The_Hater wrote:og15 wrote:leolozon wrote:
You still have it wrong and don't bother to look at shot distribution. The difference in scoring output is mostly coming from bench players, because stars are playing less minutes and not really shooting more. There's 1 guy averaging more than 30ppg this year and yet some act as if 100 guys from the 80s, 90s and 00s would average over 30ppg per game if playing now. It's simply delusional.
In his season where he scored the most points, Allen played 40mpg... Won't happen now. He also had 21 FGA, something that just Beal is doing right now. Allen isn't coming in the league and shooting 25 times a game in 36 mpg! I'm so tired of this type of thread. Kobe had 22.8 FGA in 2007 and Carmelo 22.4. The style of play has changed.
There are more really good player now as the talent in the league has never been better. Therefore more guys average 20+ ppg and the bench players play bigger minutes. Which means that difference at the top would mostly be shooting 4-5 more 3s per game vs 2s, which would at best mean 1-2 more ppg... Not 5 or 10.
Some people are inflating the stat inflation to make themselves feel better about the past. They're delusional if they think all these guys are averaging 30ppg. Most of them would be more efficient taking about the same number of shots in less minutes. That's it.
The guy just before me even brought the dumb point that it's easier to get to the line and Ray Allen would suddenly shoot more 3s and have more FTA.... FTA attempts are DOWN compared to the past! Less FTA because more 3PA!!! It's pretty simple.
I won't even bother with the statement that defense is worst as it's obviously a bias and not based on reality.
I've mentioned this before. People want to give the pace and efficiency boost, but then they don't want to take into account the minutes per game reduction.
Teams simply don't play guys 40 mpg anymore. So for many guys, you get the boost from pace and efficiency, but then you lose it in minutes played.
A lot more teams are going heavier and the usage of perimeter guys as playmakers and ball handlers since post guys aren't used much in those roles, so that will give a lot of capable guys more apg, depending on what role they played before.
I'd say "peak" Allen is at 27-28 ppg, but the average season in his prime as long as he isn't on a bad team just shooting a lot, we would see more around 24-25 ppg playing around 35-36 mpg. This would be up from around 22 ppg that he put up per 36 minutes through his prime seasons.
While your point is valid and overlooked, there are other factors other than pace that have led to the individual scoring boosts. The increase in 3 point shooting at thr expense of long 2’s. The overall spacing making players more efficient. OTRG has gone from 103 to 112 over the past 20 seasons. eFG% has gone from 47.3% to 53.7% over the same period.
Plus which players are getting the shots has changed too. It’s no longer Shaq, DRob, Duncan and Hakeem in the post, it’s perimeter players who can shoot and create who have increased their usage rates. And coaches are relying less on running players for different players and relying more on getting the ball in their best players hands and starting the offense from there. The highest usage rate of Allen’s career was 29.5, Brad Beal has been 34.6 each of the last 2 seasons. So situation matters.
I think Ray Allen would be positively effected by everything I’ve added in the past 2 paragraphs.
For sure, I thought I encompassed that by saying pace AND efficiency boost. Now of course the boost is not going to be the same for every player.
Like jamaalstar21 mentions, Ray Allen already had a more "modern" shot distribution, so he's probably not going to get as much of a boost as someone who might have been taking a lot of mid-range or one of those SG/SF's who was posting up and shooting fadeways trying to be like Jordan.
Allen's peak scoring season was 06-07 (26.4 ppg, 23.6 pts/36, 34.3 pts/100). That season, league average TS% was 54.1%, and eFG% was 49.6%.
Allen had a 51.0% eFG and 56.4% TS. So that season he was +2.3 TS% and +1.4 eFG%. (This season TS% is 57.1 and eFG is 53.7, so +3 and +4.1)
His peak TS% season pre-Boston was 00-01 (61.0 TS%, league average 51.8%, +9.2 TS%), his peak eFG% pre-Boston was 01-02 (56.1 eFG%, league average 47.7%, +8.4 eFG%). Ray also had some advantages in the early 2000's. I discussed this before with someone that teams that shot a lot of three's and did it well were actually the better offensive teams in the early 2000's, even though the strategy had not gone off yet, and players who were good from 3 like Allen had an advantage.
Remember there was the big rule change in 04-05 which had the perimeter players freed up more. Ray's highest scoring seasons came after that change, no surprise. League wide eFG% stayed around 49-50% from 04-05 until 14-15. In 15-16 there was a slight boost to 51.4%. That said, the difference in eFG% from 04-05 to 15-16 until now is around 3-4% ( about 4% so far this season). TS% due to fewer FT's is about 2-3%.
We also have to account for role players generally being more efficient because they are the ones who have their shooting spots more restricted to the "efficient" areas (3PT and at the rim), while stars can generally take whatever shots they want.
So even if we just give Ray Allen a 3% increase in eFG%. Take his highest scoring season, he took 21 FGA and 5.6 FTA in 40.3 mins. If we boost him to 6.5 FTA/40 from more landing space fouls, but decrease his minutes to 36, that's around 19 FGA and 6 FTA. So 90% FT will be 5.4 pts, and 54% eFG would be 20.5 points, giving us 25.9 ppg on 59.8 TS%.
So here, the efficiency boost is negated by the minutes decrease in terms of raw numbers. When people just add like 5 ppg and 5% increase in efficiency to everyone though, that is not really realistic.
