you wrote about the state of League scoring to bring it back to basketball where you mentioned that interestingly enough scoring is down post um uh Allstar break and it's down by like a not in substantial margin now it doesn't seem that big but it's like well the least scoring less like four or five points on average but when you talk about the whole league as a whole and the scores are down like that that necess at least to me when I first approached this piece and I saw that stat I'm thinking
this has to be intentional but I want to put it to you mark uh how much is the scoring down and sort of what are the factors behind this well look I can tell you what there are certainly players and coaches and League Executives out there who believe that the game is being afficiated differently since the allstar break and the numbers that I printed Tuesday so this was through Monday's games boring at the break was The League wide average was one 15.5 and that's the highest League wide scoring a
verage at the All-Star break since 19697 since the All-Star break the first so this was again through Monday nights games entering Tuesday's play so this is a sample size of 147 games League wide scoring was down to 11.7 points per game so nearly a drop of four points per game like you said that's not an insignificant drop and what a lot of people are pointing to is the League wide free throw average at the All-Star break was 22.7 free throws per game that was League average and that was down si
nce the break entering Tuesday's play down to 19.9 so a drop of three free throws per game so what all that means the takeaway from all those numbers there has been a behindth scenes chatter from teams who believe that the game is being called differently so now I'm catching wind of this from 5,000 miles away while I'm in Soccer Country so I'm not seeing a lot of these games with my own eyes I left on March 1st and got back Monday night so i' I've pretty much you know I've seen very little NBA b
asketball with my own eyes since March but I reached out to the league office myself and asked them and a league spokesman told me there has been no directive to referees to call the game any differently so there are obviously I think some teams coaches players Executives who would take issue with that I don't know if they're going to do it publicly probably not but all of this I guess Bears examination and something that we need to Monitor and I just think you know it's something that will cont
inue to be talked about and looked at the rest of the season and look all of this stems from the fact that the league you know in January we had that run late January early February we had that run where Five Guys scored 60 plus points yeah right and it brought a lot of criticism to the league rather than praise people are saying that it's too easy for the offense to game has skewed too far to the advantage of offensive players and so you know all of this kind of factors into that I do wonder ho
w much the All-Star Game factors into this too um it's a point you brought up and I thought it was a really astute one but such a big showcase right the way the league operates is like football obviously is going to dominate NFL is going to dominate Super Bowl's going to happen and then guess what next weekend it's it's it's Allstar Weekend it's time to focus on basketball we see more more basketball games on like ABC and these like bigger networks you know like General Cable all that kind of st
uff and that pivot point for the allstar game the big takeaway for me if I was a casual sports fan like the average person which is typically speaking what they're targeting because they're definitely not targeting me and you sty we're going to be covering and we're going to be watching NBA no matter what until our our last breath but like um The Casual fan they're like okay let's tune in to see what basketball is about what are the story lines and the one thing they saw was 211 points and all t
he conversation and honestly even to a novice fan was like this is way too easy even for an All-Star game and I guess you know it would stand to reason that the league would want to push back on that perception on such a big scale so I do wonder if you know if you think that that had a a part to play just how much the the the inflated scores took place uh at the All-Star Game yeah look I actually think it shouldn't I think it does I think you're right to me the allstar game is a completely separ
ate thing and I wrote a big I wrote a long piece on that subject afterwards just like I the I do not get outraged about the allstar game to me the modern allstar game has lost its utility completely and I think the NBA could learn a lot from the NHL which invites 44 players to its All-Star game now maybe that's too many Allstars yeah but for people who complain like me who think 24 All Stars in a 30 Team league is too few but the NHL 44 Allstars divide into four teams of 11 they play three on th
ree they've gone completely away from tra traditional Allstar competition and I think you know like the NBA took way too much criticism for how bad the All-Star game was because the allstar Allstar Weekend is a convention now the game the game is obviously what's on Sunday night but that's it's just you're not going to get a competitive All-Star Game the if God forbid somebody gets hurt in an All-Star Game trying to quote play hard or play defense the noise and outrage will be 25 times worse but
