13 Comments

This was such a great read! Thank you for crunching these numbers!!!

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Thanks for reading!

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I wonder if the general public actually means what they say (that every team plays the same way), or if casual basketball fans are more inclined to just look at the shot profile, and interpret that as the style of play. I knew in my heart that an analysis like this existed. I wasn't willing to do it myself, but you've confirmed my suspicions.

A bigger part of the argument here is that even if every team did play the same way, would that even be a real argument as to why the league isn't great? My specialty is the NFL, and in that league there's about four different ways to play offence, much like the five sided pie charts you've presented here. The NFL is known worldwide for how homogenous it is, yet nobody goes on about the NFL's actually homogeneity as much as they go on about how they perceive basketball to be homogenous.

I don't think people actually mind homogeneity that much, even in the league where it does exist. I've taken to feeling like people complaining about homogeneity is more of a buzzword to complain about the real issues. For instance, I believe the league needs more physical contact in it. I dislike three point shots because there is not much body-on-body involved. If there were a way to mesh these two things, I would do it in a heartbeat.

Since I do understand the casuals' frustrations, I wonder if their constant complaints about homogeneity are really just more complaints about three point shots. If the homogeneity did not come in the form of 3PT attempts, I don't think it would be an issue.

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Great points. Especially about the NFL. Fans *want* their teams to run the Shanahan offense because it works so well, to use just one example. Nobody complains that they run the same stuff as other teams. And there are even stylistic differences within the Shanahan tree. The Niners aren't running exactly the same stuff as the Rams, who aren't running exactly the same stuff as the Vikings or Dolphins or etc. The same principles apply to NBA offenses. Everyone is running a lot of Mike D'Antoni's stuff with different concepts sprinkled on top of them, while also incorporating other coaches' playbooks to make up the rest of their offense.

I think a good deal of the complaints about both homogeneity and threes are at least in part a result of being repeatedly told that those are massive problems by basically everyone who covers the NBA on TV. (And a not-insignificant number of those who cover it mostly online.) If people explained what was good about this era of basketball and why offenses have evolved the way they did and why they work and what challenges they pose for defenses and how the skill sets of today's players make everything click at as high a level as it does right now, people might feel differently.

Re: physicality, it's an interesting discussion because there IS a lot of physicality involved in today's game, just not as much of the type of body-on-body contact you're referring to. The physical challenges of playing defense these days are so far beyond what was asked of players in the 1980s or 90s; it's just that those challenges are about agility and stamina and reaction times, rather than being able to hold up in the post. Again, I think the fact that people don't understand this is partially a failure of basketball media to communicate these things.

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I see, so your point is that it's something of a self fulfilling prophecy. People aren't against homogeneity because of it's adverse effects on the game. They're simply against homogeneity because they're against homogeneity, for no real reason at all. I can absolutely believe that, because it happens in far more important aspects of society than basketball. Something like a bike lane in a city falls victim to the same thing a lot. People can't come up with a real reason as to why they dislike them. They just do.

Are you saying that people covering this game are just bad at their jobs? I say the same thing all the time about NFL commentators, so it's nice to see it's not just my side of the fence that's struggling on that front. I don't know quite enough about basketball to make that assertion about the NBA, but I can understand that a lot of the rhetoric is always negative, and even to this casual it'd be nice if it skewed more positive. The NBA seems to be the only North American league that is constantly downplaying itself like this. I'm not sure what drives it to be that way.

I think I misspoke in my discussion about physicality. What's missing from today's game is not necessarily physicality. It's menace. Not necessarily violence, but the threat of violence. The tangible feeling that the two teams are enemies, and hate each other, and will do anything to beat each other. Even in the playoffs these days, basketball teams tend not to (there are a few counterexamples, which tend to be the series I watch closely, but not many) treat each other like enemies.

