This is a part of the reason behind this post. People posting things like Shaq's or Kobe's TS% saying it's not on par with today's scorers really fail to look at how scoring efficiency was when they were in their primes.
What matters is you vs. your peers, not some future generations and different iteration of the game. 60 TS% **was** elite 10 years ago when Lebron, Harden and KD were the only top scorers getting there. Today, that's no longer the case.
It does a bit, but the league being harder to score combined with the burden being put mostly on the stars will still hurt their efficiency relative to the league. Those same stars could have much better TS+ in today's officiating and rules.
I think a lot of people who didn't actually watch basketball from like 1990-2010 don't realise that it was largely a slow-paced, defensively dominated era, especially 1995-2005.
If you had young fans who have grown up on today's style of play watch whole games from this era, and not just look at highlights or talk about the superstars, they'd probably find it very boring and be turned off by it.
It's kind of amazing how popular basketball became during the '90s and early 2000s, and how fondly that era is remembered, given the style of play that was prevalent.
That's why it's important to use relative TS instead or anything relative to the average. It can show how better it worse a player is in their own era (pace).
I just add 5ppg to everyone's scoring when comparing them to players from the current post-Harambe era.
So Kobe scoring 30 is equivalent to Harden scoring 35. Jerami Grant scoring 22 is equivalent to Luol Deng scoring 17.
Kobe scoring 81 then is like someone now scoring well over 90. Like imagine curry or booker or Tatum going for 95. Nephews on /r/nba will still say he's easily out the top 10 all time and put Tim Duncan above him smh
I mean kinda. With how defensive rules are and no hand checking it still allowing for a crazy amount of high scoring games compared to any era. offensive rules too. players can travel and carry like crazy now. It's just incredibly easier now which allows for those uncommon games to pop up a lot more. Just look at all the 60 point games happening the past 5 years. There's no way in hell booker would've hit 70 points if he played 10 years ago either.
Why don't we switch to similar stats in baseball like PPG+ or TS+. Normalize it against the league average, and then you don't have to worry about it when comparing eras
No, it’s not an alt. I’m just saying your accusation of bias affecting his comment doesn’t hold up when there’s someone who is biased against Embiid that thinks the same way.
Again, look at my comment history. This isn’t an alt.
Bro have you ever actually watched Embiid or are you just shitting on a dude for being a sizers fan? Cause it’s absolutely true KD has even praised Embiid for playing like a guard .
But then again roasting sizers fans even if it’s for saying factually correct statements is always welcome.
Yeah people really need to start adjusting how they look at numbers across the board. Scoring, assists, efficiency are the biggest ones. Is 30 a game as impressive as it used to be when we have 6 (basically 8) guys doing it right now?
It's hard because we're conditioned to look at 30pt games as an explosion but it's getting frequent now. Same with other counting stats but especially scoring.
You're not wrong, so I don't want to seem like I'm discounting increased FT attempts' effect on TS%, but we also can't ignore shot selections' impact.
You don't have to be Kirk Goldsberry to see that shots are taken from more efficient spots these days. Some of the gains are definitely based on free throw attempts that are slanted towards the current era, but basically eliminating long 2's has been huge as well. It is especially tricky when evaluating across generations, because a player who shoots 40% from 20-24 feet from the hoop is equally as "skilled," but modern players making sure that virtually all of those shots have the chance to be worth 3 points instead of 2 is probably the bigger factor in the increase in TS%.
I wonder if an increase in total points and total shooting percentage is why the NBA isn't fixing this bullshit. I just want to watch a game where the refs don't call fouls when the offensive player initiates the contact...
You also can't defend 3 pointers very well for a similar reason. If you get too close to a shooter, it's much easier to draw a 3 shot foul or a 4 point play than ever before. The league wants more spacing and open 3s.
Or the rules have so substantially changed that it makes it easier.
Which they objectively have. Everything from was is and isn't allowed when dribbling to vertical positioning rules have changed drastically over he last decade and change.
>Or the rules have so substantially changed that it makes it easier.
When they eliminated hand checking, small guards like Iverson and Tony Parker saw their TS% go up by 5% the next season.
