Hoops

NBA Defense, or lack thereof

I will play devil's advocate then and say I disagree that the NBA is boring, because already this season I have seen so many great athletic blocks, only able to be done by NBA players at the rate they are able to do it per game.

Already this season I have seen unbelievable plays, super alley-oop dunks and jams that would smash old time back boards in the days of Shaq' and M.J.

Sure, there are always games where things seem a little more subdued, but the sheer amount of teams and high volume of games means they play more than any other league, at the highest possible level and can do the most amazing things on court!

Boring, nope, amazing but sometimes not quite for the purists, sure...

JohnJames

So how to compare eras then?

Close analysis of equivalent games (stage of season, teams’ standings) using time sampling/ sampling of possessions at similar stages of the game???

Closer stats analysis??.

Different methodologies would probably yield different conclusions.

The game is very boring to watch now and if I didn't bet on games I wouldn't watch. It just seems like there are many teams who know they will make playoffs and getting one extra home game in a 7 match series means very little these days so you have teams coasting for the season trying not to get injuries and not caring if they finish 3rd or 6th. Obviously you don't want to come 7th or 8th because you will be matched up against the very best of teams in the first round.
The players seem happy to put on entertaining high scoring games for the fans pick up a healthy pay check and only get serious come playoffs time.
My prediction- once playoffs start bet heavily on low match scores

Much like with cricket where the rules have favoured batting over bowling, NBA has favoured the offends over the defence.

But my one last gripe and this may make me sound like a really old man of 33 but I'm sick and tired of hearing how so many players "are future hall of famers" it feels like most NBA games they are giving that accolade to one or more players and then you watch the player and the lack of defense and you so wish that Charles Oakley was still around to knock them on their arse and talk some trash to them... not enough scary locker room leaders and demand everyone plays to their standards (think Damien Martin or Mika Vukona in NBL)

I just finished watching a game from 1990 on VCR. Warriors beat the Nuggets 162–158 in regulation. Not a lot of defense was played unfortunately.

Back to the great games we get to watch in the modern era for me. Can't wait for Bucks v Timberwolves tomorrow.

NCAA would be the best league to watch in the world if it didn't have so many timeouts/stoppages.

History means I continue to watch the Lakers, couldn't really be bothered with other games. Will have it on if there's nothing else to watch

Much prefer college ball and record every game available

At last someone else is saying what I've been thinking for the past few years. The NBA is more about entertainment than about competition. The lack of intensity, the lack of ball movement, the lack of player movement. No wonder NBA players struggle with NBL. They have much more natural athletisism throughout the league, but as has been said earlier, it seems they play too many games to care about them all. I's much rather watch a bunch of kids who are playing for their lives than watch uncontested dunks, wide open 3's.
The NBL teams play to win every game. Its a really good league that jsut needs 3 - 4 more teams to give us more variety. But we can't afford to drop the standard.

NCAA would be the best league to watch in the world if it didn't have so many timeouts/stoppages.

The idea that you can have 14-16 total timeouts in 40 minutes of play is laughable (but obviously the TV/sponsors are paying good cash).

Europe would be great to watch too if it got more coverage over these ways.

Better than NBA IMO anyway.

Agreed 100%
People mention tempo of games, but defensive efficiency numbers (which include pace) last season and this season show that for the first time in NBA history no team has a defensive efficiency below 1.

I blame in large part of this on the Warriors. No doubt every team is trying to copy them with pace and 3 point shooting. Problem is, no team has the skill set to take advantage of it like the Warriors.

I have never seen a team completely fool and trick the entire league into playing the way they want them to play.

There is also a culture of that because there are so many possesions, why waste energy defending when you can just get it back on the other end.

The OP is right, there is no intensity in games.

That is why i dont get excited when i see the numbers Ben Simmons puts up.

More three pointers would open up the court a bit and make it harder to pack in and defend effectively. Plus there are some very team-oriented and difficult to defend offences being run by the smarter teams.

