Twenty years ago, in the 2003-04 season, when the Pistons won the title thanks to an all-time defense, the league average was 93.4 points scored per team per game. A handful of years later, the NBA started changing rule interpretations to allow more room for its athletes to operate and to get more flow into what had become a stagnant game, and the pendulum began to swing. Combine that with teams starting to lean into the 3-pointer, and scoring took off — this season, the league average points per game are 115.6.
There’s a sense from some fans — and some inside the game — that the pendulum has swung too far toward the offense. That gets driven home when four players score 60+ points within four days, capped off by Luka Doncic dropping 73.
Is it time for the NBA to step in and return some power to defenses with tweaks in the rules or their interpretation? Joe Dumars, an NBA VP and head of basketball operations, hinted that could be coming in an interview with Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports.
Dumars said the league has had recent meetings with the coaches, general managers and the competition committee, with the rise in scoring being a topic...
“The question is posed to each one of those groups: Is the balance out of whack? Do we need to balance this more to allow defenses to defend more, to do more on the defensive end of the court? And by and large, people are saying it wouldn’t be bad to have a little bit more defense... “You don’t want it where the defense can just, you know, grab and hold, and you don’t want it when the offense has just this huge advantage, either.”
The scoring genie is not going back in the bottle completely — nor should the league want it to. Despite the foggy memory of some fans of that era, the physical basketball in the 1990s and early 2000s was mostly a slow, slog of a game. Scoring in the NBA is up in part because pace is up — teams averaged 90.1 possessions a game in 2003-04, that is 99.1 this season — and in part because, for the sake of efficiency, teams are running more of their offense through their best players, their alphas. Then there’s the math — teams are taking more 3-pointers. That’s not going to change, three will always be worth 50% more than two, which makes a 35% shooter from 3 far more efficient than a 47% shooter from the midrange.
None of that means the rules can’t be changed to allow a little more defense, a little more physicality on that end. Talking to scouts and league sources, this most often gets mentioned about drives — offensive players have learned to take acute angles to the basket, draw contact, throw up a shot and draw a foul.
Come on, where is the foul here? It was reviewed and not overturned. What did they see on the replay that I do not? THIS SHOULD NOT BE A FOUL. pic.twitter.com/kGjvBHERrB
— Mo Dakhil (@MoDakhil_NBA) February 3, 2024
That’s an example of the kind of play where the contact from the defender holding his space should be allowed.
Also, defenders could be allowed to put a hand on a player driving to the rim, which now draws a whistle.
How much would that change the scoring and help defenses? That’s up for debate, but it would be a start. Change will be incremental with the league trying to find a balance (and offenses adapting to the new rules and looking for better ways to score). If the league makes changes it will start small, see what happens, then adapt again.
But it may be time to do something.
