Why are there so many guys averaging around 26ppg-31ppg?

[Roger Murdock]

Its due to analytics movements.

Mix / Max your best players. Its stupid it took so long but basically get your role players/decent guys to take less shots and only the mix they are good at. Get your good players to take more shots.

Its not just NBA. This is a greater business thing worldwide. My current job right now is supply chain optimization and I'm basically moving products we produce around so that we get more of the high margin products and less of the low margin ones. Low hanging fruit to make more $$$ with less work.

Basically its just the impact on mathematics and how its impacting the game.

[og15]

I can't say much about this without a list of players with 26-31 ppg each year compared to the amount of teams. Without that, my reference would only be maybe the last few seasons, I can't remember how many 26-31 ppg players there were in 2005 or 2006.

[NO-KG-AI]

I can't say much about this without a list of players with 26-31 ppg each year compared to the amount of teams. Without that, my reference would only be maybe the last few seasons, I can't remember how many 26-31 ppg players there were in 2005 or 2006.

I know off hand in 2003-2004 only Tracy McGrady was over 26(28.0). I think he actually didn’t play enough to qualify for the leaderboard, so no one. Lol

[Marrrcuss]

The offense has evolved. So many guys are unguardable and guys that play great defense arent as valued as they once were.

Lol no you can’t breath on anyone that’s it everything else you said is just to hype these guys up.

But yet FTs are at an all time low. Make it make sense, bro

[hoosierdaddy34]

Increased pace of the game. Better Understanding of the best places and ways to score.

[magicman1978]

The offense has evolved. So many guys are unguardable and guys that play great defense arent as valued as they once were.

Lol no you can’t breath on anyone that’s it everything else you said is just to hype these guys up.

But yet FTs are at an all time low. Make it make sense, bro

There use to be a no easy basket rule. If someone was going up for a dunk or layup, sometimes the defenders would just grab them or foul them hard to prevent the basket. Those types of fouls aren't allowed now because you generally get called for flagrant from grabbing players or hard fouls and players don't want to risk soft fouls and give up a 3-pt play. Also, players that operated in the post use to get fouled a lot more - one reason being what I mentioned earlier, but another being that the refs now seem to allow post players to get mauled without calling fouls while allowing perimeter players more freedom. For example, picking a random year, in 1993, out of the top 15 players in FT attempts - only two were non centers/PFs (and they were known to be some of the most relentless perimeter players in attacking the rim - Jordan and Wilkins). This year, it's the exact opposite, out of the top 15 only 2 PFs were top 15 (and they mostly operate from outside in) and none were PFs. This made the no easy basket rule make more sense back then as well, because Cs/PFs weren't the greatest FT shooters compared to perimeter players. Combine that with the fact that ~40% of shots are now 3pts and of course FTs will be at an all-time low.

[Jkam31]

The offense has evolved. So many guys are unguardable and guys that play great defense arent as valued as they once were.

Lol no you can’t breath on anyone that’s it everything else you said is just to hype these guys up.

But yet FTs are at an all time low. Make it make sense, bro

Come on man guys know to play ole defense and to watch hoe they contest shots

[GregOden]

There's not that many more high scoring guys in the 25+ range compared to normal.

What's more unusual is the number of 20+ scorers which has exploded recently.

[KnIcKsYaNkSmEtS1127]

24 second shot clock resetting to 14 and the 3 point shot.

[KnIcKsYaNkSmEtS1127]

The offense has evolved. So many guys are unguardable and guys that play great defense arent as valued as they once were.

Lol no you can’t breath on anyone that’s it everything else you said is just to hype these guys up.

But yet FTs are at an all time low. Make it make sense, bro

People don’t play tight man to man defense because if the hand check foul . Therefore players can get off 3 point shots much less contested than a decade ago.

[DCasey91]

1. Dilution of rules/officiating

2. Catering to Offense over Defense leaving the product to be so-so at the expense of the the almighty dollar (markets always sets the landscape)

3. Defensive philosophies are still not up to scratch (open wing 3’s still to this day).

4. Coaches themselves still run basic sets (needs an update asap).

4. Ultra Heliolcentric play (1 or 2 like a sun everything else revolves around that aspect. Which is great for outcome results but leaves an almost systematic/mechanical/robotic/A.I playing the game. Your the best player everything goes through you makes sense. Nothing new just more of that. NBA 2k 4-5 out full half court offense (starts at the logo sometimes).

5. Double down on the effect. I.e if Curry is taking 10+ 3’s a game, why not take 20? Could be the next step in basketball evolution. Nash is that efficient, sack it until there’s a perfect balance of high volume/high efficiency (See Trae Young).

6. It wouldn’t be too hard at all to invest in an A.I logarithm (Deep Learning) specifically designed to max out gameplay. Heck it’s a game. You can right now have an unbeatable A.I program in hugely popular games stuck inside of a USB stick lol. Nothing stopping that for NBA, emotions or otherwise, would bring up highly interesting results imo. That’s going beyond the horizon.

Curry is your best bet for me. 21-22+ threes per game, 4 drag screens like protecting a quarterback, you have more than enough data on where his best % shots are. Only have to hit 33%+ to beat 50% on twos. If he’s hitting 40+% no point using other players, he can essentially account for half the offense in half the amount of time needed. That’s maxing out a person

It’s almost broken the game (3>>>>2) but not quite yet.

It’s also logical that games essentially get broken/diluted the longer it goes on. What once was looked at a gimmick (historisty shows revolutionary ideas was put forward decades ago, bureaucracy slows down any sort of innovation polio was remedied decades before they put it into practice as an example.)