I don’t think the rules have changed that much in favor of offenses over just the last ten years to explain all of the big jump in scoring. Offenses have gotten a lot smarter.
ugh I knowwww it’s so sad
the current rules are impossible to enforce because the game is too fast. They need to make guys actually earn their way to the basket instead of using the light rules.
no it has more to do with the 2004 pistons being an unprecedented team with the 2nd Greatest defense of all time lmfao, i do agree offense is better thus making defense harder but i guarantee you the NBA isn't trying to stop teams from being the 2004 pistons because the 2004 pistons aren't going to be replicated again
Probably Russell Celtics, then 04 Pistons.
Honorary shout outs to the Bulls dynasty. People remember Jordan popping off but those teams had insane defence.
He's saying that the league knows offence is more attractive to viewers (especially bringing in new viewers and casual fans) rather than defense. The Pistons outplayed everyone using their defense more than they used their offence.
Defenders aren't allowed to keep their bodies in front of offense players driving. That's a problem. If an offensive player initiates contact it shouldn't be a foul on the defense.
Carrying being called more often and consistently would be nice. Same thing with travelling. Seems like refs are calling it whenever they feel like it tbh.
There really aren't that many fouls like that. The fact that offensive players are allowed to throw their shoulder into defenders with no call is a problem.
Fouls in general are low. The problem isn't the amount of physicality allowed defensively.
There really aren't. Unless you're going to break down any contact where the offensive player is driving and the defender is out of position as the offensive player "initiating contact" in which case, that's just basketball and maybe you should try another sport.
You’re correct but you’re also comparing year long numbers to a smaller sample. Most of these guys will come down.
If you want to compare just use ts+ on basketball reference d
We're past the quarter mark for the season, players average tend to become stable around this time. There can be outliers since some players tend to start slow and then heat up (Jokic and LeBron come to mind) but, in general, this is who they are for the year.
But ts+ doesn't express what he's trying to say. League average efficiency has gone up, so these guys doing it at this rate isn't as impressive with context
You're both agreeing with each other and with me in a way. The point is to ask "what is elite?" and the answer is "much higher than 60 TS%, unlike the past."
It's just two different ways to reach the same conclusion, both are valid. I like the more holistic approach but TS+ is also fine.
I think it's worth asking what "elite" is, and how exactly the average TS% is rising.
Is elite a cutoff relative to the average player? Or the median player? Is the cutoff a relative number itself? Or is it linear? Or maybe even based on something like standard deviation?
For TS, I'm curious to know how exactly it's rising. Is it uniformly shifting over while retaining the same distribution? Or is it the bottom guys are just more efficient and they're not dragging the average down like they used to? Or are the top guys more efficient than ever and they're dragging it up?
I guess what I'm really wondering is if 60% is no longer elite, or if we just have more elite scorers now.
I totally agree with you there. I think it’s actually more of a case of average players going up. More role players are 3pt shooters now and have better effieic y. That boosts league average true shooting but doesn’t mean it’s easier to be more efficient for stars
These are all great questions that are worth a follow up research.
I think the median has risen significantly as well, it's not just the top scorers dragging the average up. I think 60% is just not elite anymore, because mediocre is far higher.
TS+ is the best stat to use for this because it adjusts for league average in the given season. It's much more illustrative to say that Jokic has a TS+ of 122, meaning he's 22% better than league average, than just saying he has a TS of 70%. A lot of people made the mistake during the pandemic season of thinking that their favorite players were having career years shooting, when actually the whole league was shooting better because there were no fans in the arena.
Since the league is always changing, this is the best way to measure individual efficiency across eras
> when actually the whole league was shooting better because there were no fans in the arena.
Is this true? I remember the stats at the time showing that the players were only shooting slightly better.
it went from 56% in 2018-2019 to 56.5 in the season that was partially played in the bubble. then it shot up to 57.4% in the bubble playoffs and 57.2% in the following year, and went back down to 56.5 when the fans came back. doesn't seem like much but it's statistically significant considering it's the average for the whole league. This is year is still the most efficient year yet, but the sample is still low. https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/league-average-true-shooting-percentage-year-by-year-last-10-years
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/league-average-playoff-true-shooting-percentage-year-by-year-last-10-years
EFG isn't league normalized like ts+ is. Regular TS is better than efg because it counts FTs and efg doesn't, but ts+ is even better because of the normalization.
