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both guys are great passers, had solid mid range shots and could attack from the perimeter against bigs and would post up smalls.

it makes it hard to double or sag off because of that. Rudy and Towns despite Town's shooting lack many of the above. SO it doesn't work. Tim Duncan also doesn't get as much credit as he should because after Robinson retired he played with less talented centers all the time

They had outside shooting , they goat tier defense . And the moved the ball a lot.

MadNESS wrote:Because “spacing” is very overrated

Statistics and everything else disagrees. Look how easy guys like giannis and Luka can dominate now when they get so much spacing around them. Imagine wilt or Kareem in this era, they would destroy the league, despite not having a 3, but because they would be surrounded by shooters, they were already unstoppable while basically smelling for defenders armpits, but now, now offense is basically unfairly unstoppable. What is easier to guard, fife guys of whom none of them are dangerous or even encouraged to shoot 15 feet out, or fife guys of whom 4 can't be left open 22 feet out?

I just realized that we have a player with that name. Totally confused at the question for a minute.

Spacing as a concept still existed in 90s ball, it just operated within a much smaller radius than it does currently.

Title teams then like now usually accommodate one non-shooter at most, the 4 on championship teams typically had a reliable mid range jumper and that was enough spacing to get it done then.

First 3-peat Bulls - Horace Grant mid range bread and butter
Rockets - Horry the original stretch 4
Second 3-peat Bulls - All the 5's they had were primarily jump shooters since Rodman was the non shooter
3-Peat Lakers - Horry, Horace Grant, AC Green all helped space for Shaq

UcanUwill wrote:

MadNESS wrote:Because “spacing” is very overrated

Statistics and everything else disagrees. Look how easy guys like giannis and Luka can dominate now when they get so much spacing around them. Imagine wilt or Kareem in this era, they would destroy the league, despite not having a 3, but because they would be surrounded by shooters, they were already unstoppable while basically smelling for defenders armpits, but now, now offense is basically unfairly unstoppable. What is easier to guard, fife guys of whom none of them are dangerous or even encouraged to shoot 15 feet out, or fife guys of whom 4 can't be left open 22 feet out?

you're right that spreading the defense out with shooters definitely plays a part, but the NBA's elimination of physical defense and hard fouls, changes in the way ballhandling and traveling are officiated, and the proliferation of moving screen techniques like DHOs are bigger reasons why offense reigns supreme in the current era.

Believe it or not that was pretty good spacing. Many teams ran 2 bigs without half the midrange talent.

In addition to the reasons already listed, an underrated reason is that both these guys were relatively egoless for superstars, they got along great and genuinely wanted each other to succeed.
When you have two guys that talented and that committed to making it work, you'll have good results.
This is probably not a popular opinion, but I think they'd absolutely be dominant in the league right now even with all the pressure modern spacing and shooting would put on them.
For those who remember how teams would sign an extra big just to foul Shaq, I think a Duncan-Robinson pairing now would force teams to sign an extra 7 footer just to guard them, otherwise they'd high-low teams to death and would be efficient enough to do it against mismatches imo. 60% from 2 = 40% from 3 and if you tried to guard these guys with many modern stretch 4s I think they could absolutely score at a 60% clip on them.

TK Smart wrote:

ReasonablySober wrote:The league hadn't yet figured out that 3 > 2.

This isn't accurate at all. People just didn't believe you could cultivate enough shooting talent to sustain the percentages necessary for this to pay off over the course of a basketball game. Alot of this comes down to team owners not willing to spend money on specialized coaching for the players. You had to do that yourself at that time, without the investment into specialized coaching you'd never be able to get the shooting we see in the league today in that period of time.

But they were perfectly fine letting guys shoot midrange jumpers on high volume. The increase in 3pt attempts today is directly related to replacing what used to be midrange shots. Rim attempts are up slightly from 1999 to 2023. FTA are about the same. Midrange became 3pt attempts. If they thought they couldn't cultivate enough shooting then they were dumb. Average midrange shooting in 1999 was <40%. If teams had done the math they would have realized that even bad 3pt attempts (~30% fg) would have been better than the midrange shots they were taking. And that doesn't even consider the spacing they would have gained in other areas on offense.

They didn't even need to specialize. They just needed the guys who were shooting low ppp midrange shots to take 2 steps back. The decline in fg% would have been made up by the increase in ppp (and spacing for others). I'm not saying they would have been good 3pt shooters but it would have been far better than the terrible midrange shooting they focused on. It's sort of inexplicable how no one figured this out earlier.