I don't have time to watch entire games so can't judge more than that. We have a TV and League Pass in the office but mostly just watch close finishes to games.

Agree to an extent with anon above, especially about a lot of NBA teams now running better team offences, but it's important to note that good defensive teams can make it difficult for opponents to play at pace. Some (GSW, Adelaide as examples) actually want oppo to play quick, but that doesn't work for everyone.

It's easy to look at the scoring averages and just say there's no defense being played, as the averages have gone up.
However, the pace of play has skyrocketed, and furthermore, offenses are just ridiculously efficient these days in the analytical era, and it is borderline impossible to stop.

I find the ISO comment interesting, given its usage is dropping dramatically in favour of the ball movement offenses, again which is a lot harder for defenses to stop, leading to more efficient offense.

I struggle to be amazed by personal statistics now; back in the day when you saw players like Nash, Bryant, Iverson and Lebron (2007 performance vs Pistons for example) (and even T.Parker for me) you were amazed and in awe. Nash averaged 18 and 10 his MVP year (which is very low in the modern NBA); yet watching him play was magical.

Now players like Westbrook and Harden (with all due respect) and others can rack up assists quite easily without making too difficult of passes or doing anything
ridiculously special apart from the odd crazy pass/rack up easy rebounds too/and get easy points from the FT line and/or bad defence. Feels like their numbers are just a product of ball usage and high ball retention. And I get particularly bored by the love with the 3 point game to the extent I refuse to watch GSW games/Curry highlights.

[Saying that however, Harden's performance yesterday was crazy, although I didn't watch it]

Maybe I just grew up; who knows? Sport probably always feels more magical when you're watching as a kid/teenager.

I've mentioned on this site before that NBA is basically watching ISO plays every possession and when it's not it's Pick and rolls but it genuinely feels like you have a star player get the ball ignore his 4 team mates and then he puts up a stupid shot (sometimes they go in - and the commentators bang on about how he is unguardable) whilst his team mates have their backs turned to the ball and are already running down the other end of the court.

It doesn't feel like the players are trying to protect their multi-million dollar contracts (and lets face it almost everyone in NBA has made $2m or more) but I think the issue is the schedule and the 82 game season, that won't change but when you have sports science people (that are ruining all kinds of other sports) they are bound to try and discourage any player from overexerting themselves as they have to play 4 games a week for 5-6 months, it's why the average player in today's NBA look like they are wearing pyjamas under their uniform, it's aesthetically ugly.

The ONLY reason to watch NBA is to see your team or to watch Australian/New Zealand players and be biased in hoping they succeed even if they are facing one another and that just ain't basketball

I've barely watched an NBA game since the lockout.

They have intentionally biased the reffing strongly in favour of the offensive team in the name of entertainment and this is the result. More people than ever tune in but basketball purists start falling out of love with the game.

Only 5 teams are averaging over 110ppg this season, but 28 of 30 teams are averaging over 100ppg. In 2003, only 2 teams averaged over 100ppg. Thats an obvious shift in focussing more on scoring. Watching the NBA is pretty boring when teams are only engaging on one half of the court.

Been off the NBA for a while now as the effort levels look lazy to me.

I agree with all of that. NBA has become boring with its no defence approach. I was looking into team scoring averages, and comparing it to the early 2000' where defence was much more important and the scoring differences were huge.

This season pretty much every team is scoring over 100ppg with a good number averaging over 110ppg. 15 years ago there were teams struggling to get to 95ppg. Its opened up way too much and is just an offensive spectacle now.

Do players hold back on D to protect themselves from injury - and therefore protecting their multi million dollar contracts?

Ive pretty much lost intetest in watching the NBA now.

Joey Wright and the Blaze have pulled the trigger pretty quickly by sacking import Mike English.

He had a shocker in the opening game and clearly has some issues going on in his personal life at the moment that he needs to address so its home time for him.

http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2011/10/10/355851_gold-coast-blaze.html