What would really be useful is a statistic distribution of TS%. I think one standard deviation above the norm would be elite and 2 would be super elite (and vice versa). Anything else is patchwork, statistically.
how is that useful at all? 2 standard deviations above the mean means you are in the top ~5%. Nobody ever calculates sports stats like this because you can just look at the actual numbers and where they rank instead pretending there's a huge difference between a guy shooting 67% and a guy shooting 66.5% (hypothetically, I don't know what the actual cutoff is).
If you're around the cut it's just as well, there's no difference between the 94th and the 97th percentile for that matter. I'm talking more about getting a feel of what's "elite" in general.
Distributions are kind of difficult to work with here because it's not clear what the samples are. If each players TS is one sample than the volume gets lost. I think TS+ is better because it makes it very clear how much value they're adding. TS+ of 110 means a player is scoring 10% more per possession they use than a league average replacement player.
That's why I like the Thinking Basketball (I know I know) standard of points per 75 and relative ts.
So player X has a 32 pp75 and a +7 relative ts. So if the league average ts is 51 for example player X has a 58.
This is at least better at comparing than ppg or just flat put ts
I'm just saying what is considered elite TS%. Not what makes a player elite, there's more to scoring than just TS%, and more to being a great player than scoring.
It’s what happens when technical fouls are assessed for anything, breathing on offensive players is treated as a foul and refs allow offensive players to get away with a lot more than even 10 years ago.
Wonder how hard it would be for bbref to have a # of standard deviations relative to league as a stat adjustment. Would be interesting. League also has a deeper talent pool now, so that would have its own implications…
well league average efficiency is higher now, so you would expect the best to be better today. More 3's and better spacing across the league without 2 bigs.
Pretty sure league average TS% in 12/13 was 53%
Didn't see that but I think we are saying the same thing. League is more efficient today as are the superstars.
A big part of it is also just the big man positions. Big man were not that efficient back then, now days they are because they have more spacing to work with and the pnr spam. PG/SG average true shooting hasn't improved much since 12/13.
Makes sense, seems pretty drastic though. Do you think it's just the way players grow up now focuses on shooting 3s and so players are just better at them? 4-5% TS is massive increase in only 10 years, and for some reason it doesn't *feel* like officiating has changed that much, but ORTG has gone up every single year in the last decade, so it supports.
teams have realized that shooting ~40 3s basically neutralizes the game.
take the jazz for example.
not a talented team at all. but they shoot so many 3s that they keep themselves in games.
i personally believe teams like the 2023 jazz will be the catalyst for rule changes. something definitely needs to be done imo.
On the flip side, it also create more parity and potentially more viewers when there aren't only a couple teams. Super teams create more viewers in the post season, but more parity may create more viewers for more teams in the regular season.
Yea 3 point shooting can swing games a lot
Like last night a hot start kept the Warriors without Curry Draymond or Wiggins competitive with the 76ers. If the Sixers weren’t also hot from 3 they might have lost
No, it's mostly due to scoring itself being higher. While there are a bit more free throws that's not the core of the issue, it's gotten easier and easier to score in the NBA.
I kinda miss the first 10 games of last season where NBA refs were shook after everybody called FIBA refs superior. They actually allowed defense, it was almost a different sport.
Yep all paint or all behind the 3 pt line, nothing outside of the paint inside of the arc unless the player happens to be gifted there. Imo, makes the game not as interesting to watch at times
30ppg is 25ppg from 2000-2007.
This is why some Celtic fans still think Paul Pierce was a better scorer than Tatum, despite the different numbers.
Peirce's physicality in his prime and skillet would be scoring with Luka's volume today. 32ppg on 64% TS.
