Hoops

NBL scoring rate, competitiveness increased?

Know this is an NBL thread, but as an aside this is a pretty phenomenal stat that I just happened to stumble across when I looked across all the scores this year.

It looks like there's been 105-110 odd NBA games so far this year.

Out of all of those games, I can only find 4 games where the winning team did not score more than 100 points.

Some other very interesting stats:

The average PPG is around 112pg per team.
Teams are attempting on average 32 3's per game!!! For comparision, this was 13 odd per game in 2000.

I think it is irrational to compare the first 3 rounds of this year to the full year last season. I expect scoring will slow up in the back half of the year as each team plays each other a 3rd and 4th time and have worked out some of the offences.

Hard to tell this early in the season, especially with all the overtimes. I haven't noticed a big change in offensive philosophy from the teams, it's still push the ball, get an early on-ball, then penetrate or move the ball around into another on-ball or post feed to try and open up weakside cutters or shooters. If it's not that type of stuff it's stack screens or stagger to free up a shooter and take what the D gives you on that, or basic horns sets. Will be interested to see if threes stay high through the season.

Hmm, when I checked season to date the other day, total points per game were down by 6 from last season to date. Given the multiple overtime this season to date the points per game are unlikely to be up on last season to date.

Maybe I misread the stats the other day. I wasn’t focused on points per game so didn’t check closely. It’s also possible NBL are using full year stats from last season. IIRC scoring per game dipped in the second half of last season, so that could explain it as well.

Funnily enough, FG% is down, teams are attempting more threes though, so you're right, it is complicated!

Because no team in the NBL has shot free throws before! Out of interest, teams are averaging 16 FT makes per game out of 91ppg, only slightly higher than the NBA for FTM per minute.

Free throws will do that

Leon Henry says he prayed to the "man upstairs" that the New Zealand Breakers would find room for him in their squad shooting for a three-peat of ANBL titles.

Those prayers were answered yesterday as the two-metre forward was inked to a new two-year deal – the seventh player from the title-winning squad to be retained.

Henry joins Alex Pledger, Tom Abercrombie, Dillon Boucher, Daryl Corletto, CJ Bruton and Mika Vukona as returning Breakers, with just the two import spots and one more local position – most probably another guard – to be filled.