Style
During the 1940s the most common offenses were motion offenses that were supposed to open up players close to the goal. This was because most players were awful shooters. The most common defenses were zones, that clogged passing lanes and packed the paint. For zone defense to be successful, all the defenders have to be close together and close to the goal.
Bob spread the defenders like nobody ever did before or has since. He was an accurate shooter for his day but not legendarily accurate. His free throw percentage was below 80% most of his career and he used a two-handed set shot from the chest that was easy to block. However, he could score from anywhere within the half court. Al Cervi, a great defensive player who often had to guard him, said of McDermott, "Oh, he could shoot! If he shot ten times from thirty feet, I'd guarantee he'd make eight in game conditions."
Through sheer athleticism, and power he could shoot from almost anywhere on the court. At a time when most teams played a deliberate slow-up style and scoring less than 30 wasn't just common, it was expected, Bob McDermott frequently scored more than 20 points, and scored as many as 36.
Read more about this topic: Bobby McDermott
Famous quotes containing the word style:
“There are neither good nor bad subjects. From the point of view of pure Art, you could almost establish it as an axiom that the subject is irrelevant, style itself being an absolute manner of seeing things.”
—Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880)
“To translate, one must have a style of his own, for otherwise the translation will have no rhythm or nuance, which come from the process of artistically thinking through and molding the sentences; they cannot be reconstituted by piecemeal imitation. The problem of translation is to retreat to a simpler tenor of one’s own style and creatively adjust this to one’s author.”
—Paul Goodman (1911–1972)
“Switzerland is a small, steep country, much more up and down than sideways, and is all stuck over with large brown hotels built on the cuckoo clock style of architecture.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)