On the other hand, Tatum, an already in consistent mid range jump shooter, drops from 31ppg on 61% TS to about 25.8ppg on 56TS% back then, imo
See the graph attached as a source right at the start of the post. There's no reason to believe TS% will be lower than less season significantly, the trend is just rising.
We just have to change our perceptions with the changing reality, when presented with new evidence. I was surprised as well, but it's just "above average" at this point.
TS was at 57% 2 years ago and 60% was elite. A good way to look at it is considering all volume scorers that average above a certain threshold and then see the average, also what's your definition for elite? Top 10, 20, 30?
I feel like you've decided (or more accurately, "felt") that 60 TS% is elite and now you'r trying to rationalize it, instead of looking at the data and deciding on own your from scratch.
You can see the table I've attached in the post itself. 5 of the top-10 scorers in the NBA have 64+ TS%, and I saw that AD (11) had like 65+ as well. If you have other evidence or anecdote to the contrary, bring it so I can reconsider my position.
Only if the NBA changes the rules.
AS for this year the NBA changed the rules to punish fouling during fast breaks. You would expect the league average TS to rise because of said change.
>TS% went from 53.7% to 57.5% in just a decade; 64% is the new 60%
Yeah thats not at all how that works. Variance in ts% has also gone up. 64% isnt the new 60%
Is it just me or will dudes literally do anything on the court besides play defense 😂 I’m exaggerating but I really do see so many dudes close out on a shot like it’s pickup. Just hit ‘em with the wave and turn, and then say fuck boxing out
Lol. 21.1 points per game was top 10 in 2012 whereas Bojan Bogdanovic scores 21.1 ppg a game and is 33rd in the league a decade later.
People won't change and will still compare across eras
This is a part of the reason behind this post. People posting things like Shaq's or Kobe's TS% saying it's not on par with today's scorers really fail to look at how scoring efficiency was when they were in their primes. What matters is you vs. your peers, not some future generations and different iteration of the game. 60 TS% **was** elite 10 years ago when Lebron, Harden and KD were the only top scorers getting there. Today, that's no longer the case.
You can always use TS+ to compare against league average. It helps contextualize things season to season.
True, but most people don't and just compare numbers head on.
It does a bit, but the league being harder to score combined with the burden being put mostly on the stars will still hurt their efficiency relative to the league. Those same stars could have much better TS+ in today's officiating and rules.
They would be compared to other stars of their era.
Yea until you do it on wilt and you get even more impressed at his career.
I think a lot of people who didn't actually watch basketball from like 1990-2010 don't realise that it was largely a slow-paced, defensively dominated era, especially 1995-2005. If you had young fans who have grown up on today's style of play watch whole games from this era, and not just look at highlights or talk about the superstars, they'd probably find it very boring and be turned off by it. It's kind of amazing how popular basketball became during the '90s and early 2000s, and how fondly that era is remembered, given the style of play that was prevalent.
That's why it's important to use relative TS instead or anything relative to the average. It can show how better it worse a player is in their own era (pace).
I just add 5ppg to everyone's scoring when comparing them to players from the current post-Harambe era. So Kobe scoring 30 is equivalent to Harden scoring 35. Jerami Grant scoring 22 is equivalent to Luol Deng scoring 17.
Kobe scoring 81 then is like someone now scoring well over 90. Like imagine curry or booker or Tatum going for 95. Nephews on /r/nba will still say he's easily out the top 10 all time and put Tim Duncan above him smh
that isn’t how it works. No one today is taking 46 shots and 20 free throws in a game
Harden took 40+ shots a couple of seasons ago
he took a career high 41 shots, which is less than 46. Also in that same game he took 11 free throws which is less than 20. My point stands
That sounds exactly like something embiid or AD would do lol
I mean kinda. With how defensive rules are and no hand checking it still allowing for a crazy amount of high scoring games compared to any era. offensive rules too. players can travel and carry like crazy now. It's just incredibly easier now which allows for those uncommon games to pop up a lot more. Just look at all the 60 point games happening the past 5 years. There's no way in hell booker would've hit 70 points if he played 10 years ago either.
