Legler and JJ break down modern offenses, why scoring is up, etc.

[ScrantonBulls]

Watch on YouTube

OG posted this in another thread. It's so good I thought it deserved a thread. Great discussion by two smart basketball guys. Some highlights:

- Scoring is up because players are so ridiculously skilled. They can all shoot threes, and many can shoot off dribbles, step back, etc.
- Defense is still important, but work how potent offenses are now, it isn't crucial to have a top 5 defense.
- JJ touches on how the "physicality of the 90s" is a myth. Watched 90s finals series in full, and they weren't that physical.
- The number of drives going to the hoop is UP, but free throws are at an all time LOW. This disproves the notion that ticky tacky fouls are always called now.

Just great stuff. We need more analysis like this from ex players and from people. We hear some much analysis like "the league ain't tough no more" and "everything is soft now". The skill of the league is at an all time how. Offense has simply passed up defense, and there's not much defenses can do to slow it down.

[zero rings]

Old heads can't cope with the fact that today's players are better. The fact that the 3 pt line was there for decades, and they were too stubborn/dumb to use it, is also a source of embarrassment.

[Harry Garris]

Old heads can't cope with the fact that today's players are better. The fact that the 3 pt line was there for decades, and they were too stubborn/dumb to use it, is also a source of embarrassment.

Shooting at the level of the best nba players is a very difficult skill to develop. That doesn’t just happen overnight. Training and coaching methods develop over time that’s why we saw a gradual adoption of the 3 pointer.

[ScrantonBulls]

Old heads can't cope with the fact that today's players are better. The fact that the 3 pt line was there for decades, and they were too stubborn/dumb to use it, is also a source of embarrassment.

For whatever reason NBA players are especially sensitive about this. They struggle so much to give modern players their due. You don't see it as much with ex-MLB or NFL players.

[zero rings]

Old heads can't cope with the fact that today's players are better. The fact that the 3 pt line was there for decades, and they were too stubborn/dumb to use it, is also a source of embarrassment.

Shooting at the level of the best nba players is a very difficult skill to develop. That doesn’t just happen overnight. Training and coaching methods develop over time that’s why we saw a gradual adoption of the 3 pointer.

Even still, it's crazy how long it took for players to cut out long 2's and replace them with 3's. It's not like the math is all that complicated.

[WestGOAT]

legit shocking how effective the bulls full court press was in the 90s, really highlights the lack of ball-handling teams had back in the day:

Watch on YouTube

I mean yea the Knicks did that to themselves playing defensive line-ups, but still shocking.

No way this works against modern offenses.

[Yoshun]

"Why is scoring up?" Thread 9964575

[RichieBuckets]

Young heads can’t handle they’re soft
Old heads can’t handle they have no skill
Everyone gets to feel aggrieved!

[Haldi]

Old heads can't cope with the fact that today's players are better. The fact that the 3 pt line was there for decades, and they were too stubborn/dumb to use it, is also a source of embarrassment.

They weren’t too stubborn or dumb, they lacked the skill to be able to do it. Thats the reason anything but a wide open 3 was considered a bad shot, because shooting off the dribble, stepback 3s and so on are insanely harder to hit and no one back then was good enough at that skill yet. If Steph Curry showed up to training camp any year in the 80s or 90s, there isn’t a coach in the league that would’ve been dumb enough to start preventing him from chucking 3s from anywhere that feels good to him. The reality is we didn’t have anything even close to Curry back then.

Miller was my favourite player and probably the guy who took the most high difficulty 3s for back then and its a joke compared to what even role players can do nowadays. I remember him talking about how he used to train with his big sister and she would make him shoot 1000 shots everyday. Cool story right. Now imagine an entire league where players shoot like 2000 shots everyday instead and the top players like Steph are probably closer to 5000. THATs the difference between back then and today lol.

Its truly amazing to me how much fans my age and ex players want to refuse that today’s players are much better basketball players than back then.

[aggo]

im mid-30s and I grew up watching basketball in the 90s.


for me there are 2 or 3 things that stick out on the differences.


1/ pace. in the 90s you walked the ball up in half court and then dump it into the elbow. that's how possessions started. you play 2 bigs and each of them are inside the 3pt line on each elbow.

