thamadkant wrote:Another thing that is absolutely lost today is the art of the post game... for both bigs and fundamental guards or wings. Some do it still of course and they are the stars, but back then role players were allowed to use up 4 second or more trying to make moves down low...today role players have 2 seconds to shoot the 3pter or finish a layup.
The game is predictable but execution is better from the outside for sure... I mean role players are averaging double the 3pt attempts that of Nowitski, Larry Bird and even Reggie Miller. While stars are averaging close to double figure 3pt attempts.... it's insane.
In the end it is data, we simply didn't have access to the same tracking before. One interesting thing was that video game players were already on this. I remember trying to play more real basketball (for the time) online and people would just shoot three's, but would win, and I was thinking, "what is this? How?"
You look at the data and the points per possession of posting up guys who are not actually good post players (scoring, passing, turnover rate) or are mediocre ones, just because they had a smaller guy on them was not positive.
I remember when the Lob City Clippers would post up Matt Barnes because he had a smaller guy on him. Would he score at times? Sure, but you look at the data on those possessions (turnovers, FG%, foul draw) and you're better off 99% of the time taking a 3PT shot at just 32%. Also add that setting up the post up would waste clock, and if the guy gets stuck and isn't some impressive passer, you end up with a late clock worse shot because you were trying to post a mediocre or less post player.
I remember the team giving DeAndre Jordan post isolations, and fellow Clippers fans would be like, "yea, he just needs the reps to develop his post game", and I was thinking to myself, his turnover rate is high from post ups, he wasn't much of a passer at the time, and when he got fouled it was a 40% chance of making. Was it really a good play even if he had a smaller C on him.
The data says it was generally more of a waste of a possession to run those plays for non stars or non optimal in that skill players, but it did add variety, that is true.
So yes, there is less variety in what certain role players are encouraged to do on the court, and I can certainly understand people feeling that they want the variety, but you can't expect teams to choose any variety that isn't going to match the results of less variety ,because they are trying to win, not look pretty.
Optimization doesn't necessarily mean more interesting. The problem for teams is that everyone knows the data, so you can't decide to start doing stuff for variety and fun while your offense lags behind.
You think a coach giving his SF posts ups for 0.7 ppp and posting up a not very skills big for 0.8 ppp while the teams offense is bottom 5 in the league is going to last?
Essentially what were hoping for is for basketball to unknow what it knows, and that's simply not realistic.
Showtime 80 wrote:tamaraw08 wrote:Showtime 80 wrote:LOL, the fact that players started sucking at posting up, mi range and long 2’s starting in the mid 90’s is the reason why the NBA had to change a bunch of rules to make the modern AAU babies seem better than they actually are!
The physicality that was part of the game since it started has always been cryptonite for finesse players who want to beat defenses with athleticism and illegal dribbles.
When you think about EVERY rule that has been created since the mid 90’s for the sole purpose of enhance offense and offensive players in general is really no surprise that you got these flag basketball NBA with no physicality and more importantly NO RIVALRIES to speak of.
Think about it, today’s modern soft nerds would say this is “the wrong way to play basketball”
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A bunch of guys in todays NBE would be better served shooting 15-18 footers or posting up rather than launching 25 foot bricks
but because the league wants to market themselves to the Euro and Chinese markets which have always preferred this soft as tissue paper style then this is pretty much what you’re gonna get for the foreseeable future. These are another two guys who todays nerds would prefer shooting 10-11 3’a a game:
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Is it really about marketing or valuing Offensive Efficiency?
Cavaliers right now have the highest ORTG at 121 pts/100 possessions 10th in taking 3's in the league.
Compare that to '86 Lakers's ORTG OF 115.6pts/100, which was best that year, btw, ranked 20th in 3pt attempts that year.
Compare that to '91 Bulls that was best also in ORTG at 115.5, top in the league, ALSO just ranked 22nd in 3pt attempts that year.
There are currently 9 teams right now with a higher ORTG than both '86 Lakers AND '91 Bulls.
Guess which era’s teams have benefited from around 10+ rule changes specifically engineered to supersize offenses and neuter defenses? Here a hint, not the 86 Celtics or 91 Bulls!
The league wanted to kill physical defense and turn the gameplay into an offensive arms race making sure that no from office would have an incentive to build teams like the mid 2000’s Spurs, Pistons or Pacers, the last era where those type of defensive first teams dominated the league and David Stern and his cronies almost had a collective heart attack from the cratering ratings.
The NBE wanted to attract the Euro market which had been playing a softer perimeter oriented style of play since the 70’s but were always outmatched against the physical frontlines of the American game so the rule changes and shift in paradigm aside from trying to help out the fundamentally deficient AAU generation that started polluting the US system since the mid 90’s (Allen Iverson being the poster boy for this) also had the end goal of attracting those softer Euro players.
80's was not physical defense basketball, the film simply doesn't support that, and even the early 90's was still closer to 80's basketball than what the mid to late 90's became.
For example, after the mentality towards transition defense in the 90's became the norm, teams didn't return to how transition defense was played in the 80's. Now if one wants to say there were some teams that were that, sure, just like an OKC now, but that didn't represent the era in any way, shape or form.
Their whole
documented reasoning for all the rule changes was to RETURN to 80's and earlier type basketball with more pace, more free flowing, more passing, more shooting. They felt the the 90's teams had bastardized the rules and made the game into a less skilled, more brute force game that was slow and had a lot of 1v1 basketball vs team basketball.
They would cite the basketball played by teams like the Kings, Pacers, Bucks, Mavericks, teams that used passing, shooting and/or a lot of off ball actions (Reggie and Ray) as what fans and others saw as refreshing in that time in comparison to most of the rest of the league where it was wing iso or two big man post iso offense.
Now, of course because of the growing utilization of the 3PT shot, we don't get 80's basketball with rules geared to that type of play. We saw 3PA go up over 50% the first year with the shorter line, and going up each year the next two years. An early sign in hindsight that as soon as the regular line became more accessible to more players, it was going to follow that same path.
But then there was the lack of belief that you could win with a lot of jumpshooting. This league always needs someone to prove something with a championship before more than just the trailblazers (eg: D'Antoni, Don Nelson, etc) try it out. Warriors were the someone, both jumpshooting and small ball.
You remove the barrier and just like always, teams follow, it's the NBA way.
