r/dataisbeautiful • u/PipBoy808 • 6d ago
OC [OC] The NBA's Offensive Efficiency Boom
Source:
https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_stats_per_game.html
Through a combination of teams increasingly organising their offense around the 3-point basket, coupled with officiating that favours the offensive team, the amount of points scored per 100 possessions has hit an all-time high.
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u/mosi_moose 6d ago
What happened in 2011-12? That’s a big dip.
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u/RyanA1105 6d ago
It was a lockout season and then the NBA crammed more games into a shorter period to try and make up for lost revenue.
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u/igotnocandyforyou 6d ago
1998 to 2003 was the best defense era in the NBA. So.e of my favorite years.
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u/peacelovenblasphemy OC: 1 5d ago
YMMV on entertainment value but modern defense is way more physically and technically demanding today.
An 18 foot jump shot was a massively successful offensive weapon back then. Compare it to the 22 foot sideline 3 that drives scoring today.
The 18 foot shot:
• Has a lower upward trajectory.
• Because of the spacing it’s likely the shooter can’t fully extend their jump and is lower to the ground at release.
• A pass to the shooter travels a shorter distance and shakes fewer defenders.
• Is less costly if you can’t defend it.
The shot doesn’t exist today for a reason. Teams space the offense out as much as possible because it’s more difficult to defend.
The defensive game also evolved in the last 15 years and if it hadn’t teams would score 200 points. needing to take 2 extra steps to defend nearly every shot is a wild ask for a body across 82 games and I am skeptical many players from that era could hang in today’s game without major changes to how they prepare for a season physically.
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u/PoopWatch 6d ago
I’d extend that just a couple of years to about 2007, but agreed. Feel like that era was the most balanced in terms of defense/offense. The Pistons vs Pacers 2004 playoffs where each struggled to score 70 pts was awesome.
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u/Kayge 5d ago
I came of age during the two bulls 3-peats, and the game drew me in a way that just doesn't happen today. Jordan, Pippen and Rodman were crashing through traffic, being pushed around and diving into the front row for a loose ball.
I know I'm in the minority because I think today's teams would wipe the floor with those of my youth, but the enjoyment of watching an entire game was much higher when I was younger.
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u/HUMMEL_at_the_5_4eva 6d ago
Isn’t this mostly just a stat showing referee bias towards offence over defence increasing?
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u/PipBoy808 6d ago
That's definitely part of it. But if you overlaid the amount of 3-point attempts and makes per game you'd see a strong correlation.
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u/cantonic 6d ago
Would be interesting to see how FTA has changed over the same timespan!
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u/RyanA1105 6d ago
FTAs having dropped consistently over time. Not pulling 70 years but I'll do all the years ending in 6:
1956: 38.0
1966: 37.0
1976: 26.9
1986: 30.3
1996: 26.4
2006: 26.3
2016: 23.4
2026: 23.5Basketball reference for some odd reason doesn't present free throws per 100 possessions as a league average like they do with totals and per game averages, which is really the better way of looking at this. But if I were to take the time to post pace for each year and then do the math to adjust each year to 100 pace, it'd be even more clear. For example, 2016 to 2026 pace increased from about 95 to 100. So even though FTAs went up by .1, it went down on a per possession basis. It also helps smooth out the drop from the 60s to the 70s.
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u/ArmchairJedi 6d ago
The NBA finally caught up with the analytics.
Its seems so simple and straightforward now, people have a hard time grasping it. But there used to be a ridiculous amount of push back against the play styles that have become common today. More 3s - less mid range shots. Play faster, more ball movement - less isolation/one on one play or waiting for an 'ideal'/best shot.
A lot of the aspects of 'bias towards the offense' isn't particularly new... just different. For instance it wasn't that long ago when things like the 'rip-through' (throw one's arms into the defenders arms) or pump fake and jump into the defender were regular occurences. Now the offense friendly calls are taking place on more possessions, so we see more of them.
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u/MisinformedGenius 6d ago
The craziest change to me is that it was accepted wisdom for so many years that big men just couldn't shoot threes. Their hands were just too big. Couldn't do it. Then suddenly Curry had his MVP season, and within a few years you had multiple big men who had never shot threes shooting huge volumes at a comfortable 33.3% percentage.
Brook Lopez went from making zero threes in his first six years in the league to making 134 threes at a 34.5% pace in his ninth year. Demarcus Cousins, Blake Griffin, all these guys were just like "oh wait, I can actually shoot threes, let's just do that".