2/ fouls. JJ is both right and wrong. yes, the league today is so much more highly skilled and everyone can shoot and move. no offense to players like Steve Kerr, but his type of player-profile would see 0 playing time in today's nba because he couldn't shoot and move and defend.

but theres a huge difference when you argue "physicality"

90% flagrant fouls today were common fouls in the early 90s. Today on a chase down block if u catch the opponents head on a swipe its a flagrant atleast 50% of the time. in the 90s it was 5%.

if you dunked on a guy with contact and gave him a brief stare down in the 90s, the ball gets inbounded and no one blinks, even the guy that got stared down. part of the game. today, you get teched up and refs today still cant even figure out the difference between you hanging on the rim to stop your momentum and calling a tech for hanging on the rim.


3/ defense. for me this is the biggest difference in today's game. in a single game you can see a 2-3 zone, a strong side flood to clog the paint with defenders pre-rotating on the weak side 1 pass before the strong-weak side ball swing actually happens, and every single type of pnr coverage invented all in a single game. in the 90s you didnt see this level of sophistication at all.

[picc]

I think they could have ended the podcast after the first point. Everyone can shoot out to three point range now, and nearly everyone can do it off the dribble. That's the reason.

This point alone 1) eliminates the "offensive liability" element that was a huge part of the earlier decades, 2) automatically improves spacing and reduces path of resistance to the rim, and 3) makes offense less predictable even as its gotten more predictable.

What does the last one mean? Well, before, there were a couple designated scorers and everyone else waited for the ball, so you knew who was going to shoot, you knew when, and you knew from where. There was just nothing you could do about it if they were good enough (which they were).

Now, offense is predictable is the sense that we know everyone wants to shoot the three, but we have less idea who it will come from, when, and where. The guy you never heard of before will pull up on a 3 on 1 fastbreak for three and wet it, and it will be a greenlit shot. If he misses, it wont be thought twice about. Before, it would have been an international incident and he would be demoted to towel boy.

Also, the switch to positionless basketball and obsession with spacing has resulted in less traditional bigs who are there to rebound and defend, and now teams just move their small forwards up a position to the 4 or their power forwards up a position to the 5.

As a result, the skill floor for each position in the frontcourt has been drastically raised, even as the skill floor for the backcourt has raised by everyone practicing off the dribble threes as they're coming up.

[Papi_swav]

ehh idk. To me there is a lot more ticky tacky fouls nowadays compared to early 00s and before. They abolished the hand check which hurts the defense alot. Yea I agree players are more skilled today and they go to the hoop more. But back then a little guy like Allen Iverson goes to the rim and Shaq is there to put him on his back, that doesn't happen as much in todays game where the big man deliberately knocks the little guards down on their behinds just for going to the hoop to intimidate them.

We can all agree the pace is much MUCH more faster today which helps scoring go up. Also back then the mid range was a huge part of the game. Most shots were from the mid range and the best scorers shot the ball from mid range most of the time. Now alot of the shots are from the 3 or layup. So it's higher percentage shots from the paint or the 3 pt line. Players don't shoot those long range 2s like the Duncan, KG, Webber, Durk, Kobe etc.. did back then, they might as well take the 3 if you're going to shoot a long range shot instead. All in all, yes the game has evolved kinda.

[picc]

To add to my last post, the strategic efficiency of coaching and matchups has increased, which has also boosted the scoring.

Imagine back to the 90s/00s, when players had the opponents best defender assigned to them, and common sentiment was just to accept it and attack the matchup.

Not the case now. Teams hunt matchups relentlessly, especially in the playoffs. I think the paradigm shift started in the '16 finals when the Cavs went down 3-1 and Lebron and Kyrie just started hunting Curry every possession because it gave their offense the best chance to create a quality shot. Why let Iggy, Klay, or Draymond guard you when the 6'3 skinny dude is right there? It made a lot of sense.

Now, EVERY good team does that, most possessions, regular season or playoffs. And defensively, switching has become such the norm that teams allow them to. There are only a few players who try to fight around screens and not allow the switch. All too often the teams designated defender could not be more happy to switch off his assignment to the lesser player without the ball.

So now we've got the teams best offensive player on the other teams worst defensive players. Resulting in an easier iso shot attempt, a blow by into the paint, or extra help coming, either of which reliably collapses the defense and creates quality shots for players that might not have existed in a prior era when players just attacked their assigned matchup.

