The Effect of Pace on Average PPG of High Scoring Players
Posted: Sun May 22, 2011 11:58 pm
I should preface this by saying I think pace is a garbage stat. I think it's poorly designed and functionally useless, and is rarely used in the way it could/should be.
That being said … I often see/hear/read about the numbers of good scorers in past “being affected by pace,” or “having better numbers because of pace.” And I thought … really? Because, if we take out the one true scoring outlier—Wilt Chamberlain in his monster scoring years—we've had three players that have scored over 35 ppg in the history of the NBA...Rick Barry in 1967, Michael Jordan in 1987, and Kobe Bryant in 2006. We've had a few more years the NBA's leading scorer has scored under 29 a game...Elvin Hayes in 1969, George Gervin in 1979, Alex English in 1983, Michael Jordan in 1998, Tracy McGrady in 2004, and (ta-da!) Kevin Durant this year, in 2011. So, do you know what those years have in common? The common thread in the years where players had big scoring years?
There isn't one. And it certainly isn't pace. Pace didn't change that much between Rick Barry (35.58 ppg in 1967) and Elvin Hayes (28.48 in 1969). Or between Gervin's 1978 and 1980 years...when his scoring led the league at pretty different levels. Kobe averaged over 35 a game only half a decade ago. The 2000s had slowest pace of any decade in the NBA. The league's leading scorer averaged over 30 a game in 9 out of 10 years … same as the 70s and 80s.
So I dug a bit deeper and did some grunt work. I took the average of the leading scorers in every season where have the pace statistic available, from 1974 forward. I increased the number of scorers used for the yearly average as the league increased in size—I used the top 4 from 1974 through 1976, the top 5 from 1977 through 1988, the top 6 from 1989 to 1996, and the top 7 from 1997 forward. I didn't count the strike year, because it's a statistical mess. And here's what I found
Over 27 seasons, the leading scorers averaged 27.45 points per game, with a league average pace of 97.31.
--When pace is higher than 100 (15 out of 37 available seasons), the best scorers averaged 28.07 points per game. The average pace in these seasons was 103.51.
--When pace is lower than 100 (22 out of 37 available seasons), the best scorers averaged 27.03 points per game. The average pace in these seasons was 93.07.
--When pace is really high, at over 105 (5 out of 37 available seasons), the best scorers averaged 27.09 points per game. The average pace in these seasons was 106.26.
--When pace is really low, at under 91 (7 out of 37 available seasons), the best scorers averaged 26.52 points per game. The average pace in these seasons was 90.51.
Pace may have some effect on the scoring of the league's major scorers. Maybe. Perhaps a small effect. It's nothing like as much as the pace differential. And, frankly, there's a lot of evidence to suggest it has little to no effect at all. Of the 37 seasons available, there are 10 seasons where scorers were above the scoring mark with pace average was lower than the norm, or below the scoring mark with pace average above the norm. that's close to 30% percent of all the seasons. That's an awful lot of negative correlation.
And even that doesn't make it clear enough .., the fact is that there are very, very few NBA seasons around the historical pace average. There are only six NBA seasons with pace between 93 and 99.5. The NBA is a league of extremes. But, as the pace/scoring numbers show for very high or low pace, that doesn't seem to impact how much major scorers average. When the league pace is super fast, top scorers score around 27 a game. When the league pace is slow as molasses...they score about 27 a game.
What does this mean? It seems to show that if you're a primary scorer, a go-to guy...the speed of the game seems to have relatively little effect on how much you score. And this is a kind of a refreshing concept. It gives basketball something like baseball has—a statistical bar. It's like being a .300 hitter or having an ERA under 3.00. If you score over 27 points per game, regardless of when you played, you are a great scorer. It doesn't mean all seasons are 100% equal—that's not what I'm saying. But I am saying it looks like that the pace statistic has no real application to recalculate or reassess the averages of really good scorers.
