 feet out to the 3 point line.