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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?

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.

Pace in general being slower could be one.

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.

branny wrote: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.

TwentyOne920 wrote:

branny wrote: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!

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.

branny wrote: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.

branny wrote: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.

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

-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).

bledredwine wrote: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

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.

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.

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

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.

bledredwine wrote: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

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.

Chaos Revenant wrote: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?

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