Are Players Averaging Less PPG Nowadays?

[Senor Chang]

I believe it has to do with the explosion of advanced stats. Players seem more conscious of efficiency these days then they were before just a couple years back. When Carlos Boozer's new years resolution is to play more efficient you know the mindset has changed.

[TheKingOfVa360]

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.

You're so right, the NBA right now lacks elite top end talent and great scorers

[Frank Mulely]

scouting improvements using video, statistical analysis factors in here. you can see it when a bench guy starts getting minutes, he scores a lot then the league figures him out after 5 to 10 games. if you have a weakness like you can't go left, thats gonna get exploited, count on it.

[83SixersRocked]

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.

Were they 'good days' the following year with the same 'scrub' when they went 52-30?

[chitownsports4ever]

1999 draft - Brand ,Rip, Ak47, Manu, Artest
2000 draft - jamal Crawford
2001 draft - Tyson Chandler ,Pau Gasol,Joe Johnson,Gerald Wallace,Tony Parker , Jrich ,Battier , Haywood
2002 draft - Amare ,Caron Butler ,Boozer ,Matt Barnes Dunleavy ,Gooden

Thats 4 drafts from 13-14 years ago an this is all thats left

We are basically getting nothing from the top three draft picks of 1998,1999, and 2000.

Chandler and Pau saves 2001
2002 was Yao ,jay Williams and Dunleavy

2003 Lebron ,Melo ,Wade arrive

Those 4 drafts caused such a large gap in the talent pool of the current nba. We are all used to the nba having a large pool of 30+ yr old superstars and a large pool of young superstars (25-30).

We have a huge gap in proven veteran scorers and an abundance of young players being given more shots than they normally would

[PetroNet]

less good players

[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.

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

When 34 year old Kobe leads the league in scoring, Duncan is still considered one of the league's best and Paul averaging 16 and 10 is considered a top 5 player, you can't tell me there's no shortage in stars.

Go ahead and list the top 20 players in the league, and compare them to the following list:

1. Michael Jordan
2. Shaquille O'Neal
3. Hakeem Olajuwon
4. David Robinson
5. Karl Malone
6. Charles Barkley
7. John Stockton
8. Patrick Ewing
9. Scottie Pippen
10. Grant Hill (prime)
11. Shawn Kemp
12. Alonzo Morning
13. Penny Hardaway
14. Mitch Richmond
15. Chris Mullin
17. Reggie Miller
18. Gary Payton
19. Clyde Drexler
20. Dikembi Mutumbo

Are you seriously going to tell me that we have 7 scorers in the league that are dominant along the lines of Michael Jordan, Shaq, Hakeem, D. Robinson, P. Ewing, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley? Hell, Mullin was a better scorer than everyone but maybe 4 scorers today.

Rajon Rondo and Andrew Bynum are considered top 15 players now. Blake Griffin, Paul Pierce would be in your list.....

Not only do you have the better top two players out of this list, but the next four players are far better than anyone else you could say is 3rd in the league now.

These guys were in the league at the same damned time!

Tim Hardaway was like the 25th best player in the league man. Jason Kidd wasn't even considered near the top in his prime. It's just not the same now. There's a bunch of up and coming stars, but not many stars.... Dirk's not the same guy, Rose/Love are out, Gordon among others are struggling with injuries, Oden didn't last.

But yes, go ahead, list the top 20, and we'll compare side by side. I don't even care if you list currently injured players; but those guys were all playing like iron men at the time.

[mj234eva]

Several other factors have already been mentioned.

I'll say this also is a factor: kids only playing one year in college, before that, all those guys that came directly out of HS. Multiple lottery picks been drafted on "potential" or the "projects", that never fully pan out.

[KyletheDingbat]

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

When 34 year old Kobe leads the league in scoring, Duncan is still considered one of the league's best and Paul averaging 16 and 10 is considered a top 5 player, you can't tell me there's no shortage in stars.