Going on a tangent but it’s a domino effect.

I still don’t believe Curry has been broken enough.
If you have a broken player that breaks the game essentially, then break the game as much as possible. It’s a huge edge here that hasn’t been exploited enough.

Heck even 57%% ts (5-7% drop) for a 40% increase in volume would pay off more in the end. Especially if you vacuum away lesser offensive minded players and divy up the lack of scoring potential to one superstar player.
60’s ball was kind of like that in a way.

40% from 3 is essentially a 120 offense so to speak.
So 36 minutes should be a 90 score creation from a player. That’s hugely high but isn’t out the range of possibility (Points/Assist/Score Creation/Gravity etc. etc.)

Just wished one day the coach would say to Curry we are going to open up as much room as possible shoot 30 3’s or layups let’s see what happens.

The Nuggets game he had 24 shots for a return of 53 points in 36 minutes. He’s shooting it once every 1 and a half minutes. 36 shots should have been a minimum when your consistently that effective.
Even at 40% your still getting a huge return on investment.

[GYK]

The only answer is replacing long 2’s with 3’s.
Pace effected team output.
Usage is the same. For the new hub style their increased using is playmaking.
FGA are the same for stars. FTr is relatively the same for stars.
The literal only difference in star players is the increase in 3’.

[djsunyc]

empty gyms and no nightlife.

[dhsilv2]

Also it's not THAT up per say.

You had 7 guys do it in 1989 in a league of 25 teams and you have 10 doing it this year in a league of 30. Is going from 1 guy on 28% of teams to 1 guy on 33% of teams THAT big a jump? Or 8 guys in 2006 (~27%).

1989 Pace - 100.6
2006 Pace - 90.5
2021 Pace - 99.2

So I mean it's like 2 more guys doing...it's not that big a difference to a lot of other seasons in different eras. Yeah, I could find years with way less guys too but again this isn't something that's drastically outside the norm.

This is definitely a good point, however I would point out the following to consider:

the 7 guys who did in in 1989 averaged 38.5 minutes per game. The ones doing it this year average 34.6 minutes per game. You've got 16 qualified players this year averaging 35+ per 100 poss. In 2019 you had two players exceed 35pts per 100 poss. And players this year are doing it on much higher efficiency. Beyond players being more skilled a lot of it has to do with better coaching/strategies and rules changes, including heavier emphasis on freedom of movement (do they even call moving screens anymore?).

Without a doubt offenses are smarter. I'm not as sure about the freedom of movement as that rule applies to all 5 guys on offense. The focus on running offenses through one primary guy today is more the factor there but perhaps they work together. It's tough to fully address it. I mean the zone rules made it easier to create space for big men inside in the past too. This rule made it easier for guards to run offenses vs big men.

As for minutes, you also have to account for guys in theory are fresher on the floor, but then you have to factor in how much more physically demanding defense is when you have to guard everyone out to the 3 point line while in the 80's you only really had to guard out about 20 feet and for some players not even 15.

It's not one factor, but the change isn't really that large.

[dhsilv2]

Pace has been the same the last 3 or 4 years, so that's not all of it by any means the last few years. Seems to me its just further evolution of the rule changes, specifically toward smallball and perimeter shooting the last few.

well and better shooting because no fans in the arenas, I mean free throw shooting didn't evolve and that's up this year.

[dhsilv2]

I said around 26 in my original post. I averaged up for Tatum at 25.8 and KL at 25.7

10 would still be a lot

1985 would then show up as the best year at a glance with 8 guys in a 23 team league. 34% of the teams with a ~26 ppg guy.

8 would be a lot as well. I was just curious why 12 now. Feels like 25 is the new 22 in a way.

It really has to do with when you were watching the game.

I changed it to 25

1985 8
1986 5
1987 7
1988 8
1989 9
1990 7
1991 10

Now this year we got 16 guys at 25. And that IS a LOT more. 26 is oddly the threshhold where things don't seem to me all that out of order.

But we've always had years with a bunch of really great scorers and back in the late 80's and early 90's when pace was high and defense wasn't really a focus, we had a lot of high volume scorers. As pace slowed and teams really focused on defense, the scoring went down.

And well this is imo the deepest the league's ever been in terms of top talent (not that the talent is the best but there's just more insanely elite top guys) and on top of that we've got the best second tier talent depth ever. Which makes sense...more people, large pool of people we're drawing from, and there's never been more financial incentive to pick basketball over any other sport or career.

[dhsilv2]

You get free throws for jumping into a guy and throwing it at the basket. Points a lot easier to come by these days.

and this is still the lowest free throw rate era ever...

[dhsilv2]

I can't say much about this without a list of players with 26-31 ppg each year compared to the amount of teams. Without that, my reference would only be maybe the last few seasons, I can't remember how many 26-31 ppg players there were in 2005 or 2006.

man I'd do that but it's a lot of extra work, I listed the counts already...would it really make that big a difference? If so I can throw that together tomorrow.

[therealbig3]

Lol no you can’t breath on anyone that’s it everything else you said is just to hype these guys up.

But yet FTs are at an all time low. Make it make sense, bro

People don’t play tight man to man defense because if the hand check foul . Therefore players can get off 3 point shots much less contested than a decade ago.

Huh? You think 3s were more tightly contested before? I think it’s the complete opposite, teams now are so afraid of giving up open 3s, because there are so many great shooters nowadays, and often times they’re more willing to defend the 3pt line than to prevent driving lanes to the basket, which was unheard of before.

[Kobe187]

Changing the rules in favour of offence, if you grace a player nowadays it’s a foul. Miss the 84-81 games that were a grind from start to finish.