The painful spreadsheet can be found here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AglwuTuVOEwwdDdibXZYSjhyYlhhclhnbEdwZjdmd0E&hl=en_US
That being said … I often see/hear/read about the numbers of good scorers in past “being affected by pace,” or “having better numbers because of pace.” And I thought … really? Because, if we take out the one true scoring outlier—Wilt Chamberlain in his monster scoring years—we've had three players that have scored over 35 ppg in the history of the NBA...Rick Barry in 1967, Michael Jordan in 1987, and Kobe Bryant in 2006. We've had a few more years the NBA's leading scorer has scored under 29 a game...Elvin Hayes in 1969, George Gervin in 1979, Alex English in 1983, Michael Jordan in 1998, Tracy McGrady in 2004, and (ta-da!) Kevin Durant this year, in 2011. So, do you know what those years have in common? The common thread in the years where players had big scoring years?
There isn't one. And it certainly isn't pace. Pace didn't change that much between Rick Barry (35.58 ppg in 1967) and Elvin Hayes (28.48 in 1969). Or between Gervin's 1978 and 1980 years...when his scoring led the league at pretty different levels. Kobe averaged over 35 a game only half a decade ago. The 2000s had slowest pace of any decade in the NBA. The league's leading scorer averaged over 30 a game in 9 out of 10 years … same as the 70s and 80s.
So I dug a bit deeper and did some grunt work. I took the average of the leading scorers in every season where have the pace statistic available, from 1974 forward. I increased the number of scorers used for the yearly average as the league increased in size—I used the top 4 from 1974 through 1976, the top 5 from 1977 through 1988, the top 6 from 1989 to 1996, and the top 7 from 1997 forward. I didn't count the strike year, because it's a statistical mess. And here's what I found
Over 27 seasons, the leading scorers averaged 27.45 points per game, with a league average pace of 97.31.
--When pace is higher than 100 (15 out of 37 available seasons), the best scorers averaged 28.07 points per game. The average pace in these seasons was 103.51.
--When pace is lower than 100 (22 out of 37 available seasons), the best scorers averaged 27.03 points per game. The average pace in these seasons was 93.07.
--When pace is really high, at over 105 (5 out of 37 available seasons), the best scorers averaged 27.09 points per game. The average pace in these seasons was 106.26.
--When pace is really low, at under 91 (7 out of 37 available seasons), the best scorers averaged 26.52 points per game. The average pace in these seasons was 90.51.
Pace may have some effect on the scoring of the league's major scorers. Maybe. Perhaps a small effect. It's nothing like as much as the pace differential. And, frankly, there's a lot of evidence to suggest it has little to no effect at all. Of the 37 seasons available, there are 10 seasons where scorers were above the scoring mark with pace average was lower than the norm, or below the scoring mark with pace average above the norm. that's close to 30% percent of all the seasons. That's an awful lot of negative correlation.
And even that doesn't make it clear enough .., the fact is that there are very, very few NBA seasons around the historical pace average. There are only six NBA seasons with pace between 93 and 99.5. The NBA is a league of extremes. But, as the pace/scoring numbers show for very high or low pace, that doesn't seem to impact how much major scorers average. When the league pace is super fast, top scorers score around 27 a game. When the league pace is slow as molasses...they score about 27 a game.
What does this mean? It seems to show that if you're a primary scorer, a go-to guy...the speed of the game seems to have relatively little effect on how much you score. And this is a kind of a refreshing concept. It gives basketball something like baseball has—a statistical bar. It's like being a .300 hitter or having an ERA under 3.00. If you score over 27 points per game, regardless of when you played, you are a great scorer. It doesn't mean all seasons are 100% equal—that's not what I'm saying. But I am saying it looks like that the pace statistic has no real application to recalculate or reassess the averages of really good scorers.
The painful spreadsheet can be found here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AglwuTuVOEwwdDdibXZYSjhyYlhhclhnbEdwZjdmd0E&hl=en_US