Go ahead and list the top 20 players in the league, and compare them to the following list:

1. Michael Jordan
2. Shaquille O'Neal
3. Hakeem Olajuwon
4. David Robinson
5. Karl Malone
6. Charles Barkley
7. John Stockton
8. Patrick Ewing
9. Scottie Pippen
10. Grant Hill (prime)
11. Shawn Kemp
12. Alonzo Morning
13. Penny Hardaway
14. Mitch Richmond
15. Chris Mullin
17. Reggie Miller
18. Gary Payton
19. Clyde Drexler
20. Dikembi Mutumbo

Rajon Rondo and Andrew Bynum are considered top 15 players now. Blake Griffin, Paul Pierce would be in your list.....

Not only do you have the better top two players out of this list, but the next four players are far better than anyone else you could say is 3rd in the league now.

These guys were in the league at the same damned time!

Tim Hardaway was like the 25th best player in the league man. Jason Kidd wasn't even considered near the top in his prime. It's just not the same now. There's a bunch of up and coming stars, but not many stars.... Dirk's not the same guy, Rose/Love are out, Gordon among others are struggling with injuries, Oden didn't last.

But yes, go ahead, list the top 20, and we'll compare side by side. I don't even care if you list currently injured players; but those guys were all playing like iron men at the time.

To be fair, I think you're drawing from multiple years for that top 20 list. If we did the same for this generation you'd get a fairly comparable list imo.

[pr0wler]

If guys like Derrick Rose, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Love, Eric Gordon, and Amare Stoudemire were actually healthy this season this thread probably wouldn't have been created.

[Frank Mulely]

Several other factors have already been mentioned.

I'll say this also is a factor: kids only playing one year in college, before that, all those guys that came directly out of HS. Multiple lottery picks been drafted on "potential" or the "projects", that never fully pan out.

Yeah I think the overall development pipeline is broken. Basically guys aren't really incentivized to work on their game just optimize for showing enough athletic ability to get drafted.

[OhMyBosh]

less good players

Pretty much. In the past, every team pretty much had a go-to scorer with the ability to actually carry a team offensively. Add to the fact that stars only think of teaming up.

There are really only a handful of players in the league that can score seemingly at will. Considering top scorers from 10 years ago are still relevant today (Kobe, Pierce, Duncan, Dirk, etc) just speaks of the lack of talent entering the league.

In 2004-2005, 27 players scored 20+ ppg.
In 2005-2006, 28 players scored 20+ ppg.
In 2006-2007, 31 players scored 20+ ppg.

This year, 10 players score 20+ ppg.

They don't make them like they used to.

[Krodis]

So its time for another nostalgic circlejerk thread, is it?

Game changed, quality of players didn't.

EDIT: Regardless, looking at the link OP posted, there really doesn't seem to be much of a discernable trend at all. The bottom half of the Top 10 has dropped a little, as less teams are focusing on getting all their points through one guy regardless of the result, but besides that... not much. And it's not like offense in general has dropped much.

[Krodis]

Specifically, looking at two years ago when the numbers matched normal trends, here we go:

#4 Dwyane Wade: Injured, aging
#6 Amare Stoudemire: Injured, and shouldn't have been shooting that much anyway
#7 Derrick Rose: Injured
#8 Monta Ellis: Should never have shot that much to begin with
#9 Kevin Martin: Should never have shot that much to begin with, now a third option
#10 Dirk Nowitzki: Injured

It's not like we've had some great talent exodus since then. A few of the guys are hurt, a few of them stopped chucking at insane rates, and teams haven't been replacing them with Jordan wanna-be chuckers like they did early in the decade.

[tms386]

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

When 34 year old Kobe leads the league in scoring, Duncan is still considered one of the league's best and Paul averaging 16 and 10 is considered a top 5 player, you can't tell me there's no shortage in stars.

