Why has shotblocking declined so much?

[Ursusamericanus]

Oops, I was too slow on my edit.

It would be interesting to see blocks as a per team league average, rather than measuring the individual outlier.

I guess there will be a slight decline until recent years but generally much flatter

Good point - here it is using the same y-axis scale:



So a downward trend, but much flatter as you predicted.

I'm a little confused by the second chart. Is it saying that the BPG mean of all of the players in the league is that high? Because nobody is averaging close to those.

No. League average blocks per game at the team level.

[miamiheat319]

no more mark eaton

[Sprewell4Three]

Eh what I see is a lot of bigs just moving out the way when somebody comes flying to the rim. Very rarely do I see shot block attempts on a driver.

[Apz]

Part of it is that players are scared to get dunked on. If someone is scared of that they should just be taken down to the basement and be shot

[Heej]

Blocked shots are not actually very valuable, aside from the emotional impact. Typically the shooting team just gets the ball back and tries again.

Not at all.

It ticks the shot clock down either way, it also mentally puts off shooters knowing a good shot blocker is deterring them from the easiest shot on the court.

Not to mention the offense has to play vs a set defense with less time on the clock

[K_chile22]

I imagine the average distance from hoop per shot attempt each year is an inverted version of that graphic.

There’s also a lot of noise in the stat the OP posted,
as it is effectively only measuring 37 players

Probably, but % of shots at the rim are probably about the same. 3pt shooting comes at the expense of long twos not rim attempts


But still, 3pt shooting is the cause of this. Teams play with more spacing which pulls shot blockers away from the rim and encourages switching vs more traditional defense where you have a big in the paint all the time

[Pachinko_]

Fewer massive shot blocking specialists who can't switch, you just can't play the Manute Bols of this world any more.
More shots from hell's arse of nowhere, those are harder to block.
More fouls called on block attempts so players are more inclined to just keep their arms up and not jump at all. Especially on 3s.

[NO-KG-AI]

Blocked shots are not actually very valuable, aside from the emotional impact. Typically the shooting team just gets the ball back and tries again.

Not at all.

It ticks the shot clock down either way, it also mentally puts off shooters knowing a good shot blocker is deterring them from the easiest shot on the court.

Not to mention the offense has to play vs a set defense with less time on the clock

Not to mention the difference from being the best scorer of all time and one of the worst scorers of all time is literally like 20% from the field. A block turns every single shot attempt into a 0% attempt. Even the worst shots are going in at far far higher rates than that.

[Perseus1966]

1. More switching: Centers have to be able to switch on perimeter players all the time now which draws them away from the basket. No longer can you just have a lumbering big under the basket waiting for guys to enter the paint and swat a ball or two away.

2. Advanced statistics: Advanced stats have shed a light on how players can be premier shot blockers but poor defenders. It's similar to how a high amount of steals doesn't necessarily equate good defense, if a defender is gambling too much. A lot of times it's much better defense to just contest a shot rather than jumping around hunting for shot blocks.

attempt to steal is much worst(i think)

i remember back in 80s we had advanced in semifinal under 15 and one of the best coaches came to train us ,that era was NT coach and they fired him and we dare to ask him why and he said i didnt want Giannakis (the greek Larry Bird) in NT
why?
because he tries to much steal the ball and 3/5 times expose the defense.

[mrdressup]

You give up too much on defense trying to hunt blocks. Teams don't encourage it over sound positional defense in the analytical age.

[SelfishPlayer]

Blocked shots are not actually very valuable, aside from the emotional impact. Typically the shooting team just gets the ball back and tries again.

Wrong. A shot blocker can cause shot altering. Shot blockers cause hesitation, indecisiveness, intimidation. These things get players away from what they are best at, what they practice the most. This absolutely will lower the probability of a scoring basketball.

[lambchop]

Definitely has a lot to do with shot selection. Even if you look at lists of leading shot blockers from the 2000s, they are mainly filled with guys that could still get a lot of minutes in this era, like Kirilenko, Jermaine Oneal, Duncan, Camby, Shaq, Big Z etc.

[hippesthippo]

Well, the league leader has less blocks because he's playing less minutes than his counterpart from 30 years ago.

Blocks per team has also been on a slow downward trend in that same time period, but it's been sloooooow and minor... basically as the game has moved further from the rim where it's harder to block shots.

Also, there aren't as many plumbers playing so there are less easy blocks to stack stats.

[nikster]

Blocked shots are not actually very valuable, aside from the emotional impact. Typically the shooting team just gets the ball back and tries again.

Wrong. A shot blocker can cause shot altering. Shot blockers cause hesitation, indecisiveness, intimidation. These things get players away from what they are best at, what they practice the most. This absolutely will lower the probability of a scoring basketball.

Sure but you don't need to block shots to do that. Rudy gibert is as good as anyone in altering shots and protecting the rim and he does it with a modest 2 blocks per game. The sweet spot is blocking shots without giving up position. That plus the switching and increased spacing leads to the drop in overall block numbers

[Godymas]

https://lakabas.github.io/INFO3300Project1/project.html

look at how thinned out shots outside of right below the rim have become.

now look at

http://www.82games.com/comm16.htm

which was published in 2003

In 2003 the most common blocked shot are close-up shots. What does that really mean? Well layups, floaters, attempts in the paint that aren't straight up dunks. in fact when a player is attempting to dunk and gets blocked that may not even be considered a blocked dunk but a blocked close-up shot because of where the player started the attempt from compared to when a big man is just right below the rim and stands there to dunk it.

Those shots are thinned out, they've decreased in volume, ball movement also probably has something to do with it to. If a player is driving and they see a high likelihood of the shot being blocked they aren't going to take the attempt and instead kick it back out to a shooter because players are more comfortable taking a 3.

i think that the shots that get most commonly blocked were just bad shots to begin with, players have gotten smarter today and therefore know when they have a low likelihood to get a shot through the rim because of someone in their way and and more likely to pass the ball instead.

[SelfishPlayer]

Blocked shots are not actually very valuable, aside from the emotional impact. Typically the shooting team just gets the ball back and tries again.

Wrong. A shot blocker can cause shot altering. Shot blockers cause hesitation, indecisiveness, intimidation. These things get players away from what they are best at, what they practice the most. This absolutely will lower the probability of a scoring basketball.

Sure but you don't need to block shots to do that. Rudy gibert is as good as anyone in altering shots and protecting the rim and he does it with a modest 2 blocks per game. The sweet spot is blocking shots without giving up position. That plus the switching and increased spacing leads to the drop in overall block numbers

He averages 2.2 blocks per game over his career. That's significant all things being considered.

[Blazing_royale]

Because of Steph Curry

[BenoUdrihFTL]

Aside from the game being more spread out with more switching resulting in less rim-protection, I think teams have realized the value of drawing charges over challenging for a block. You don't get the potential for transition run outs with a charge, but you are guaranteed possession plus your opponent is hit with a foul

[gabri3l3]

More 3pt shooting.

I'm not sure more 3pt shooting equals less attempts at the rim. All the 3 pointers we have today came at the expense of the mid range shots and post shots. I didn't check but I don't think attempts at the rim declined at all.

[CoachD]

In the 90s.... fans didn't LAUGH at their own player if they got dunked on.

They might have been impressed by the dunker but they appreciated the defensive attempt.

Now... idiots who have never played post memes are all "oooooo RIP" and players are soft and super sensitive.

Yes all the technical and analytical reasons are true.... but this is also a huge factor. Probably the biggest.