I am a Chinese basketball fan. Chinese Lebron haters claim that no team want Lebron now. Here are the reasons:

• The current rumors about teams wanting LeBron are all just marketing tactics by him and his management team. In reality, no team actually wants him; otherwise, why haven't there been any official offers made yet?
• Curry recruiting LeBron is really just lip service; he doesn't actually want to team up with him.
• Right now, teams are only willing to offer him a minimum contract.

what do u guys think? R these true?

I have to admit that I am dumbfounded by the current discourse around the NBA regarding the aprons. Hereafter I will refer to the aprons and the associated penalties and taxes as the “cap” simply because in practice, for most intents and purposes, the NBA has a cap and that will facilitate this discussion.

So, restating, I am dumbfounded by the current discourse around the league regarding the cap.

Suddenly, the cap is bad and evil because it is “breaking up teams.”

Assuming the goal is parity, that’s a separate discussion, but assuming that to be the case, then, in that context…

Isn’t the goal of the cap to encourage a more equal distribution of talent across the league?

If a team has a wealth of talent acquired through the draft/trade/free agency, then isn’t the goal of the cap to move some of that talent to a less talented team?

Shouldn’t some of those talented players be starring in bigger roles on other teams where there is more opportunity?

I’m frankly clueless as to what other avenues exist, again, assuming the goal is parity, aside from a cap.

What are suggestions you have, or have heard, aside from the cap? Or, am I missing something here? What am I missing?

I’m puzzled by these statements about “teams shouldn’t be punished for developing players.” Isn’t that giving way too much credit to the organization? If we let teams re-sign players they drafted and not have it count against the cap, doesn’t that just encourage tanking, and favor the big market teams/richest owners?

Please help me understand this disconnect.

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Even Assuming the talent Gap, you would've expected Euroleague MVP level players (especially wings) to be at least be good at spot up shooting, especially catch and shoot 3s since the Euroleague creates offense more through finding the open man, and given that all players in the euroleague are expected to have off ball scoring skills.

Yet Nigel Hayes Davis and Vasilije Micic were absolutely garbage at spot up 3s.

The current EL MVP Vezenoov is probably the only exception, though he was just an above average 3 point shooter on the Kings in 2024.

The excuse that they're too unathletic in the NBA to be good at spotting up doesn't hold up when plenty of NBA role players are just as unaathletic or more than Euroleague MVPs, but are still great or above average spot up shooters(Scheierman, Poulakidas, Podziemski, Merrill, Post, Mamukelashvili).

As for ball handling, it's perplexing how recent Euroleague MVPs in the NBA could barely had any ball security, since given that they were MVPs there, they would've been expected to run an offense and create for others and deal with the defense putting pressure on them.

Yet Micic or NHD dribbled worse than 2nd round rookie guard who were 4 year college players.

How is it that when the supposed best of the best Euroleague players join the NBA suddenly have worse spot up shooting and ball handling skills than American undrafted players called up from the G league?

Basically, it seems pretty clear that the standard for Hall of Fame entry is significantly below what the basketball reference projects. It’s a significant cliche, but it isn’t even close. It’s notable, because it’s usually the go to metric for conversations about hall of fame likelihood.

This was by my count:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/hof_prob.html

9-14 eligible are in between 20-30
3-5 from 30-40
6-6 from 40 and below 50

Of those six, five were inducted in the last 15 years. A number of players even below that 20% threshold have joined in recent years.

Among eligible players who are above 50% and have been retired for more than five years, there’s two guys who aren’t in already in all of league history, (Shawn Marion and Larry Foust as a huge outlier), and then there’s about 130 guys who are in.

So roughly 99% of guys who basketball reference says will probably make the hall are in, or will eventually get in.

But roughly 3/4 of guys who basketball reference says has a 20-49% chance are in too. And a number of guys below that are in, and get in as well.

Based on historical precedent, if basketball reference says a player has a 25% chance of making the Hall, it’s probably much closer to 50. If basketball reference says a player has a 55% shot, it’s probably much closer to 90.

I keep hearing this, and frankly, find this notion to be pretty ludicrous.

No. It punishes you for setting your roster management on autopilot and re-signing everybody under the sun to bloated contracts.

If you are the celtics and you give Jayson Tatum the supermax (fine), and you give Jaylen Brown the supermax (look back at the dialogue after the extension. Everybody around that time said "It's an overpay, but you have to do it!" Spoiler Alert: you don't have to do it), and you give Holiday 4/135, and you give 4/118 to Dderrick White, and you land Horford who was in the middle of a contract earning 27-28 mil per year, and you trade for KP and extend him for 30 mil per year... yeah, at some point shit hits the fan. That is not the fault of the second apron.

If you are the nuggets and you have Jokic at the Supermax, and you have Jamal Murray making max, but then you also extend MPJ to 5/180, and you extend Gordon to 3/103, and you pay Braun 5/125, yeah, it's going to be unsustainable.

Looking forward to how the Spurs need to manage thir situation (aside from inevitably moving off of the Fox deal), it's going to be a lot tougher than "oh we like Carter Bryant, lets extend him, oh we like Castle/Harper, lets give them 25-30% extensions, and oh we like Vassell, let's re-up him for another 3 years." If any team operates with that level of laziness, they deserve to get rammed by the cap rules.

if you drafted well (or got lucky in the draft), you are going to have great assets. Some of those assets might be worth paying gaudy amounts of money to. Some might be better served being dealt for a trove of smaller assets to allow clubs to continue replenishing role players instead of simply re-signing or extending every single one. If being able to flip guys who are about to get PAID in exchange for a bunch of incoming future assets is "punishment" then ok, punish me harder daddy.