This is another reason scoring is up. And another reason you can't really compare stats era to era. Too much has changed about the way the game is played on even an individual level.

[zero rings]

Old heads can't cope with the fact that today's players are better. The fact that the 3 pt line was there for decades, and they were too stubborn/dumb to use it, is also a source of embarrassment.

They weren’t too stubborn or dumb, they lacked the skill to be able to do it. Thats the reason anything but a wide open 3 was considered a bad shot, because shooting off the dribble, stepback 3s and so on are insanely harder to hit and no one back then was good enough at that skill yet. If Steph Curry showed up to training camp any year in the 80s or 90s, there isn’t a coach in the league that would’ve been dumb enough to start preventing him from chucking 3s from anywhere that feels good to him. The reality is we didn’t have anything even close to Curry back then.

Miller was my favourite player and probably the guy who took the most high difficulty 3s for back then and its a joke compared to what even role players can do nowadays. I remember him talking about how he used to train with his big sister and she would make him shoot 1000 shots everyday. Cool story right. Now imagine an entire league where players shoot like 2000 shots everyday instead and the top players like Steph are probably closer to 5000. THATs the difference between back then and today lol.

Its truly amazing to me how much fans my age and ex players want to refuse that today’s players are much better basketball players than back then.

The reason we didn't have players shoot 3's like Curry is because of the stigma around the shot. Taking 10+ threes in a game was considered soft, a stain on your manhood even. Without that stigma the players would have perfected the shot decades ago.

We've seen non-shooters like Brook Lopez and Al Horford become capable 3 pt shooters almost overnight. I don't see why players in the 1980s couldn't have made similar transformations.

[Sedale Threatt]

Old heads can't cope with the fact that today's players are better. The fact that the 3 pt line was there for decades, and they were too stubborn/dumb to use it, is also a source of embarrassment.

Shooting at the level of the best nba players is a very difficult skill to develop. That doesn’t just happen overnight. Training and coaching methods develop over time that’s why we saw a gradual adoption of the 3 pointer.

Even still, it's crazy how long it took for players to cut out long 2's and replace them with 3's. It's not like the math is all that complicated.

What's crazier to me is how many people pine for the return of mid-range jumpers, like they're significantly different from 3s. A jump shot is a jump shot is a jump shot.

[Showtime 80]

LOL, Kobe and Steve Nash, two of the few players that played from the mid 90’s up iñuntip the mid late 2010’s saw the NBA’s blatant attempt to incredibly soften up the
game to make it more attractive for the soft Euros and the high school/one and done AAU developed numb skulls that were starting to invade the league by the mid 90’s. I’ll take Kobe and Steve’s opinion more seriously than two scrubs like Legs and soy boy Reddick LOL

https://youtu.be/9v9IJp5Oc6g?si=KCuIYDIYWULtGpna

https://youtu.be/EHN3d9bpJ-g?si=DhpKov2qOJmFJMmG

Basically David Stern, Stu Jackson, Jerry Collangelo and Rob Thorne got collective heart attacks when the Spurs, Pistons and Pacers dominated the NBA from 2003 to 2005 and basically when to work and go about neutering defenses and turning the league into the chuck and duck abomination you see today

[ScrantonBulls]

ehh idk. To me there is a lot more ticky tacky fouls nowadays compared to early 00s and before. They abolished the hand check which hurts the defense alot. Yea I agree players are more skilled today and they go to the hoop more. But back then a little guy like Allen Iverson goes to the rim and Shaq is there to put him on his back, that doesn't happen as much in todays game where the big man deliberately knocks the little guards down on their behinds just for going to the hoop to intimidate them.

We can all agree the pace is much MUCH more faster today which helps scoring go up. Also back then the mid range was a huge part of the game. Most shots were from the mid range and the best scorers shot the ball from mid range most of the time. Now alot of the shots are from the 3 or layup. So it's higher percentage shots from the paint or the 3 pt line. Players don't shoot those long range 2s like the Duncan, KG, Webber, Durk, Kobe etc.. did back then, they might as well take the 3 if you're going to shoot a long range shot instead. All in all, yes the game has evolved kinda.

I think the AI/Shaq part is greatly exaggerated. You act like if a guard drove to the hoop, a big man would be waiting there to obliterate him for simply driving to the hoop. This is one of those things that has being mythologized. Do you have any video examples of this? It wasn't as bad as you make it seem. Guards were still able to drive to the hoop without being scared of getting destroyed.