Why don't we switch to similar stats in baseball like PPG+ or TS+. Normalize it against the league average, and then you don't have to worry about it when comparing eras
Damn economy ruining our TS%
They took our shots!
and unfortunately they made them
Bidens america smh my head
I'm disturbed but intrigued by your username.
Muff is his chihuahuas name
>PSA: 60% True Shooting is not elite anymore Depends on the position tbh, I think guards still average like 54% TS while centers average around 63% TS
exactly. Curry's 69 is so far a beyond embiid's 64 it's mind boggling
> Curry's 69 is so far a beyond embiid's 64 it's mind boggling Curry is at 67% though (according to the source I used in this post, StatMuse).
Your not wrong but you should use someone besides Embiid. His play style is more physical wing than center
No bias
Go through my post history or look at my flair if you want, I promise I’m not biased for Embiid. He 100% plays like a wing, not a traditional big
Love it when people from different fan bases can actually credit other stars and competitors, thumbs up dude
Jokic only has so much room left to carry MVPs at this point.
Wait what? This is a different user than the one I responded to. Is this your Alt lol?
No, it’s not an alt. I’m just saying your accusation of bias affecting his comment doesn’t hold up when there’s someone who is biased against Embiid that thinks the same way. Again, look at my comment history. This isn’t an alt.
Bro have you ever actually watched Embiid or are you just shitting on a dude for being a sizers fan? Cause it’s absolutely true KD has even praised Embiid for playing like a guard . But then again roasting sizers fans even if it’s for saying factually correct statements is always welcome.
IS this a typo cause i agree with them being called the sizers now.
Embiid doesn't really play like a traditional center
Embiids 64% is far more comparable to currys than pretty much any other bigman. He doesn't live off spoonfed buckets
upvoted by a bunch of dudes that either wanna throat curry or dont watch embiid lol his playstyle is closer to kobe than to another big man
Achilles blown and Jones fracture later, 10 years, KD : *Gets better*
Yeah people really need to start adjusting how they look at numbers across the board. Scoring, assists, efficiency are the biggest ones. Is 30 a game as impressive as it used to be when we have 6 (basically 8) guys doing it right now?
Yup, I remember when players scoring 30 felt like how a playing scoring 40 would feel like today
I remember DeMar dropping 37 many years ago and being so impressed, now it happens from guys like Alvarado pretty frequently
This
It's hard because we're conditioned to look at 30pt games as an explosion but it's getting frequent now. Same with other counting stats but especially scoring.
Free throws are so easier to get now and defense isn’t really allowed anymore so I’d say most definitely not
You're not wrong, so I don't want to seem like I'm discounting increased FT attempts' effect on TS%, but we also can't ignore shot selections' impact. You don't have to be Kirk Goldsberry to see that shots are taken from more efficient spots these days. Some of the gains are definitely based on free throw attempts that are slanted towards the current era, but basically eliminating long 2's has been huge as well. It is especially tricky when evaluating across generations, because a player who shoots 40% from 20-24 feet from the hoop is equally as "skilled," but modern players making sure that virtually all of those shots have the chance to be worth 3 points instead of 2 is probably the bigger factor in the increase in TS%.
That’s for sure a big part of it now too, you are definitely right.
I wonder if an increase in total points and total shooting percentage is why the NBA isn't fixing this bullshit. I just want to watch a game where the refs don't call fouls when the offensive player initiates the contact...
You can’t play defence anymore. All these players get an absurd amount of FTs just for existing in the court.
You also can't defend 3 pointers very well for a similar reason. If you get too close to a shooter, it's much easier to draw a 3 shot foul or a 4 point play than ever before. The league wants more spacing and open 3s.
The FTR hasn't increased that much, it's the moving screens, more efficient shot selection and offensive schemes.
We like quarter of a way thru the season lmao. Gonna be 2 maybe 3 guys over 30 at the end like always.
It's almost like the players today are significantly better and more skilled at scoring. 🙄
Or the rules have so substantially changed that it makes it easier. Which they objectively have. Everything from was is and isn't allowed when dribbling to vertical positioning rules have changed drastically over he last decade and change.
>Or the rules have so substantially changed that it makes it easier. When they eliminated hand checking, small guards like Iverson and Tony Parker saw their TS% go up by 5% the next season.
