If past is precedent, then NBA nation should look forward to a season of ugly basketball.
In the season preceding the last truncated NBA season, meaning 1997-98, the collective NBA Team Win Score average was 39.39. In the season following the last truncated NBA season, meaning 1999-2000, the collective NBA Team Win Score average was 40.15. During the last truncated NBA season, meaning the 50 game schedule that followed the lockout in 1998-99, the collective NBA Team Win Score average was 36.79, a substantial decline (and the lowest NBA Team Win Score average since the watered down NBA seasons that immediately preceded the NBA-ABA merger in 1976).
The reason for the dip in Team Win Score is simple to explain. In the shortened 1998-99 NBA season, the players had a hard time putting the basketball into the basket. The NBA team “Effective Scoring Average” for that season (Points – FGAs – .5FTAs / Games Played) was a meager 0.48 points per game. In the two seasons that sandwiched the shortened season, the ESAs were 2.73 points per game (1997-98) and 2.74 points per game (1999-2000), numbers that are pretty much the NBA norm.
If history repeats itself, NBA fans should expect to hear a lot of ”clunks” and “doinks” and “bangs” at their local NBA arena. Those will be caused by plentiful missed field goals.
February 8, 2012 at 10:25 am |
[...] they read the Courtside Analyst post prior to the season, they would have anticipated the ugly basketball. I wrote back then that in labor shortened [...]