If teams in 1999 had replaced some portion of their midrange attempts with 3pt attempts they would have only needed to shoot 29% from 3 to improve their ppp. And that's for EVERY SINGLE TEAM. 29%.

mccluskey wrote:

UcanUwill wrote:

MadNESS wrote:Because “spacing” is very overrated

Statistics and everything else disagrees. Look how easy guys like giannis and Luka can dominate now when they get so much spacing around them. Imagine wilt or Kareem in this era, they would destroy the league, despite not having a 3, but because they would be surrounded by shooters, they were already unstoppable while basically smelling for defenders armpits, but now, now offense is basically unfairly unstoppable. What is easier to guard, fife guys of whom none of them are dangerous or even encouraged to shoot 15 feet out, or fife guys of whom 4 can't be left open 22 feet out?

you're right that spreading the defense out with shooters definitely plays a part, but the NBA's elimination of physical defense and hard fouls, changes in the way ballhandling and traveling are officiated, and the proliferation of moving screen techniques like DHOs are bigger reasons why offense reigns supreme in the current era.

Spacing is far and away this biggest reason as to why offense's are as potent as they are today. And it's not even close. Everything else is ancillary.

UcanUwill wrote:

MadNESS wrote:Because “spacing” is very overrated

Statistics and everything else disagrees. Look how easy guys like giannis and Luka can dominate now when they get so much spacing around them. Imagine wilt or Kareem in this era, they would destroy the league, despite not having a 3, but because they would be surrounded by shooters, they were already unstoppable while basically smelling for defenders armpits, but now, now offense is basically unfairly unstoppable. What is easier to guard, fife guys of whom none of them are dangerous or even encouraged to shoot 15 feet out, or fife guys of whom 4 can't be left open 22 feet out?

They dominate because you can’t sneeze on a player without getting called for a foul.

ReasonablySober wrote:

Pharmcat wrote:

ReasonablySober wrote:The league hadn't yet figured out that 3 > 2.

Not if you can’t make the 3s

Rockets cost themselves a finals trip by using that flawed strategy

I mean, that's an objectively ridiculous thing to say. They won 65 games and made it to a game seven in in the WCF. Had they merely shot below average they would have made the finals. Instead they shot historically terrible. It took a crazy outlier to keep them from the championship.

Threes have more variance than twos so why would you want variance working against you in playoffs when teams are more closely matched. You build your whole offense on one philosophy and when that philosophy isn’t working you have nothing to pivot to, that’s the problem with Moreyball. Even look at the numbers from gsw they have won 4 rings and still didn’t rely on threes as much despite what analytics say.

ConSarnit wrote:

TK Smart wrote:

ReasonablySober wrote:The league hadn't yet figured out that 3 > 2.

This isn't accurate at all. People just didn't believe you could cultivate enough shooting talent to sustain the percentages necessary for this to pay off over the course of a basketball game. Alot of this comes down to team owners not willing to spend money on specialized coaching for the players. You had to do that yourself at that time, without the investment into specialized coaching you'd never be able to get the shooting we see in the league today in that period of time.

But they were perfectly fine letting guys shoot midrange jumpers on high volume. The increase in 3pt attempts today is directly related to replacing what used to be midrange shots. Rim attempts are up slightly from 1999 to 2023. FTA are about the same. Midrange became 3pt attempts. If they thought they couldn't cultivate enough shooting then they were dumb. Average midrange shooting in 1999 was <40%. If teams had done the math they would have realized that even bad 3pt attempts (~30% fg) would have been better than the midrange shots they were taking. And that doesn't even consider the spacing they would have gained in other areas on offense.

They didn't even need to specialize. They just needed the guys who were shooting low ppp midrange shots to take 2 steps back. The decline in fg% would have been made up by the increase in ppp (and spacing for others). I'm not saying they would have been good 3pt shooters but it would have been far better than the terrible midrange shooting they focused on. It's sort of inexplicable how no one figured this out earlier.

If teams in 1999 had replaced some portion of their midrange attempts with 3pt attempts they would have only needed to shoot 29% from 3 to improve their ppp. And that's for EVERY SINGLE TEAM. 29%.

Hindsight is 20/20 for sure.

Everyone is also waiting for someone else to do something different and be successful.

CIN-C-STAR wrote:In addition to the reasons already listed, an underrated reason is that both these guys were relatively egoless for superstars, they got along great and genuinely wanted each other to succeed.
When you have two guys that talented and that committed to making it work, you'll have good results.
This is probably not a popular opinion, but I think they'd absolutely be dominant in the league right now even with all the pressure modern spacing and shooting would put on them.
For those who remember how teams would sign an extra big just to foul Shaq, I think a Duncan-Robinson pairing now would force teams to sign an extra 7 footer just to guard them, otherwise they'd high-low teams to death and would be efficient enough to do it against mismatches imo. 60% from 2 = 40% from 3 and if you tried to guard these guys with many modern stretch 4s I think they could absolutely score at a 60% clip on them.