Baseball had this formula perfectly optimised up until the 1970s or so, when things began to change and that sport never recovered. That sport doesn't contain any physical contact at all, but there was always the threat that if you stepped out of line that somebody was going to throw a baseball very hard at you, slide into second base hard in an effort to break your teammate's leg, or just start throwing punches in an era where you didn't get suspended for that kind of thing. There was a tangible feeling that teams hated each other, viewed each other as obstacles (as opposed to peers), and truly wanted to dispatch each other. The appeal was not the violence. It was the threat of violence.

The same is true about the NBA. It's very seldom these days that two teams (or even two players on those two teams) actually dislike each other. I view this as a problem. Sports need some menace, because the whole appeal of being a sports fan is that it's the only place in modern society where it's still acceptable to view another group of people as your enemy. Take that away, and why do we even watch these games?

I feel this is why all the three point shots are a problem. There's very little menace in a three point shot. As a defender, short of blocking the jump shot, there's very little you can do about it. Physical contact is not allowed at all. Shot contests are all well and good, but you do not make somebody your personal enemy by contesting a shot, the same way you would by laying a big hit in a football game. You more or less have to tip your cap to the offensive player if it goes in. That's not a good thing.

You would say that this applies to most all jump shots. Not just three point shots, and I say yes. That's why most people seem (at least with words, if perhaps not actions) to like the NBA better when jump shooting was not a very effective offensive strategy. I think the people who dislike the death of the midrange game are completely barking up the wrong tree. It's jump shooting in general that's the problem in my opinion, simply because you don't make the other team your personal enemy by hitting jumpers on them. There's too much mandatory cap tipping.

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Really interesting points on the violence/menace stuff. I'll have to think more about that.

And I wouldn't say people covering the NBA are bad at their jobs. I think there are misplaced priorities in some of the coverage, and that much of the analysis on TV in particular tends to be either overwhelmingly negative and at times not reflective of what is happening in the modern game (TNT) or mostly unrelated to the game on that night (ESPN).

There are definitely NFL commentators that are frustrating in that it seems like they're just not seeing the right stuff, but they at least don't denigrate today's players and talk about how they all stink and nobody should watch the games, because everything was better when they themselves were playing. And stuff like NFL Live or the shows on NFL Network are focused on the actual football, instead of the drama, which is nice.

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I stumbled onto this extremely thought-provoking post through another piece. The number of comments here is indicative of a provocative topic for sure. Upon reading it, I was struck by two thoughts that I wanted to share to further the discussion.

First, I hear something different than you are hearing. While I thoroughly enjoyed the analysis here, I don't hear people saying, "NBA teams are all playing exactly the same way." In large part, I suspect this has to do with the average fan not thinking in terms of such tactical absolutes or considering the minutia captured in detailed NBA style charts before crystallizing their opinion.

What I hear fans saying is that teams shoot way more three-point shots than they used to, and they don't prefer that aesthetic for the game of basketball as much...so they watch less often. That position strikes me as incontrovertible and perfectly valid. In short, you and fans are looking at this from two different perspectives.

Fans are looking from a vantage point of aesthetics, and they see something inferior to what they were accustomed to seeing 15 or more years ago. This piece, on the other hand, appears to be focused entirely on tactics, and how those tactics differ in achieving the aesthetic that fans find less satisfying.

Both can be true at the same time.

I'll draw an analogy. If you talked with people who hire a lawn service to cut their grass, they would likely tell you that services cut the grass essentially the same way - they come roughly once a week and use mowers and string trimmers. They might express that some differ on price and dependability, but that would essentially be it.

Would their viewpoint be invalid if I tracked lawns services over some period and found that virtually none of them tactically cut the grass the same way? For example, some use two person teams - others three. Some use push mowers, others use riding mowers, A few cut diagonally, others only vertically or horizontally. They use different blade heights. Most mulch, but a few bag the clippings...and so on.

Would those finer distinctions matter to customers or change their opinion? More importantly, would it invalidate their viewpoint in some way? I don't believe it does.

Both positions are valid depending on your viewpoint. Moving the lens closer to see differing tactics for a performance does not immediately mean that the strategies being pursued with those tactics - and more importantly the aesthetics that result from them - are not roughly the same. In most cases, it means that they are achieving a roughly equivalent aesthetic with different tactics because their talent is understandably not identical.

