I think the phenomenon is that people form an opinion at some point and then look for confirmation bias from then on to validate the opinion. In Bradley's case, he was really bad his rookie year (really bad) so people started with the "he's a bust", "no handle", "terrible overpay", etc. etc. So now it is harder for people to change their minds. If he has a good game, it is just a good game. If he has a bad game, it's "see, I knew Bradley wasn't that good".
Bradley has shown stunning improvement since that rookie season but I sense that he may be leveling off. If he can continue to play at this level or maybe improve in terms of consistency and general court awareness for say 5 years or more, that is great. It will be a very good NBA career. I don't put him quite at the star category and he probably won't get there but I am very happy with Avery Bradley. He is a very good player on a fair contract.
I think we've found the perfect specimen to understand this strange phenomenon.
Can you explain why you "sense that he may be leveling off" when he is just turning 25 this week and in the midst of the best run of his career? I mean, if someone just landed from another planet three weeks ago, they'd think Avery was a better player than James Harden. He's been that good.
Hahahahahahaha. Oh man that's a good one.
Avery Bradley has improved his jump shot and plays good D.
He still can't; dribbled, handled, pass, finish at the rim, move the ball, make smart shot selections. He defense has gotten worse since he focuses on offense more and he has one of the lowest bball IQs on the planet. His stretch now has been decent but he is still not a good basketball talent.
Avery Bradley has averaged 9.4 Points Per 36 Minutes on 46% shooting for his career. Only 58% of those shots have been assisted, meaning he;s averaging about 3.9 Points Per 36 for his career on two point shots that he has created himself.
Given his career scoring average is 14.9 Points Per 36, that means that about one quarter of all his offense has come of self-created two point field goals.
Yet despite him getting more than a quarter of his offense of his own created shots, he's only averaged 1.8 Turnovers Per 36 for his career.
It's quite impossible to create your own shot without dribbling the ball, so if he's such a poor ball handler why are his turnover numbers so low?
Because he isn't nearly as bad a ball handler as people make him out to be.
In his rookie year, Bradley was a horrendous ball handler. In his sophomore year he got a bit better and was generally fine when playing off the ball, but still struggled when forced into playing the PG spot.
In the past three or four years he's improved dramatically, and he's now a perfectly adequate ball handler for his role.
The only reason some people believe otherwise is because Avery Bradley always plays under a microscope. If you watch him (I mean really watch him) he actually very rarely makes a terrible pass, and very rarely dribbles the ball off his foot. He does both things on occasion - so does every single other player on the roster.
The difference is that everybody still judges Bradley based on his rookie year, so everybody sits around waiting for Bradley to dribbles it off his foot, or throw a bad pass. So when he does do either of the above, EVERYBODY takes notice.
When Jae Crowder, Marcus Smart or Isaiah Thomas dribble the ball off their feet or throw a bad pass (which they all do from time to time too) it mostly flies under the radar. Nobody really cares or says anything. Yet they probably all do it just as often (if not more often) than Bradley does.
As far as passing goes, Bradley is averaging 1.5 assists per turnover this year which is roughly in the ball park of the other main ball handlers on this team:
* Crowder is averaging 1.0 AST/TO
* Thomas is averaging 2.2 AST/TO
* Evan Turner is averaging 1.8 AST/TO
* Marcus Smart is averaging 1.9 AST/TO
So as with the ball handling, Bradley is nowhere near as horrible a passer as he is made out to be. Once again, his passing is perfectly adequate for the role/position he plays.
Also his defense this season has been outstanding overall, and there have been a number of stretches in games where his defense has been game changing good. In fact in almost every game I have seen stretches where Bradley has been the best defensive player on the court.
Of course he can't play intense defense with the same consistency now as he could earlier in his career, when playing defense was all he was expected to do. That's obvious. Playing defense at Avery Bradley level takes huge amounts of energy, and it's stupidly hard to do that and still have the strength to make shots.
So as a result Bradley only plays intense AB-style defense in key stretches when it's really needed - for the rest of the game he still plays defense at a consistently high level, but not with the same intensity as somebody like Jae Crowder, who really doesn't need to do anything BUT play defense.
Bradley won't even handle the ball like Kyrie or pass it like Rajon - he doesn't have to, he's not a Point Guard. For the role he plays, his passing, ball handling and basketball IQ are all perfectly adequate.
Plus be nice - it's his Birthday today!