Mazter wrote:rTS is good for measurement realtive to their own era, but doesn't necessarily translate well to another era. The increase in league TS is because of switch from long 2's to 3's and better FT shooters being fouled. The first wouldn't benefit Kobe that much as it does the league rating, as his long midrange were way above league average. And the second wouldn't benefit Kobe at all, as he wont magically turn into a better (FT) shooter.
These estimates tend to be more based on reputation than on stats. DeRozan is having an exceptional season because he is shooting way above his regular self, which is also way above Kobe ever was. Giving Kobe the same shot selection as DeRozan would bring him to 55.3%/56.4%/54.9% with his 2006-2007-2008 percentages. Therefore at best he would average 27 ppg with the same shots. Could he average more, of course, any one could score more when shooting more. Not that the Bulls would benefit more from it.
I think you make a good point about how specific players from previous eras will receive varying gains in efficiency from playing in today's higher efficiency environment, but you've gotten one big fact wrong which is the increase in league TS is not just due to shot selection shifting from long 2's to 3's. League wide 2P FG% in 2008 was 48.4%, this season it's 52.9%. That's a huge gap and there are three dominant causes for it: increase in interior space, the decrease of rim protection in the average lineup and the decrease in the proportion of long 2P FGAs.
Between 2008 and today, increase in interior space and decrease in rim protection have resulted in the following increased 2P FG% by distance splits:
2022-20080-3 ft: 7.5%
3-10: 2.4%
10-16: 3.7%
If we take the FGAs 2008 Kobe averaged from each of those distances and applied these boosts to his 2008 FG percentages, his PPG increases by .052 points.
Now, you say that the switch from long 2's to 3's wouldn't have benefited Kobe as much as the league average because he was a way above average long 2 shooter but this is mistaken. 2008 Kobe actually shot worse on 2's from 16+ feet than league average (.374 vs .409). Though 2008 happened to be one of his poorer FG% on long 2's, even if we take his average FG% on long 2's from 2001-2013 (.407) it's still just at league average (because of the difficulty of long 2's he was often taking). 2008 Kobe's eFG on 3PAs was .542, which means every long 2PA (taking his 2001-2013 FG% instead of his lower 2008) that's converted to a 3PA gains Kobe 0.27 points per shot. 2008 Kobe was taking 6 long 2's per game. If we convert half of those to 3PAs (he would still be near the top of the 2022 league in long 2PAs per game), that would increase his PPG by 0.81 points.
By this rough analysis, taking the same volume of attempts we could expect 2008 Kobe's PPG to jump by about 1.3 points thanks to the more efficient scoring environment of today's era, boosting him from 28.3 PPG to 29.6 PPG, with a TS rise of 2.6%.
The more long 2's Kobe shot in any historical season, the more he benefits from playing in an environment where not only are 3's tactically promoted over long 2's by offensive systems, but defensive structures don't push offensive creators into taking as many long 2's because paints aren't as packed, making it easier to drive instead of jack up a long 2. Every long 2 that Kobe would be able to convert into a FGA at 0-3 feet would have been worth even more than converting that shot into a 3PA.
2006 Kobe was shooting an incredible 9 long 2's per game and averaging 35.7 PPG. Give that version of Kobe the efficiency boost from more interior space combined with the efficiency boost of converting half his long 2's into 3PAs or shots at 0-3 feet and at the same volume of attempts he could be averaging around 37-38 PPG.