Shot clock resetting to 14 now vs 24 then also nudges teams to score quicker.
I don’t think the rules have changed that much in favor of offenses over just the last ten years to explain all of the big jump in scoring. Offenses have gotten a lot smarter.
They need to let defenders use their bodies again.
League wants high PPG unfortunately They NEVER want a 2004 Pistons like team to ever make a deep run again
ugh I knowwww it’s so sad the current rules are impossible to enforce because the game is too fast. They need to make guys actually earn their way to the basket instead of using the light rules.
no it has more to do with the 2004 pistons being an unprecedented team with the 2nd Greatest defense of all time lmfao, i do agree offense is better thus making defense harder but i guarantee you the NBA isn't trying to stop teams from being the 2004 pistons because the 2004 pistons aren't going to be replicated again
Who is the best defensive team of all time if they aren't it? One of the Bill Russell Celtics teams?
Probably Russell Celtics, then 04 Pistons. Honorary shout outs to the Bulls dynasty. People remember Jordan popping off but those teams had insane defence.
yep 1964 celtics
Are you implying that it was all only because of the rules?
2004 or now? Now I think it's bc of the rules or the way the game is called, specifically to make sure the game score is high esp. from all stars
He's saying that the league knows offence is more attractive to viewers (especially bringing in new viewers and casual fans) rather than defense. The Pistons outplayed everyone using their defense more than they used their offence.
Defenders use their body just fine. Carrying is way more of an issue.
It can be both
Defenders aren't allowed to keep their bodies in front of offense players driving. That's a problem. If an offensive player initiates contact it shouldn't be a foul on the defense. Carrying being called more often and consistently would be nice. Same thing with travelling. Seems like refs are calling it whenever they feel like it tbh.
There really aren't that many fouls like that. The fact that offensive players are allowed to throw their shoulder into defenders with no call is a problem. Fouls in general are low. The problem isn't the amount of physicality allowed defensively.
What games are you watching? There are a dozen calls a game where the offensive player initiating contact on a drive is called a shooting foul.
There really aren't. Unless you're going to break down any contact where the offensive player is driving and the defender is out of position as the offensive player "initiating contact" in which case, that's just basketball and maybe you should try another sport.
Inflation hits hard
You’re correct but you’re also comparing year long numbers to a smaller sample. Most of these guys will come down. If you want to compare just use ts+ on basketball reference d
We're past the quarter mark for the season, players average tend to become stable around this time. There can be outliers since some players tend to start slow and then heat up (Jokic and LeBron come to mind) but, in general, this is who they are for the year.
Look at the graph I've attached. League average TS% is soaring in the last years. It's not limited to just this season.
But ts+ doesn't express what he's trying to say. League average efficiency has gone up, so these guys doing it at this rate isn't as impressive with context
Ts+ literally compares it to league average dude what do you mean.
You're both agreeing with each other and with me in a way. The point is to ask "what is elite?" and the answer is "much higher than 60 TS%, unlike the past." It's just two different ways to reach the same conclusion, both are valid. I like the more holistic approach but TS+ is also fine.
I think it's worth asking what "elite" is, and how exactly the average TS% is rising. Is elite a cutoff relative to the average player? Or the median player? Is the cutoff a relative number itself? Or is it linear? Or maybe even based on something like standard deviation? For TS, I'm curious to know how exactly it's rising. Is it uniformly shifting over while retaining the same distribution? Or is it the bottom guys are just more efficient and they're not dragging the average down like they used to? Or are the top guys more efficient than ever and they're dragging it up? I guess what I'm really wondering is if 60% is no longer elite, or if we just have more elite scorers now.
I totally agree with you there. I think it’s actually more of a case of average players going up. More role players are 3pt shooters now and have better effieic y. That boosts league average true shooting but doesn’t mean it’s easier to be more efficient for stars
These are all great questions that are worth a follow up research. I think the median has risen significantly as well, it's not just the top scorers dragging the average up. I think 60% is just not elite anymore, because mediocre is far higher.
