Were you hoping for more offense this season, now that there isn't a lockout?
Well, you might have to check your ambitions. As anyone who witnessed the nationally televised Sixers-Hornets stink bomb Wednesday night can attest, quality offense has been difficult to find in the early part of this season. A brief sample of the evening's action tells you the problem is more widespread than just one game: 26 teams were in action, and only 10 managed to hit the century mark in regulation.
Casting a wider net seems to reinforce this point. The Sixers and Wizards have shooting percentages in the 30s. Sacramento and Toronto have offensive efficiency marks in the 80s. Chicago has yet to make a 3-pointer. (OK, I exaggerated that last point. Slightly.)
I'll offer the usual caveats: It's early, and league-wide numbers can and do change fairly dramatically over the course of the season.
But relative to the last two seasons, the NBA appears to be in a bit of an offensive funk. Through Wednesday's games, the league-wide offensive efficiency rating is a fairly pathetic 99.8, well short of last season's league average of 101.8. Compared to the last full season, 2010-11, it's not even close; that season, the league-wide mark was 104.5.
Astute observers will note that I'm not exactly comparing apples to apples here. Offense tends to increase fairly steadily over the course of the regular season before diminishing a bit once the playoffs start. But even if we compare similar points in the campaign, this season is looking like a bit of a stinker for the offenses.
Two weeks into the 2011-12 season, the league-wide offensive efficiency mark was 99.3, so the NBA is at least ahead of lockout-ball -- but not by much. The data so far is more similar to that season than the 2010-11 campaign, where by Nov. 7 the league-wide mark was already 102.2.
If the recent trend that league-wide offensive efficiency rises about three points over the course of the season continues, the NBA is headed for a net result that is only marginally better than the post-lockout ugliness. Last season's efficiency rose just a bit more than two points, but with a 66-game schedule there was less time for the average to rise.
The one saving grace is that the NBA is playing at a quicker pace that is more similar to 2010-11, with a league-wide mark of 95.3 through Wednesday that rivals the 95.7 mark at a similar point in 2010-11.
So what's the problem?
Tightening the focus a bit, shooting from the floor hasn't changed much, especially inside the arc. The league is shooting 47 percent on 2-pointers, slightly worse than the 47.1 percent from the first two weeks of last season. The only saving grace is that it's doing better on 3-pointers and free throws, which suggests that the change in 2s is more a result of defenses stepping up their game than offenses failing.
Even compared to 2010-11, the results aren't that different in the shooting department: That season, teams opened by shooting 48 percent on 2s.
Given all that, you might find it odd that the overall level of offense has declined so much. No, the shooting percentages aren't much different, but you know what is? The free throws. Whether the refs are letting more stuff go or the defenders have learned to stop fouling is up for debate, but what's clear is that free throw attempts have dipped sharply.
In 2010-11 at this point, the league-wide average was 0.32 free throw attempts per field goal attempt.
In 2011-12, it was 0.29, but again, the lockout was partly to blame.
And this season? Just 0.273 -- a decline of 14.7 percent from two years earlier. Basically, one-seventh of the free throw attempts are gone, so apparently it wasn't just the Nuggets.
Since free throw attempts are far and away the most efficient way to score, the impact on offensive efficiency is obvious. That difference alone is worth a full point of true shooting percentage, which in turn is worth nearly two points of offensive efficiency, which in turn is the vast majority of the difference between now and 2010-11.
If you're wondering, this is only partially due to an increased reliance on the 3-pointer. League 3-point rates have been fairly stable over the past three years, gently rising from 22.2 percent of attempts in early 2010-11 to this season's 23.9 percent. An increase in 3-point tries that small shouldn't produce a decrease in free throw rates that large.
• The other culprit in the offensive malaise is turnovers. League-wide, it's 16.7 percent of possessions, a dramatic increase from the 15.4 percent of lockout-ball and a rise even on the 16.4 percent of 2010-11.
• Offensive rebounding, after years of steady decline, appears to be on a slight uptick. Teams have regained 27.2 percent of their misses, compared to 26.8 percent and 26.6 percent in the early parts of the past two seasons.
• Free throw shooting has found a middle ground, settling in at 75.3 percent -- right between the 76.3 percent of 2010-11 and the 74.3 percent of last season.
• Shots are getting blocked with far more frequency -- or at least, they're being recorded on the stat sheet with more frequency. Two years ago, 6.01 percent of shots were blocked. This season, that number is 6.84 percent. What makes that more impressive is that the league is shooting more 3s, which are generally difficult to block, and that the fouls have increased without a rise in free throw attempts.
As for the implications of all this, that remains to be seen. But one would presume it would favor teams that can make 3s and defend against them and hurt teams that are too dependent on getting to the line. Certainly the Nuggets have been one of those clubs in the early season, while the Heat offer a counterexample of a 3-point dependent offense succeeding wildly.
Nonetheless, we're talking about small differences at the margin, changes that are really only perceptible when you look at league-wide data -- or, perhaps, when you watch a Sixers-Hornets game. The Jazz still aren't going to be able to have a good defense while fouling on every other play, the Nets will still struggle if opponents keep shooting 52.2 percent on 2s, and the Bulls can still play quasi-decent offense by crashing the boards and drawing fouls.
From a watchability standpoint, one could argue all these shifts are for the better. Fewer free throw attempts mean less game stoppage. More 3-point attempts typically translate into more excitement, not to mention variability -- both within games and between them. Finally, a faster pace is something nearly every fan favors. If we have to trade in a couple of points per game in that bargain, that might be a change with which we can live.
― lil dirk (J0rdan S.), Sunday, 11 November 2012 06:02 (thirteen years ago)