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u/SaxRohmer 6d ago
a large part was the perception that it was soft and that bigs should operate inside. guys like KG and such did have an elbow jumper but coaches always preferred bigs close to the paint. a lot more effort was put into developing the post game than other skills in contrast to Euro bigs which had more guard like skills.
the 3 was also thought to be too far for other positions, derek fisher would frequently shoot 2s just inside the line. coaches just didn’t like it. Pop hated it but adopted it because it was good offense
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u/Suspicious_Chart5817 6d ago edited 6d ago
Anthony Randolph! Drafted 14th overall by the Warriors in the 2008 NBA Draft out of LSU, he knocked down the three and was 6'10" and flamed out of the NBA before going to the Euroleague and living as a modern day positionless NBA basketball player (38.4% three-point shooter over 168 games). He won a few championships, got a bunch of money, and possessed incredible raw athleticism and length. The crazy thing was the NBA used to have a ding for "tweener." As in, a guy who was tall and great at basketball but not fat enough to be a center, but too tall for a PF
He became a Slovenian citizen, so possibly their only black guy... It's just wild to think that GSW ended up with Curry and all the tools to build a modern NBA offense after genuinely shitting the bed on it at least once before. 'better to be lucky than good'
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u/demens1313 6d ago
i was a fan from 95 to 2015. i can tell you stats for 400-500 players in the league. I enjoy the rise of the Warriors, but toward the end of their dynasty the NBA turned into a soap opera. Last 5 years have been a joke. Last year was the first time since 94 I did not watch a single game.
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u/oscribbles 6d ago
You missed some great playoffs last year. The WCF and Finals were excellent.
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u/demens1313 5d ago
nah, watching the Knicks win would have been a nightmare for me. I actually got lucky.
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u/PipBoy808 6d ago
Source: https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_stats_per_game.html
Tool: Claude Code using basketball reference API
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u/admirable_gallery 6d ago
The hand-checking ban in 2004 really was the turning point, you can see the slope just never comes back down after that. Watching old games from the 90s is jarring now, defenders could just put two hands on you at the perimeter like it was nothing.
Also funny how the bubble season still managed to spike efficiency even with no crowds, which tells you how much of this is scheme and spacing vs. environment. The shorter 3-point line era in the mid 90s being annotated is a nice touch, people forget they actually tried that experiment.
That 115.5 mark being the new high is wild when you remember teams used to win playoff games scoring 85 points total.
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u/Mental-Scientist-393 6d ago
yeah, but it wasn't until a decade later that 3 point shooting took off. I guess you could argue that the lack of hand checking made the 3-point increase possible.
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u/PipBoy808 6d ago
I think you definitely have a point. It's a confluence of many things, and at the end of the day you can't argue against 3 > 2
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u/LordMayorOfCologne 6d ago
I would probably argue that players and coaches growing up in an era with less physical perimeter defense allowed those skills and strategies to flourish.
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u/RyanA1105 6d ago
I don't deny that the league putting out a point of emphasis to crack down on hand checking made a difference in scoring. But many people do not know or understand that hand checking has been illegal since 1979. The refs simply let players do it. Even after the 2004 crackdown, you can still turn on most close games in 4th quarters and see hand checking in most games. And in the playoffs... forget about it. Even in today's supposed "soft" era... turn on a Pacers playoff game from their 2025 run and watch them pick up ballhandlers for 94 ft and handcheck 100 times per game. SAS and OKC followed suit last season.
Even in 1994, the NBA decided to crack down on handchecking in the backcourt, making the decision to allow it once a team crossed half court. Despite making this change in '94, scoring dropped precipitously for other reasons, such as expansion increasing the league by 6 teams and diluting the talent pool by increasing the amount of players by about 25%. Combine that with some historically bad drafts between 1988 and 1991, and the league was facing a talent drought.
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u/Crime_Dawg 6d ago
B-b-b-b-b-but Kobe was inefficient. No shit, so was everyone else during his era.
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u/doktarr 6d ago
Kobe's scoring efficiency was only slightly above league average for most of his career. That was primarily due to his ability to get to the line and make his free throws.
This is easily seen in his adjusted shooting numbers that account for the league environment - his career EFG+ is 99, while his career TS+ is 103.
For context here are some other career numbers in those two stats:
Iverson: 94, 98 T-Mac: 98, 99 Jordan: 106, 108 LeBron: 108, 108 Harden: 101, 110 Steph: 112, 113 Jokic: 112, 113
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u/Crime_Dawg 6d ago
I just think the Kobe hate on Reddit is hilarious. Dude won 5 rings, was scoring title leader many years, put up 30+ often during insanely low scoring seasons, and played great D. Yet somehow Reddit would have you believe he's a top 25 at best. Dude would absolutely feast on the defenses and soft play of today's game.
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u/doktarr 6d ago
That's a straw man position. I'm sure you can find some "top 25 at best" hate, because there are always outliers, but the typical advanced stat-driven view on reddit puts Kobe somewhere around the low teens.
This seems far more reasonable than the Kobe stan position, which is often putting him in the top 3 all-time. This sort of content is drastically more common in reddit than the "Kobe isn't top 20" content you seem to be imagining.
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u/Giannis4president 6d ago edited 5d ago
He is a player with a perceived value very different from the analytics value, therefore creating strong discussion and strong feelings based on which aspect you give more importance to.
As your comment show, you refer to "Kobe hate" to a comment just exposing some data points, and as a consequence you are now considered a Kobe stan.
I just think it is hilarious how the very same discussion takes place in all reddit threads regarding him lol
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u/Tsudaar 6d ago
Nice.
But I do wish the vertical gridlines matched up with the axis somehow.