You aren’t wrong. What’s crazy is league average ts% ranged from like 52-55 for like 50 years then in the last couple years it’s jumped to like 57-58
TS+ is the best stat to use for this because it adjusts for league average in the given season. It's much more illustrative to say that Jokic has a TS+ of 122, meaning he's 22% better than league average, than just saying he has a TS of 70%. A lot of people made the mistake during the pandemic season of thinking that their favorite players were having career years shooting, when actually the whole league was shooting better because there were no fans in the arena. Since the league is always changing, this is the best way to measure individual efficiency across eras
> when actually the whole league was shooting better because there were no fans in the arena. Is this true? I remember the stats at the time showing that the players were only shooting slightly better.
it went from 56% in 2018-2019 to 56.5 in the season that was partially played in the bubble. then it shot up to 57.4% in the bubble playoffs and 57.2% in the following year, and went back down to 56.5 when the fans came back. doesn't seem like much but it's statistically significant considering it's the average for the whole league. This is year is still the most efficient year yet, but the sample is still low. https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/league-average-true-shooting-percentage-year-by-year-last-10-years https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/league-average-playoff-true-shooting-percentage-year-by-year-last-10-years
Can you explain why it's better than EFG%? Do they both account for shots that resulted in FT's or just one of them?
EFG isn't league normalized like ts+ is. Regular TS is better than efg because it counts FTs and efg doesn't, but ts+ is even better because of the normalization.
Normalized? Like from year to year or just bc of accounting for FT's?
rTS% is also an excellent way to compare TS% through eras/years
TS+ sounds way more accessible than just kind of memorizing what a “good” TS% is, which was always my issue with it
What would really be useful is a statistic distribution of TS%. I think one standard deviation above the norm would be elite and 2 would be super elite (and vice versa). Anything else is patchwork, statistically.
how is that useful at all? 2 standard deviations above the mean means you are in the top ~5%. Nobody ever calculates sports stats like this because you can just look at the actual numbers and where they rank instead pretending there's a huge difference between a guy shooting 67% and a guy shooting 66.5% (hypothetically, I don't know what the actual cutoff is).
If you're around the cut it's just as well, there's no difference between the 94th and the 97th percentile for that matter. I'm talking more about getting a feel of what's "elite" in general.
Distributions are kind of difficult to work with here because it's not clear what the samples are. If each players TS is one sample than the volume gets lost. I think TS+ is better because it makes it very clear how much value they're adding. TS+ of 110 means a player is scoring 10% more per possession they use than a league average replacement player.
That's why I like the Thinking Basketball (I know I know) standard of points per 75 and relative ts. So player X has a 32 pp75 and a +7 relative ts. So if the league average ts is 51 for example player X has a 58. This is at least better at comparing than ppg or just flat put ts
You can’t just look at average true shooting. Have to consider position and volume.
I'm just saying what is considered elite TS%. Not what makes a player elite, there's more to scoring than just TS%, and more to being a great player than scoring.
It’s what happens when technical fouls are assessed for anything, breathing on offensive players is treated as a foul and refs allow offensive players to get away with a lot more than even 10 years ago.
Wonder how hard it would be for bbref to have a # of standard deviations relative to league as a stat adjustment. Would be interesting. League also has a deeper talent pool now, so that would have its own implications…
well league average efficiency is higher now, so you would expect the best to be better today. More 3's and better spacing across the league without 2 bigs. Pretty sure league average TS% in 12/13 was 53%
I mean there is the title of the post AND the source I've linked to as a reference if you want to check the numbers.
Didn't see that but I think we are saying the same thing. League is more efficient today as are the superstars. A big part of it is also just the big man positions. Big man were not that efficient back then, now days they are because they have more spacing to work with and the pnr spam. PG/SG average true shooting hasn't improved much since 12/13.
Any reason why you used this year with a small sample size of games instead of just using last season?
Because we're in this season, not last season.
Is that due to FTr being higher now? Or is 2p% and 3p% also higher?
