Analytics

[sedz]

I love Oscar, but I think he romanticizes his own generation, as we all tend to do. When Oscar won MVP in 1964, shooting was 43%. It was a different game. Scoring, shooting percentages and assists are higher, and turnovers and fouls are lower now than they've ever been. But every generation builds on the last, and today's game wouldn't be where it is now if not for pioneers like Wilt, Oscar, and Jordan. Today's players and coaches can take advantage of accumulated knowledge of the past 70 years, plus an ever expanding pool of international players.

[leo from jersey]

Yeah, I mentioned a few days ago that the generational debates miss that. Jordan and his predecessors played in the midrange era. That can't be compared to today's game, the tactics and skillsets have completely changed. When Jordan won his last title in 1998, teams were scoring 1.05 points per possession and shooting under 48% effective field goals. Now scoring is up to 1.16 points per possession on 55% effective field goals. In the 70s scoring was under a point per possession, and going back to the 50s shooting was under 40%. The game gets more efficient over time, and players from past eras can't be faulted for that.

I said 20 years ago MJ's era was over . Scoring is down in the NBA of late.

I remember listen to Oscar and Wilt talking about how things had changed in Jordan's day let alone today/ Oscar asked Wilt what would have happened if Michael's skill for driving the lane had happened against him, Russell, Unseld and the rest. Wilt said they would have had to pick him up and carry him to the bench. Oscar said they played defense. Perhaps that is why scoring went up. I believe players skills have gone down despite their athleticism going up.

The only way discussion have gotten off the rails is dependence in figures and forgetting the complexities of the game itself.

[sedz]

I remember in the early 2000 folks were talking about how few were taking and hitting the mid-range. The 3-point shot has turned the mid-range into a lost art. A player's ego doesn't hurt if he misses a 3 and is exalted when he makes one. That is far from the case with the mid-range. This is where confidence enters the game big time.

Yeah, I mentioned a few days ago that the generational debates miss that. Jordan and his predecessors played in the midrange era. That can't be compared to today's game, the tactics and skillsets have completely changed. When Jordan won his last title in 1998, teams were scoring 1.05 points per possession and shooting under 48% effective field goals. Now scoring is up to 1.16 points per possession on 55% effective field goals. In the 70s scoring was under a point per possession, and going back to the 50s shooting was under 40%. The game gets more efficient over time, and players from past eras can't be faulted for that.

[sedz]

Lee-
See middle of this article for the basics of the reasoning. https://www.nba.com/news/3-point-era-nba-75 As you are hinting at, the math doesn't always work out if we force someone who will never be a 3 point shooter into a box that doesn't work for them, and there is a sweet spot in many NBA and college defenses now for an elite mid-range shooter, as defenses have tilted hard towards preventing shots either at the rim or from 3 point range. As Sedz and many others have commented-stats don't tell the entire story-but in general, over the broad range of players, the numbers usually don't lie, even though there are notable exceptions that violate the rule (think DeMar Derozan or Chris Paul in the NBA, for instance).

Well said. This is the most relevant paragraph:

Over the last five years, only two players — Paul (51.7%) and Kevin Durant (51.2%) — have shot 50% or better on at least 300 mid-range attempts. And 147 of the 175 players who’ve attempted at least 300 mid-range jumpers over those five years have shot worse than 45% on those shots, which is like shooting worse than 30% from beyond the arc.

I think even that understates the issue. The league wide effective field goal percentage in the NBA is over 54%, and top offenses are hitting 57%. No one is consistently shooting that percentage from midrange.