Are Players Averaging Less PPG Nowadays?

[VC-INJURY]

Check out the top 10 year-by-year leaders for scoring average and you will see that in the past few seasons particularly in the 6-10 range, guys are making the top 10 averaging less points than those in previous years.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/lea ... op_10.html

Why do you think this is?

[TwentyOne920]

Less FTAs? I remember back in 2006 perimeter scorers were unstoppable.

Not to mention that defenses have evolved to account for handchecking, which is why you see Thibodeau's Bulls setting records in points allowed.

[branny]

Pace in general being slower could be one.

[branny]

Also without guys like T-mac, Arenas and Iverson all gone it takes away 3 25+ ppg scorers. Then those guys drafted in late 90s are past their prime so that's quite a few scorers.

[TwentyOne920]

Also without guys like T-mac, Arenas and Iverson all gone it takes away 3 25+ ppg scorers. Then those guys drafted in late 90s are past their prime so that's quite a few scorers.

All of whom had higher usage rates than everyone in the league now save Kobe. Another thing is that scoring tends to be more spread out since every team aims to get a "big 3", after its success in San Antonio, Boston, and now Miami, so even high volume scorers don't shoot THAT much.

[branny]

Also without guys like T-mac, Arenas and Iverson all gone it takes away 3 25+ ppg scorers. Then those guys drafted in late 90s are past their prime so that's quite a few scorers.

All of whom had higher usage rates than everyone in the league now save Kobe. Another thing is that scoring tends to be more spread out since every team aims to get a "big 3", after its success in San Antonio, Boston, and now Miami, so even high volume scorers don't shoot THAT much.

Ah quite true on the big 3 point!

[bledredwine]

There's currently a lack of stars.

You can name the top 20 now and they don't compare to the top 20 of the 90s


The other thing is there are stars sitting out with injuries and then many current rising stars like Irving, Lillard, Demarcus, Monroe/Drummond, Curry, etc who will have 20 pt seasons.

[Illmatic21]

Also without guys like T-mac, Arenas and Iverson all gone it takes away 3 25+ ppg scorers. Then those guys drafted in late 90s are past their prime so that's quite a few scorers.

Good point. I think it's the specific players, not necessarily anything to do with the league as a whole.

Those players ^ are 3 of the elite scorers of the past decade. All we have left are past-prime Kobe, Durant sharing w/ Westbrook, Lebron sharing w/ Wade + Bosh, and Melo.


The crazy 32+ppg seasons that Tmac, Kobe, AI put up will generally only happen when a guy is on a terrible team with no other stars. So though they could do it, we probably won't see any high-volume seasons like that from Durant, Melo, Harden.

[Bay Based]

Also without guys like T-mac, Arenas and Iverson all gone it takes away 3 25+ ppg scorers. Then those guys drafted in late 90s are past their prime so that's quite a few scorers.

Those three are exactly who I thought of when I saw the thread title. Lol.

The NBA was so high octane in offense back then. Even the guys outside the Top 10 were pretty good at scoring (I.e. Baron Davis, Steve Francis, Stephon Marbury, etc.).

So many good big men on offense, too, like prime Garnett, Duncan, Shaq, Yao, etc.

Prime McGrady, Iverson, Kobe, Vince Carter, Arenas, Shaq, Pierce, Garnett, Ray Allen, Stoudemire, etc. playing in the NBA along with other players like LeBron James, Dirk Nowitzki, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony, etc; so many great individual scorers.

I'm a Warriors fan and I was surprised when I heard that Stephen Curry was in the Top 10 in scoring right now. As good of a shooter Curry is, I'm still surprised he's on that list.

[fishnc]

LMA is 7th in the league in scoring with 20.8 ppg, which is crazy to me.

[maxpower88]

-The overall pace of the game has slowed down over the last 10 years.

-The highest scorers (Kobe, LeBron, Durant, Melo, etc) have to share the ball with other guys that can put up points (Dwight, Wade, Westbrook, Smith, etc).

[HelloBrooklyn]

There's currently a lack of stars.

You can name the top 20 now and they don't compare to the top 20 of the 90s


The other thing is there are stars sitting out with injuries and then many current rising stars like Irving, Lillard, Demarcus, Monroe/Drummond, Curry, etc who will have 20 pt seasons.

Lol what lack of stars?? Don't give in to that bs man. There are plenty of talent in the league.

The reason for the drop because teams are playing with more efficiency. Coaching is also becoming more of a euro style- meaning they play in a system where they will only certain amount of time. There are less hero ball nowadays

[Chaos Revenant]

Remember when a scrub like Jerry Stackhouse averaged 30 ppg while his team went 32-50?

I hope we never go back to those days.

[JonFromVA]

Lots of reasons including the teaming up of stars, and injuries to current stars; but I think one major factor has been teams making better use of "pack the paint" and zone defense tactics to deny layups. It looks to me like star players aren't attempting as many free-throws and that's probably because they're not getting to the rim as often or as easily.

[9abovetherim]

Curry and Lee both in top 10? (All stars)