Do you have anything to back that up? 1997/98 stats for Duncan/Robinson:

midrange:

Duncan: 42.7%
Robinson: 39.1%

paint (non-restricted area)

Duncan: 47.5%
Robinson: 34.8%

The Spurs won because they were almost always the best defensive team in the league. It wasn't due to offense. Their games were catered to defending the paint. Teams were largely trying to score in the paint or in the midrange in the late 90's. That is a horrible strategy against 2 elite defensive 7 footers. Neither were suited to guard on the perimeter full-time (if teams employed a stretch 4 against them). This isn't a critique of them (both were truly great) but their games aren't perfectly suited for today's league (playing together that is). Their defense would probably slip a bit due to the spacing and the offensive fit is questionable due to lack of spacing. They'd be better separate today as the lone big. That could really boost each of their offenses and they'd both be DPOY level.

(*this is not an attack on Duncan/Robinson but playing them together was more optimal in the late 90's than it would be today)

Pharmcat wrote:

ReasonablySober wrote:

Pharmcat wrote:

Not if you can’t make the 3s

Rockets cost themselves a finals trip by using that flawed strategy

I mean, that's an objectively ridiculous thing to say. They won 65 games and made it to a game seven in in the WCF. Had they merely shot below average they would have made the finals. Instead they shot historically terrible. It took a crazy outlier to keep them from the championship.

Threes have more variance than twos so why would you want variance working against you in playoffs when teams are more closely matched. You build your whole offense on one philosophy and when that philosophy isn’t working you have nothing to pivot to, that’s the problem with Moreyball. Even look at the numbers from gsw they have won 4 rings and still didn’t rely on threes as much despite what analytics say.

What's the difference in variance between three point jumpshots and two point jumpshots? I'm assuming it isn't that large vs simply comparing 2PT shots as a whole vs 3PT shots.

Teams can go ice cold on 2PT jumpshots too, soi t would only help if you could substitute those three's for layups and dunks or other paint attempts, but that's a whole different task.

When no one has spacing, everyone has spacing.

ConSarnit wrote:

CIN-C-STAR wrote:In addition to the reasons already listed, an underrated reason is that both these guys were relatively egoless for superstars, they got along great and genuinely wanted each other to succeed.
When you have two guys that talented and that committed to making it work, you'll have good results.
This is probably not a popular opinion, but I think they'd absolutely be dominant in the league right now even with all the pressure modern spacing and shooting would put on them.
For those who remember how teams would sign an extra big just to foul Shaq, I think a Duncan-Robinson pairing now would force teams to sign an extra 7 footer just to guard them, otherwise they'd high-low teams to death and would be efficient enough to do it against mismatches imo. 60% from 2 = 40% from 3 and if you tried to guard these guys with many modern stretch 4s I think they could absolutely score at a 60% clip on them.

Do you have anything to back that up? 1997/98 stats for Duncan/Robinson:

midrange:

Duncan: 42.7%
Robinson: 39.1%

paint (non-restricted area)

Duncan: 47.5%
Robinson: 34.8%

The Spurs won because they were almost always the best defensive team in the league. It wasn't due to offense. Their games were catered to defending the paint. Teams were largely trying to score in the paint or in the midrange in the late 90's. That is a horrible strategy against 2 elite defensive 7 footers. Neither were suited to guard on the perimeter full-time (if teams employed a stretch 4 against them). This isn't a critique of them (both were truly great) but their games aren't perfectly suited for today's league (playing together that is). Their defense would probably slip a bit due to the spacing and the offensive fit is questionable due to lack of spacing. They'd be better separate today as the lone big. That could really boost each of their offenses and they'd both be DPOY level.

(*this is not an attack on Duncan/Robinson but playing them together was more optimal in the late 90's than it would be today)

I definitely agree the pairing was more optimal at the time, but I do think their paint efficiency would see a significant uptick in the modern NBA for several reasons.
Smaller defenders.
More space/time with more shooting threats around them.
Fewer doubles with shooting threats around them.
With both having a face up game, they likely get more calls in this NBA, like Embiid.
Maybe 60% is overstating it, but as we are seeing with Jokic & Embiid big man efficiency is there for great players in the modern game.

Teams were not built around three point shooting back then. They played inside out. A lot of them had 2 post players. Olajuwon and Otis Thorpe started for the 1994 champion Rockets. Ewing and Oakley started for the Knicks against them in the finals.

How good would the Sampson/Olajuwon duo be in this ERA?

What's next?

Asking why some point guards played when couldn't shoot and provide spacing?