Go ahead and list the top 20 players in the league, and compare them to the following list:

1. Michael Jordan
2. Shaquille O'Neal
3. Hakeem Olajuwon
4. David Robinson
5. Karl Malone
6. Charles Barkley
7. John Stockton
8. Patrick Ewing
9. Scottie Pippen
10. Grant Hill (prime)
11. Shawn Kemp
12. Alonzo Morning
13. Penny Hardaway
14. Mitch Richmond
15. Chris Mullin
17. Reggie Miller
18. Gary Payton
19. Clyde Drexler
20. Dikembi Mutumbo

Are you seriously going to tell me that we have 7 scorers in the league that are dominant along the lines of Michael Jordan, Shaq, Hakeem, D. Robinson, P. Ewing, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley? Hell, Mullin was a better scorer than everyone but maybe 4 scorers today.

Rajon Rondo and Andrew Bynum are considered top 15 players now. Blake Griffin, Paul Pierce would be in your list.....

Not only do you have the better top two players out of this list, but the next four players are far better than anyone else you could say is 3rd in the league now.

These guys were in the league at the same damned time!

Tim Hardaway was like the 25th best player in the league man. Jason Kidd wasn't even considered near the top in his prime. It's just not the same now. There's a bunch of up and coming stars, but not many stars.... Dirk's not the same guy, Rose/Love are out, Gordon among others are struggling with injuries, Oden didn't last.

But yes, go ahead, list the top 20, and we'll compare side by side. I don't even care if you list currently injured players; but those guys were all playing like iron men at the time.

Nice job assembling players from the early 80's all the way to the mid 90's. If you want to use that great of a time period, "today's" top 20 would look just asgood.

[TheKingOfVa360]

Nice job assembling players from the early 80's all the way to the mid 90's. If you want to use that great of a time period, "today's" top 20 would look just asgood.

He actually didn't do what you're accusing him of but I'm sure you never seen most of those players play. You can easily say that list is for the 94-95 season or 95-96 season it it would be accurate

[RutgersBJJ]

Because all of the good scorers besides James Harden are on teams with other good scorers. Durant + Westbrook, Kobe+Dwight, CP3+Griffin, Wade+Bosh+Lebron.

If those 9 players were on 9 different teams instead of 4 different teams you would have 9 of the 9 above players posting 20+ppg instead of 4 of the 9.

Melo and Harden are the only elite scorers around the league who's scoring output isn't limited by the talent around them and that will probably change for Melo if Amar'e even returns to 70% of what he was in 2010-11.

Even look at the 2nd tier high output scorers.

Lopez, Pierce, Parker, Curry, etc... are all limited because they are on good teams with good talent around them. They don't have to score 30 every night to be in competitive games like someone on a team with less scoring talent like a James Harden has to do.

[sfernald]

Kobe must not have got the memo.

[Doctor MJ]

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?

Looking at the data I think you overstate the difference. I think it just totally varies depending on the players available and the decisions teams make. The decrease in pace is also a factor.

That said, team strategies do change. Teams used to be far more prone to try to ride their big man to 20+ points per game. Some of what people lament as "the death of the center" is really "the realization that most centers shouldn't shoot that much".

A specific point here is the trend of 3-point shooting and the gradual realization that does NOT mean stars should shoot a lot of 3's but that a fundamental goal of the offense should be to get open 3's for your role players. Role player scoring is now more important than ever, and we should expect that that means star scoring is now LESS important.

[TwentyOne920]

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?

Looking at the data I think you overstate the difference. I think it just totally varies depending on the players available and the decisions teams make. The decrease in pace is also a factor.

That said, team strategies do change. Teams used to be far more prone to try to ride their big man to 20+ points per game. Some of what people lament as "the death of the center" is really "the realization that most centers shouldn't shoot that much".

A specific point here is the trend of 3-point shooting and the gradual realization that does NOT mean stars should shoot a lot of 3's but that a fundamental goal of the offense should be to get open 3's for your role players. Role player scoring is now more important than ever, and we should expect that that means star scoring is now LESS important.

Yes... most teams stress that the best shot isn't one attempted by a star player but by the open man. Sure, in the playoffs it's less meaningful, but Robert Horry made an entire career out of being open at the right time.