RCM88x wrote:LukaTheGOAT wrote:RCM88x wrote:I'm sure many players "could" if that was their primary goal. The real question is for what players would it actually be a viable offense strategy for one player to basically take 30% of a teams FGAs in a league where no one attempts more than 25%, FTs withstanding... Or roughly 27-28 FGA per game.
Jordan, Harden, Kobe, Iverson are easy considerations, but all would either need to see a significant efficiency increase over their highest volume shooting seasons just to be in the ballpark. Jordan obviously is the most likely as he actually has the efficiency to justify the increase in FGAs but also seems the least likely to see an efficiency improvement just due to the upper bounds of possibility for a player of his size and offensive style.
There's the efficiency outliers like LeBron, KD, KAJ, and Shaq but none of those guys shot at anywhere near the volume required and even in ideal cases are unlikely to see such a massive efficiency increase to make up the difference.
Then you have sorta the pre 3pt line group of guys who with the introduction of the line might have their games retroactively upgraded to put them in this discussion. These guys being Jerry West, Oscar, Pete, Barry, Baylor and Archibald. Again all unlikely but I suppose it's possible to project they could see a big efficiency improvement if they could take advantage of the new 3pt line. However all would almost certainly see drops to their FTAs which would have stay consistent to have any real feasible chance.
Then there's Wilt, the only guy to actually do it in any league, but in no universe is someone attempting 40 FGA per game in today's league, let alone a C with no tangible scoring ability outside of 7 ft. So he's way down the list for me.
Ultimately these hypotheticals assume that historical players are transported into today's league but also play with their historical situation and approach, which isn't happening.
There's a reason that despite offenses being extremely efficient that we don't see it, because that efficiency is generated via superior strategy and approach to those historical situations which now know that unless players provide some inhuman level of efficiency that allocating such a high percentage of shots to one player is just bad strategy. This is show in the general decreasing MPG that top players play these days too. The 4 extra FGA possible playing 8 extra MPG actually are better spent on other players because the efficiency gap really isn't that big (in many ways due to the 3pt line) and also because it's been shown guys playing fewer minutes allows them to be more efficient making up some of the lost value from those shots anyways. Not to mention the improvements to other aspects of the game which again outweigh the scoring loss.
Can you elaborate a bit on what you mean by this?
Also do you believe that MJ growing up today, where he has a more 1 motion shot for shooting would help him translate his nice touch to 3?
I didn't really interpret the question in that sense, besides I think its way too hard to project how a player would develop differently if they were born in a different era, let alone how that would impact their play in the league.
If he has a decent 3pt shot at a younger age does it take away from his driving ability, foul draw rate, or finishing ability? These things are just too hard to predict.
If we just give him elite 3pt shooting, sure he would easily be the best scorer in the history of the league by an even bigger margin, but that seems a bit silly imo.
Jordan averaged 37.1 ppg on a team playing at a 95.8 pace, slowest in the league.
Big ifs, but if you increase pace 5% and assume he can score 3% more as a result you get to 38.2 or so
Then he would need more of 1.8 of his field goals to be 3 pointers, which is only 2 a game.
Worst case, he doesn't score any more with increased pace, but need 2.9 3 pointers a game, or around 250 in the season.
That's been done 27x.
And if you just increase pace enough and assume is scoring holds you need a 103.3 pace.
Also Jordan had 25 back-to-back games that year, where he scored a lot less. 32.9 vs 39.4 when he had 1 day rest.
To compare, Mikal Bridges, who played 82 games this year, had 14. So 11 games with 6.5 more points is around 70 points, and would put him around 38.0
You can obviously throw stones at either or both, but basically a Jordan making 3 threes a game, or scoring at the same rate with a 103.3 pace . Also give him less back-to-backs and you can lower those a little.
That's what it would take to average 40 - so numbers wise you can get there, just a question of how much you believe could occur.
