“A jump-shooting team can never win a championship.”



That was Charles Barkley’s mantra for years. This tweet from first TNT broadcast of 2015 tells you all you need to know about that (not) truism:



When the Golden State Warriors put that idea to bed with their dominating, fast-paced style of play, it has been replaced by an even more popular line of thinking that other teams, regardless of their personnel, must also play fast, shoot 3-pointers at a high rate, and otherwise emulate Warriors in order to compete.



Is that really true though, or is the new theory just as misguided as the old one?



Yesterday on ESPN 1000’s Kap & Co show, hosted by David Kaplan, ESPN analyst and longtime NBA coach Jeff Van Gundy was asked his opinion on the Chicago Bulls’ attempts to amp up their pace from what was a slow team under previous coach Tom Thibodeau.



“Well I think every coach, what you try to do is, you...