Is it easy to score 40 or 50 points in today's NBA or are the players incredibly talented?

[dhsilv2]

Probably related, but the free throws are out of control. 12-16 free throws seem regular for star players now. Shai had a 26 free throw game. I can't believe the league made it even easier to be sent to the foul line when there were already concerns about the league being soft and games being slowed down. You think people are sick of how many 3s are shot in games? This free throw thing is going to be a bigger issue eventually. It seems the league wants to draw people in with stats, but they will be turned away by the whistles and stoppage in play for free throws. I have never understood why the league thinks 100 and less points in a game is a problem when people are fully willing to watch sports like soccer and hockey that end with scores like 3-1.

I mean 90% of NBA history had teams averaging over 100. But that aside, free throws? 1992 teams averaged 26.7. They're at 28.2 this year. Teams scored 105.3 in 1992 vs 118.5.

Free throws are adding 1.5 points a game from 1992 while scoring is up 13.2. it isn't the line where in general free throw rates have been declining.

Maybe it is more disproportional to the stars though. 26 from Shai the other night is insane. I’m admittedly going mostly by feel, but the fouls called are soft. The light touch of an arm after the shot being a foul this year when not in the past feels especially weak, and it is sending players to the line for 3 free throws when it didn’t directly effect the shot. That should be play on.

I do think stars seem to get a bit more of the foul shots. But we used to have so many soft fouls on guys doing fade aways and mid range jumpers too. Watching 90's vs today the biggest difference is guys posting up where I guess there's more "contact" but it's contact the offensive player wanted. Otherwise I think there's more contact today just from how fast the ball moves.

But without a doubt we've been seeing less and less time watching free throws in recent years. Though we're starting the year high on free throws.

[f4p]

Pace and space matter. As does usage, but are these players scoring that much against good defensive teams? Off the top of my head, the Celtics, Pacers, Hornets, Suns, Lakers, and Pelicans are starting centers who shouldn'tbe starting. Like Ben Simmons on a vet minimum would likely be an upgrade. Poeltl looks like he's playing injured and Embiid is unlikely to be right again. The sample size is pretty small here.

I mean there are bad defensive teams every year. That's always true. And yes, they probably give up more of the 40 and 50 point games than the good defenses.

[jbk1234]

Pace and space matter. As does usage, but are these players scoring that much against good defensive teams? Off the top of my head, the Celtics, Pacers, Hornets, Suns, Lakers, and Pelicans are starting centers who shouldn'tbe starting. Like Ben Simmons on a vet minimum would likely be an upgrade. Poeltl looks like he's playing injured and Embiid is unlikely to be right again. The sample size is pretty small here.

I mean there are bad defensive teams every year. That's always true. And yes, they provably give up more of the 40 and 50 point games than the good defenses.

The point is that with three game sample sizes, you don't really have a good idea whether it's a trend, or just the result of an early schedule.

[jbk1234]

Pace and space matter. As does usage, but are these players scoring that much against good defensive teams? Off the top of my head, the Celtics, Pacers, Hornets, Suns, Lakers, and Pelicans are starting centers who shouldn'tbe starting. Like Ben Simmons on a vet minimum would likely be an upgrade. Poeltl looks like he's playing injured and Embiid is unlikely to be right again. The sample size is pretty small here.

I mean there are bad defensive teams every year. That's always true. And yes, they provably give up more of the 40 and 50 point games than the good defenses.

The point is that with three game sample sizes, you don't really have a good idea whether it's a trend, or just the result of an early schedule.

[dhsilv2]

Silver & Co. have changed the rules so much that it's like watching NBA2K in real life. I also believe that player effort on the defensive end is at an all time low. Defense just isn't "fun" for the majority of players.

How can people watch the game and think there's less effort today than in the past? if the effort was the same as in the 90's teams would average 150 a game...

Defensive effort in the 90's was a few hits shy of football. Teams like the Pistons and Knicks didn't just try to shut you down, they tried to hurt you. That EFFORT does not exist today.

1. That isn't effort. Effort is how much effort you're putting in. Most of the defense in the 90's was standing around near your man who rarely moved. Defenses are tasked to move and stay involved on a night and day different level. You weren't dealing with a motion offense, they really didnt exist. You weren't sprinting out to the 3 point line. There was far more iso which made the effort for 4 of the 5 defenders nearly zero. Even when teams hedged with a "fake zone", it was still far less energy expended.

2. That's just nonsense. The game was nothing like football. There wasn't more physicality outside of the rare obvious flagrant fouls that keep getting talked about. But on a day to day and play to play aspect. There is less contact initiated by the defenders today. You could argue there was more physicality initiated by offensive players in the past due to the post being physical contact started by the offensive player.

3. It's way less effort to drop someone on their head than play actual defense. Flagrant fouls almost always go up when players get tired because that's just easier to do. It's why we had so many free throws in the past which was as we all know. Bad defense.

[f4p]

In 2015, we had offensive hacks like LeBron, KD, Steph, and Harden winning MVPs and running offenses. And that's why league-wide scoring only averaged 100 ppg (exactly 100.0 ppg). Now guys like banchero and Cunningham are leading offenses averaging over 110 ppg. I'm sure nothing changed.

[zzaj]

Like everything since the computer generation...players are more technically skilled. Truly, we see that in pretty much every sport. Kids are starting younger and there are higher and higher benchmarks. I always think of skateboarding or music as examples. You can see a 12 year old do things on a skateboard or behind a set of drums, that in past generations only veterans could accomplish...

That being said. I've heard multiple 80s-2000ish players talk about how defense during that time was really only about 20 feet and in. So you can imagine that without as much 3pt shooting and different foul calling standards it was harder to get to 50.

It may be my own bias or mis-memory, but I think teams are more single-star-centric than they were in past generations. There were isolated stars on teams of course, but typically it was 2-3 players doing the scoring damage.

[Warspite]

It's pretty simple. Most role players learned how to shoot threes which led to a lot more space on the floor for the best scorers. Pace has gone up, also. Rules haven't been adjusted in light of this development, so high scoring performances have become more common place.

Yeah agreed, but why would the rules be adjusted. Who's to say a good average for a player is 25 ppg and we should only have 1 or 2 players average above 30 and max 25 players average above 20. We just need to accept the new reality.

I didn't say the rules should be adjusted, just pointing out the fact that they haven't been.

That being said, I do think there should be some rule changes that favor defenses, but it's not because I want the scoring averages to go down. I think it'd be a better product to watch.

IMHO: You and I are the problem in that we want a better product to watch. 90% of NBA fans don't want to watch the game. They just want the youtube/SC highlights. Silver doesn't care about us old timers who want to sit down and watch a 2-hour game. He just wants highlight reels and stat evidence for gambling wagers.

We have gone from gambling to enhance viewership to viewership to enhance gambling.