falcolombardi wrote:Doctor MJ wrote:sp6r=underrated wrote:Historically in the 60s we saw faster become associated with worse offensive efficiency. As teams slowed down the offenses performed better. Pace steadily slowed in the 80s and offensive efficiency went up.
What caused the change I think it was very obvious and we all know it is. 3 point shooting skills went way up. Once your team has a certain number of spacers on the floor secondary breaks become extremely effective and should be utilitized. I'm not sure when the NBA reached that threshold. I'm fairly certain it wouldn't have worked in 2002 but I don't know. I also think teams could have pushed it more in the 2011 and gotten the efficiency gains. But again I don't know
Right before that time Paul's Clippers led the league in offensive efficiency twice, maybe his teams would have played better offensively if he pushed the pace a little more. But this wasn't (i) recognized by his coaches; (ii) his teams looked great offensively; and (iii) were playing championship caliber by point differential.
I can't damn his style of play given that circumstances.
To be clear: I'm not suggesting that the key to great offense is simply to shoot quickly. I am however suggesting though that offenses making a choice to attack in transition more in this century in order to improve offensive effectiveness, which was then followed by improvements to offensive effectiveness, probably has some causality involved.
For the record, I'm not sure what jumps out to you when you look at the pace of older basketball, but what I tend to see is a tendency to be too hasty in the half-court - meaning not really working around the defense to get the best shot possible. While speed of attack in the half-court can be valuable, that doesn't mean jacking up the first shot you can possibly jack.
As such, I think it makes a lot of sense why as we go from the '60s to the '70s to the '80s we saw improved ORtgs as the pace slowed. To me that's partially about skill improvement, but also about a more deliberate approach to half-court attack.
Now, regarding transition, there's certainly a truth that to attack with speed there requires skill and if you do it poorly it's going to be worse than not attacking at all...but I'm skeptical that there was anything fundamentally preventing teams from making better use of the transition attack prior to the 21st century.
With that said, I think the primary focus of the Colangelo rule changes from 20 years ago was on encouraging transition attack by empowering half-court defense. So long as teams felt that their best attack was a slow half-court grind, it discouraged transition risk-taking - whether that was the optimal approach or not - so in that sense there's something real here about something changing about the game to allow pace to spike.
As far as 3-point shooting enabling better pace, I've heard some very smart people say the same thing, so that might be true, but I'll say it's not obvious to me. I think the spacing of 3-point shooting absolutely makes half-court basketball easier, and missed 3-point shots are probably more likely to allow for transition opportunities, but I'm not so sure that 3-point shooting is essential for making transition attacks an emphasized part of the offense's diet.
i think it needs to be emphazised that faster pace in the league stats sheet doesnt inherently mean much more fastbreaks
is even technically possible for two teams (or seasons) to have the same amount of faatbreaks per 100 but one has faster halfcourt attacks
a pick and roll from the 3 point line initiated offense seems (and here i am going by theorycrafting since i lack data to prove or disprove it) like it should take less time on average than a isolation play or post up
watching games from different eras it -feels- ( i emphazise my lack od data here so if someone has actual numbers i would love to be proven right or wrong here) like a spread pick and roll consumes less time than a barkley post up or kobe isolation
thst the nba has realized 3 point shots amd pick and roll are more efficient halfcourt offense than post ups or isolation may have a side effect of increaaing the league pace (along with, again, 3 point shooting longer rebounds and lower absolute percentages of going in meaning more rebounds to grab)
and i feel like i need to mention i -dont-think chris Paul is a offensove goat candidate and i dont think he had a perfect approach to offense like neither do curry, magic, lebron, etc
is perfectly ok to say that paul left points in the board by mot being more agressive, but the counterpoint is that the approach of a player like magic or nash also left points in the board by turnovers
is not impossible that a player more talented or gifted than chris Paul (lebron James for example) can take a similar controlling approach and achieve goat level results comparable to the goat agressive playmakers (nash or magic)
A lot of good points here, and yes, the hasty halfcourt play I was talking about was my way of saying that the fast pace of '60s basketball was about more than just fastbreaks.
I do think that the iso/postplay exemplified by the '90s is about the slowest way to play the game post-shot clock. I'd emphasize that by comparison it's not just that the more modern switch play that goes faster, but that the style we saw in the decades before wasn't like this either. I think that the '90s actually saw the use of space to allow a grindier style than you could get back in Wilt's day.
Re: Magic/Nash also left points on the board by turnovers. Ah, I get what you mean here, but what I'm talking about is specifically Paul not looking to take advantage of things that realistically could have gotten taken advantage of efficiently. You can certainly argue that from your assessment Paul's decisions here were more optimal than Magic/Nash (not saying you're saying that, only that you could), but it's not just that I disagree, it's that I think Paul essentially avoided getting comfortable taking certain types of risks that at this point are considered reasonable risks not just for "point gods", but for NBA teams in general.
As I say this, I should be explicitly clear that I'm essentially "buying in" to the idea that the current paradigm is essentially correct. That it does make sense to attack in transition, that you do have to limit how much you crash the offensive boards or you'll get burned on defense, that it is wise to take this many 3's. I'll fully acknowledge that a future paradigm could come around that casts all this in a new light, and thus it might leave people in the future saying "Paul was right all along".
So for anyone who is resistant to what I'm saying because they are skeptical that current paradigms are all they're cracked up to me, know that that's where we diverge.
But I say all this in part just to emphasize: All I'm doing is taking the things we believe we've learned, and applying them back to the guys in the past who could have approach things differently than they did. Maybe I come across as too judge-y, but I feel like people take issue with even looking to consider doing this, and to me that's a missed opportunity.
As I've said, I do this same sort of stuff in any domain I spend time with. I don't fault Newton for not coming up with general relativity, but the fact that he saw Leibnitz' integral calculus as something stolen from him, forced a British vs Continental mathematical war, and as a result held back British mathematics until after his death because Leibnitz' approach wasn't just distinct but much more powerful than his own, yeah, that's something I do critique him for. And it makes me think about what I want to avoid being like in the trifling debates I'm likely to be apart of.