that's just my that's all my opinion I think you're right I think the league did take a lot of heat for how unwatchable the All-Star game was and that has factored into this and look LeBron James himself said this is what a lot of regular season games look like I think that's hyperbole I think too' seen some of those games there was a game earlier this year and it's very very prominent in my mind there's a game this year where the Hawks scored over 150 and they lost with no overtime you know ye
ah and a lot of people would say look the League what what Joe Dumar has repeatedly said publicly is and Joe Dumars is now the head of basketball operations for the NBA what Joe Dumars has repeatedly said is we don't care what the score is we just want it to be competitive sure and I think that's the All-Star game was certainly a bazillion miles away from competitive but the competition committee has already been discussing this at multiple sessions now about do they need to restore some of the
contact freedoms that Defenders used to have to give Defenders more of a fighting chance against these offensive genius is who not only can score in a zillion different ways but can do it from 30 35 feet away and space the floor like never before so this is going to be a big offseason discussion I think but look the reason this is s such a hot button thing now is because the rules can't change in the middle of the season that's going to upset everyone that's going to mess with the Integrity of o
f of the competition so you know that's why I think you know this discussion has been so heated here of the in the last week or so yeah I do Wonder um if Tom Tibido is Tom Tibido on as part of the competition committee because if he is I think he could fix NBA defenses I mean the Nick's last three opponents have scored 74 79 and 79 points so yeah um now and and you know that's the great point that you make there because like you know you have to give the coaches some credit you know some sometim
es too like you know the the refereeing couldn't have drastically changed to such a degree that now the Knicks can hold teams to 80 certainly the Knicks defense their players and coaches have they're they're a factor here for sure I think that's the thing it's like um you would like to see at least that that process and effort put into it because again it doesn't necessarily mind or I don't necessarily mind if it's like a high-scoring game in fact a lot of high scoring games are very entertainin
g Raptors just play Denver for example they lost 125 to 119 it's a high score but it was a very entertaining throw because both teams are able to execute and and even though there was a factor of Defense being played you know I think the almost the point of Defense to me is like to to make the offense even more satisfying right to to to offer a bigger resistance But ultimately I think everyone in the back on minds I think most people really uh unless you're Tom Tipo I guess who would like to see
the offense end up winning just in in a more uh notable way but yeah I mean I'm curious to think like Mark have any suggestions in terms of like you know anything that should be changed rules-wise that you know the you know the competition committee can consider and also uh potentially Implement to sort of make again just defenses more effective so that offense is can look even better as a result of it well look there are drastic suggestions out there that I think are too far like take away the
corner three I don't even know how you would do that like that one is just too much then you'll hear people say take out defensive three seconds mhm and but that's only going to lead to more jump shots I hope people are aware of that I don't I don't like those to me are those are too extreme I don't think you're going to see that okay but next season will more contact be allowed I suspect yes I you know again maybe I'm not maybe my basketball brain isn't sufficiently sufficiently developed to e
xplain it well but I just think they're going to they're going to find a way to let more contact go next season because you know you just you know Steve Kerr has been the one who has said it publicly many many times but I he is certainly not alone there is just a feeling among coaches well you know actually Rick Carlile I do a weekly Radio Show in Dallas every Saturday and Rick Carlile came on my show and I was kind of giving him a hard time like man you know you left you left Dallas you become
Doug Mo you're just letting it rip and the Pacers you know the Pacers I mean they're the most freeing team in the league and Rick Carlile said I don't even know what NBA defense is anymore yeah that's wild and so there's a lot of coaches I think who feel that way and so exactly how they're going to do it I'm not sure but I just think there will be more contact allowed next season yeah and I think maybe as a general principle and then this is hopefully the case not even just like you know uh with
with basketball but maybe in Just Sports in general especially contact Sports it's like there there's inev you want contact there's going to be inevitable moments of contact when people compete in these type of sports it's just when two players beat each other to the spot that should be a draw or even maybe even slight advantage to the defense rather than when two players meet and get to the same spot the advantage is always given to the offense and I feel like more and more that is what's happ
ened in the league is that draws go to the offense not to the defense in which case I think that that's where it gets you know out of balance where you see some of these cheaper calls or guys just trying to contain and guard on the perimeter without hand checking but like you know sliding and stuff like that and that's still called as a foul then it's like what do you really want them to do but
Comments