[Sedale Threatt]

Old heads can't cope with the fact that today's players are better. The fact that the 3 pt line was there for decades, and they were too stubborn/dumb to use it, is also a source of embarrassment.

Shooting at the level of the best nba players is a very difficult skill to develop. That doesn’t just happen overnight. Training and coaching methods develop over time that’s why we saw a gradual adoption of the 3 pointer.

To an extent, yeah. But you cannot discount the fact that NBA teams/coaches dramatically underutilized the 3-point line pretty much from its inception. Once coaches like D'Antoni and all the Ivy League data nerds teams started hiring back in the late 00s and early 10s figured out it was essentially a huge market inefficiency, it was only a matter of time.

We see the same thing happening in the NFL, where fourth down attempts have doubled from where they were 30 years ago and coaches regularly go for it in situations that would have been considered suicide until very recently. Baseball has been almost completely optimized, resulting in the same strategic homogenization that people complain about with the NBA.

Baseball's been way ahead of the curve with statistical analysis and it finally trickled down to the other sports, and the underutilization of the 3-point line has been by far the NBA's biggest collective realization.

[WillyJakkz]

Old heads can't cope with the fact that today's players are better. The fact that the 3 pt line was there for decades, and they were too stubborn/dumb to use it, is also a source of embarrassment.

This is my era but I'm a realistic and say it all the time when debating against my old heads.

When you watch those 80s and particularly 90s games the way the announcers go crazy when someone made a 3 is funny to me.

This was the "you better stay out there and not come in the paint because you're soft" attitude era and guess what?

"They stayed out there" lol

Then the argument used to be "all he can do is shoot he can't drive to the hoop."

I'm like idiots... The entire purpose is to put the ball in the basket. We all just got overly impressed with dunks because that's what the League sold us on and it worked.

Come see these athletes dunk the ball, even the short ones! And when big guys dribbles they looked at them like "how dare you, you're too tall for that pass it to a short guy!"

I could go on but I think you get the point lol

They hate having these talks with me but with that said I think a throwback 80s 90s physical team like Dream Sampson Rockets or Ewing Starks Knicks would be highly successful and just as relevant as any top tier team now.

[Papi_swav]

ehh idk. To me there is a lot more ticky tacky fouls nowadays compared to early 00s and before. They abolished the hand check which hurts the defense alot. Yea I agree players are more skilled today and they go to the hoop more. But back then a little guy like Allen Iverson goes to the rim and Shaq is there to put him on his back, that doesn't happen as much in todays game where the big man deliberately knocks the little guards down on their behinds just for going to the hoop to intimidate them.

We can all agree the pace is much MUCH more faster today which helps scoring go up. Also back then the mid range was a huge part of the game. Most shots were from the mid range and the best scorers shot the ball from mid range most of the time. Now alot of the shots are from the 3 or layup. So it's higher percentage shots from the paint or the 3 pt line. Players don't shoot those long range 2s like the Duncan, KG, Webber, Durk, Kobe etc.. did back then, they might as well take the 3 if you're going to shoot a long range shot instead. All in all, yes the game has evolved kinda.

I think the AI/Shaq part is greatly exaggerated. You act like if a guard drove to the hoop, a big man would be waiting there to obliterate him for simply driving to the hoop. This is one of those things that has being mythologized. Do you have any video examples of this? It wasn't as bad as you make it seem. Guards were still able to drive to the hoop without being scared of getting destroyed.

no you're exaggerating what I said and twisting it in your own mind and words to make it seem like guys were dying if the go to the hoop. It's not every single play this happened but it is some truth to what I said. Shaq has said it out his very own mouth that when A.I drove to the rim he would purposely put him on his behind to intimidate him but he just kept on coming, he literally said this out his own mouth. You can do your own googles on this, I don't have the time or effort to transfer videos thru here to make your life easier.

Have you not seen Bill Lambeer deliberately smack some of these players to the ground ? There's a reason why point guards or smaller guards didn't go in the lane much as they do today. Stockton, Mark Jackson, Kevin Johnson and players of the 80s, 90s and early 00s were alot more perimeter orientated. Until maybe the mid 00s and so forth was when the smaller guards took it up to the rim more which helped todays league. I don't think anybody can disagree here unless you're a kid that never seen how the game was played back then.