Yet, if you are the NBA - like those lawn cutting services - you understand that the customer is the boss. Furthermore, you care a whole lot about their perceptions - contradictory style charts notwithstanding. People like what they like, and your product needs to adapt to current tastes or die.

Second, on a more personal aside, your line of argument and style here was nostalgic for me as a former attorney. Specifically, it took me back more than 30+ years when I was introduced into the art of how to write effective written appellate legal briefs. That training was surprisingly far lighter on the details and the nuances of the law and far heavier on the psychology of judges and how people perceive winning arguments.

The key I was told was to pursue a shorter punchy style which crafted what was called a "straw-person argument." This approach boiled down the other side's complex case into a more simplified linchpin argument. In short, create a narrow straw-person argument by distilling the counterargument and then knocking the straw-person over with your argument for the win. It's not that either side has an invalid position, it was simply a matter of how you characterized it for others.

I sensed a bit of a straw-person argument here, where what fans are upset about is distilled into a narrower position on the game being played "exactly the same way" versus pulled back to what fans see overall and prefer. While I do appreciate and consider yours a valid perspective, the NBA still has a problem on its hands.

Thanks for the thoughtful piece and the amazing work that went into it.

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Fantastic stuff, Jared. Here's a question for you: My working theory has been that one of the reasons the offense craters for the Nuggets when Joker sits is that they just don't run enough off-ball stuff for MPJ to get open. It's insane to me that this guy, who's basically 6-foot-10 Klay, is barely above 8 3s per 100 possessions. Honestly he should be twice that (which is where Klay nearly is).

Is there anything you can see in the Second Spectrum data in the Jokic off minutes that points to my theory being correct?

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That's definitely an interesting question and something I'll look into. My suspicion is that it's harder to generate stuff for him via off-ball movement when Jokic isn't out there, for obvious reasons. He also gets a lot of his stuff from DHOs and cuts working off Jokic, and those obviously disappear without Jokic as well. (Agreed re: 6-10 Klay, though. That's what he should be, and basically what I wrote when I dug into him during his breakout season: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/michael-porter-jr-s-breakout-is-real/)

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Yeah I’d be shocked if the data said anything other than “the Nuggs are much worse at everything without Joker.”

I think what I’m getting at, tho, is they never look like a team with multiple movement shooters (between MPJ, Strawther & Murray they have 3… in theory), and I feel like I’ve never seen them try a Dubs-like motion offense with Gordon in the draymond role. To me, that’s the obvious solve for non-Joker lineups, and it just seems like Malone has never gotten them there.

Maybe it’s just too hard to learn as your Plan B. Maybe the talent differential between the Dubs and non-Joker Nuggs is too great.

But idk. I just feel like Malone’s gotten a free pass on this.

Appreciate your work & the dialogue!

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The thing I'd say re: a Warriors-like offense with Jokic off the floor is, it's really, really hard to just run a completely different offense when your best player is off the floor. That's a big reason why so many teams are SO MUCH worse offensively when their best player is out. (And the same has been true of the non-Steph Warriors basically every year.) When everything is built around what one guy can do and then he's not there, it's easy to short-circuit. (And I appreciate you reading!)

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Do you think normie fans view a pnr differently than a dribble handoff?

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Probably not! And I think that's at least in part a failing of NBA media. We (especially the people on TV) need to do a better job of highlighting these differences and why they matter, and why certain teams and players attack the defense in certain ways.

Lots of NFL fans know all about the Shanahan and McVay offenses and how they put players in position to succeed, and a bunch know what Brian Flores is doing with the Vikings defense this year. NBA fans should be able to find out the same stuff about Mike Budenholzer's effect on a team's shot selection or how Ime Udoka has built the Rockets defense over the last couple of years.

There are people that have written about that kind of stuff, but it's hard to find and the significant majority of coverage is... not that.

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