This is nuts. EFG is currently .543 What used to be near elite efficiency is now just... average Only 2 Rocket players have above league average scoring efficiency right now (Sengun & Martin)
We think it's the outside shooting improvement, yeah, but I wonder how much more the shooting near the rim has improved as well. Not so much due to an improvement in skills, but due to worse paint defense, centers being pulled away from the basket, and the elimination of the power forward. And let's not forget magnet ball either. It's like the juiced ball era in baseball.
karceno4life said adam silver implented magnets in 2014 makes sense this is the same league that used a foldable rim to try and market shaq's strength
I think it's cause role players aren't allowed to do things they can't do anymore. 15 years ago Garuba would be taking Lamarcus Aldridge mid rangers，now he's a cleanup man. Guys like Tyty grew up avoiding pull-ups so now it's rather 3s or floaters.
Soft / sometimes even non-contact foul calls would take away the field goal attempts. Post-shot fouls also - back in the days, fouls after the shot were never called. To put it simply, what used to be missed-field goals in the past, a ton of them have become 2 fts and no FGA. Case in point: players had to PRACTICE hand-on-the-back defense, stand-still defense, aka no defense, in order to not get called for no-contact fouls.
Mid range attempts keep going down. 3 point attempts keep going up. More good shooters, less bad shooters. Bad shooters are shooting less, good shooters shooting more. “Take foul” rule change.
According to season-by-season league-wide 3pt averages. 3pt % did not really have significant changes since 99-00. 34.6% in 97-98, 35.3% in 99-00, 36.7% in 08-09, 35.4% in 15-16, 35.4% in 21-22, and 36% so far this year. https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_stats_per_game.html The league's only significant improvement on 3pt % was after the three seasons with shortened three-point line, it prompted teams to start taking the 3s more, and practiced more. Teams have never averaged 10 attempts per game before 94-95, it jumped to 15+ after during the short-line era, then the attempts steadily increased after that. > So while the league's 3% isn't much different from your 99-00 teams, they improved by shooting 3x as much without hurting the percentage. Imagine Ray Allen getting scolded by the coaches for shooting too many threes back in the days... > FT% has also seen a slight improvement, from 76.8 percent in 88-89, to hitting 78% for the first time ever so far this season. > 2pt FG% seems to be the area where the league has improved the most. How much is it improved strategy? Or just the ticky-tack nature of foul calls that deliberately take away the big-men defense from the game? Fouls used to be hard fouls, and contacts were allowed for big men. https://www.teamrankings.com/nba/stat/two-point-pct
Number of FT attempts has not increased significantly since the early 2000s. I don't think the increase in TS% is due to more FTs. It has to do with more 3pt shooting. .36 3pt% > .52 2pt%.
IMO FT attempts has to do with gameflow management. The popular saying used to be "you can't call every foul on or against Shaq, otherwise everyone would foul out or the game would end past midnight", so the refs would always end up calling a certain number of fouls. As been said by many, what's different today is the nature of foul calls: you can't play defense how it used to be played, because the ref don't let you play hard-D. The so-called "free-flowing offense" is what the league literally state as the aim of the rule changes. Players don't see much defense, and get ticky-tack foul calls to save their bad offense so often, it's really that simple. I argue this helps the offensive efficiency much more than any generational improvement in the strategies. (strictly talking about increase in 2pt% here) And yes, the NBA finally realised 3 > 2! I always wondered why the coaches encouraged players to take long-2s, like "if your 3s are not falling then take one step in". Sharp shooters of the past have been nerfed relative to today's game.
This is the answer. It's the increased volume of 3s and the complete transformation of the game around the 3pt line. Even rosters. Could anyone imagine 10 years ago that Patrick Beverley would be starting games over Russell Westbrook?
TS% by position, then even Sengun falls below league average. (not too much) By position: https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/average-true-shooting-percentage-by-positions-2023 TS% for our current squad. (snapshot, as of today) PG: League: 55.8% KPJ 55.1%, Tyty 41.6%, Nix 47.6% SG: League: 56.8%. JGreen 53.4%, Christopher 52.6% SF: League: 57.3%. Martin 63.6%, Eason 52.2%, PF: League 58.9%. Smith 50.4%, Tate 49.6%, C : League 63.4%. Sengun 61.9%, Garuba 58.7%. For current go here: https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/HOU/2023.html Most our guys are low and KJ is high because of layups and dunks. Even 2-3% is significant, but we have guys are who are as much as 8-10% below league average. That's really not good. Caveat for Tate, even if compared to SG or SF league average TS%, he's still sub par.
i think there are less contested layups and dunks now than there were 20 yrs ago. Rockets top 13 seasons in team blocks all came before 2003. It seems that is why most think Hakeem's block record might be one of those most unlikely to be broken records.
Makes sense in other entertainment sports as well Tyson was getting some phantom rigged style knockouts during his tenure ... allegedly based on video put together Its a reason why they call it entertainment, so they can't be sued, basically watching a Hollywood script or wwe where you know they are jumping off the top rope and body slamming/clothes lining each other, but scripted outcome nevertheless