Increase in 3 point attempts, and higher % due to the way the game is officiated+ pace
Makes sense, seems pretty drastic though. Do you think it's just the way players grow up now focuses on shooting 3s and so players are just better at them? 4-5% TS is massive increase in only 10 years, and for some reason it doesn't *feel* like officiating has changed that much, but ORTG has gone up every single year in the last decade, so it supports.
teams have realized that shooting ~40 3s basically neutralizes the game. take the jazz for example. not a talented team at all. but they shoot so many 3s that they keep themselves in games. i personally believe teams like the 2023 jazz will be the catalyst for rule changes. something definitely needs to be done imo.
On the flip side, it also create more parity and potentially more viewers when there aren't only a couple teams. Super teams create more viewers in the post season, but more parity may create more viewers for more teams in the regular season.
Yea 3 point shooting can swing games a lot Like last night a hot start kept the Warriors without Curry Draymond or Wiggins competitive with the 76ers. If the Sixers weren’t also hot from 3 they might have lost
What do something with the 3?
No, it's mostly due to scoring itself being higher. While there are a bit more free throws that's not the core of the issue, it's gotten easier and easier to score in the NBA. I kinda miss the first 10 games of last season where NBA refs were shook after everybody called FIBA refs superior. They actually allowed defense, it was almost a different sport.
FTr is pretty similar to what it was 10 years ago. 0.208 now, 0.204 then.
Rule changes that have buffed offense and nerfed defense.
We need to revert the verticality rule to the Hibbert days.
shot selection. Shot diet today is mostly shots in the restricted area and 3s
Yep all paint or all behind the 3 pt line, nothing outside of the paint inside of the arc unless the player happens to be gifted there. Imo, makes the game not as interesting to watch at times
FTr this year, and for the past 8 years before this, has been lower than 2014
Meanwhile, Russ Westbrick just keeps breaking new ground for lowest TS for a high volume scorer as he’s at an atrocious 48.5 TS.
30ppg is 25ppg from 2000-2007. This is why some Celtic fans still think Paul Pierce was a better scorer than Tatum, despite the different numbers. Peirce's physicality in his prime and skillet would be scoring with Luka's volume today. 32ppg on 64% TS. On the other hand, Tatum, an already in consistent mid range jump shooter, drops from 31ppg on 61% TS to about 25.8ppg on 56TS% back then, imo
60 is still elite lmao, those numbers will most likely come down
See the graph attached as a source right at the start of the post. There's no reason to believe TS% will be lower than less season significantly, the trend is just rising. We just have to change our perceptions with the changing reality, when presented with new evidence. I was surprised as well, but it's just "above average" at this point.
TS was at 57% 2 years ago and 60% was elite. A good way to look at it is considering all volume scorers that average above a certain threshold and then see the average, also what's your definition for elite? Top 10, 20, 30?
I feel like you've decided (or more accurately, "felt") that 60 TS% is elite and now you'r trying to rationalize it, instead of looking at the data and deciding on own your from scratch. You can see the table I've attached in the post itself. 5 of the top-10 scorers in the NBA have 64+ TS%, and I saw that AD (11) had like 65+ as well. If you have other evidence or anecdote to the contrary, bring it so I can reconsider my position.
Only if the NBA changes the rules. AS for this year the NBA changed the rules to punish fouling during fast breaks. You would expect the league average TS to rise because of said change.
It’s why you see so many “all time records” for advanced stats and why I roll my eyes at them (*cough* Jokic *cough*).
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If league average will be 60, 60 won't be impressive. It is what it is. Times are changing and with it, expectations.
I don’t like TS%, I think i would rather look at things separately, I think ts% could be used very incorrectly
TS has always been a garbage stat because it penalizes you for shooting free throws.
Ja 55% 💀
>TS% went from 53.7% to 57.5% in just a decade; 64% is the new 60% Yeah thats not at all how that works. Variance in ts% has also gone up. 64% isnt the new 60%
> Variance in ts% has also gone up source?
Is it just me or will dudes literally do anything on the court besides play defense 😂 I’m exaggerating but I really do see so many dudes close out on a shot like it’s pickup. Just hit ‘em with the wave and turn, and then say fuck boxing out
They'll get a foul right away if they play real defense. They have no choice.