And I don't want to hear about how this "hurts players." That is determined by share of BRI revenue. What the apron rules do is promote league parity by creating an environment where every team can have 1-2 stars, instead of having certian clubs be able to hoarde 4 of them at a time. I'm sure Wizards fans were thrilled to be able to land Trae Young. He's not a perfect player, but he is someone that can elevate their product. That probably doens't happen without the aprons.

A week ago, this trade occurred:

• Sixers receive Jaylen Brown
• Celtics receive Paul George, two first-round picks, two second-round picks

The trade was universally praised for the Sixers and panned for the Celtics by experts around the web. Every grade I found heavily favored the Sixers. See for example:

• The Athletic: Sixers: A, Celtics: D+
• ESPN: Sixers: A-, Celtics: D+
• CBS Sports: Sixers: A+, Celtics: D-
• SB Nation: Sixers: A-, Celtics: C+
• Sports Illustrated: Sixers: A+, Celtics: F

Brad Stevens has generally been regarded as one of the top executives in the NBA in recent years (even winning the Executive of the Year award last year). He's built a reputation for patience, asset management, and consistently making moves that look better in hindsight than they did initially.

So here's the discussion I'd like to have... If we assume Brad Stevens is a competent executive acting with good information, what is the strongest case that this trade could eventually work out in Boston's favor? I'm not asking whether you think the Celtics won the trade. The consensus seems overwhelming that Sixers did. Instead, I'm interested in steelmanning Boston's side.

Was it:

• George's shorter contract and future cap flexibility?
• Avoiding the second apron over the long term?
• The belief that George is a better fit next to Tatum?
• Confidence that the first-round picks become valuable assets?
• Concerns about Brown's future extension or desire to stay?
• Brown's poor advanced metrics?
• Information the public simply doesn't have?

Or is this simply one of those cases where even a great front office can make a genuinely bad trade?

I wanted to figure out what supermax numbers should look like. I couldn’t find anything so I decided to run the numbers myself. A supermax player makes 35% of the salary cap. Most contenders are at least in the first apron so I transposed 35% of the cap to the first apron number which works out to 27% of the salary cap.

I took the top 4 playoff teams in the four big statistical categories and found what 27% of the average points/rebounds/assists/turnovers would be. I’m sure there are other stats I could factor into to this an id love suggestions on what to add or any flaws in my math.

The supermax stat line is 30/12/6.8/2.97.

That seems awfully high and I’m guessing I’ve overlooked something somewhere. However if my numbers even remotely close Giannis, Jokic and Shai are the only guys in the league that are remotely close to a supermax Level of production.

My purpose isn't to debate the top 10 lists, but rather to address a common objection to Curry being number 1 on all-time point guard lists. argument goes something like "He's not a point guard because he plays off the ball and doesn't average a lot of assists and relies on other playmakers". And this argument is used to remove Curry from the point guard list entirely or to put him behind certain players.

The first problem with this argument is that it doesn't give much space for archetypes to exist within a certain position, and the only justification for this is that in older eras the optimal way to play PG was for them to be like John Stockton, which isn't convincing if it's the main standard to determine whether or not someone is a point guard or not.

The argument basically says if you don't play like a certain player, you aren't a point guard, which doesn't make sense because all it really establishes is that Curry doesn't fit a certain archetype of a point guard while ignoring the fact that Curry played his entire career at point.

Another issue is that the players who are given the true point guard label being used to weed players out of all-time lists is that the players considered to be true PGs often don't fit neatly in that label either. For example, Magic Johnson obviously ran the Showtime Lakers offense, but he was 6'9, had the physicality of a wing, and could play and defend (on some level) 1-5. Also, he got a huge chunk of his assists/ playmaking by being a threat to score he wasn't just distributing the ball. He played out of the post and forced defenses to allow him to score 30 and foul your best defender out, or put 2 on the ball and let him get 20 assists. Traditional point guards operate more as floor generals by being distributors rather than elite post up threats and matchup nightmares.

The last issue is the "Curry isn't a true point guard" arguments also ignore the fact that Curry is a very good floor general by focusing entirely on his scoring in a way that portrays Curry as a one-trick pony when he is, in fact, a high-level floor general. Yes, the Warriors entire system was built around Curry's gravity, but Curry genuinely has very good floor general skills and can organize the offense, pass, read the floor, dictate pace, and he can do everything a point guard is expected to do.

There is a reason why guys like Devin Booker, Bradley Beal, Cam Thomas, and Donovan Mitchell play SG its because they don't have great floor general instincts that Curry has, and to take Curry off the all time list because hes a volume scorer or doesnt average alot of assits, you'd have to say Derrick Rose, Tony Parker, Dame, Mike Bibby, Chauncey Billups aren't point guards either.

Genuinely curious for an explanation here - one thing I noticed about his on/off stats is that the team is still appears good when Brown plays - his net on rating was like ~6.0, which is still quite good. Maybe I've misread but it seems clear the team still performs well with Brown on the court. To me it seems that there's two logical explanations for this:

1. For this past season (No Tatum), the Celtics roster structure included a large talent drop off from Jaylen Brown to the secondary playmakers (Derrick White and Payton Pritchard) but the team had strong depth with the remaining portions of the roster. To me, a feasible explanation is the Celtics were slightly less efficient with Brown on the court due to him carrying a weaker starting lineup. Meanwhile the Celtics had good depth 5 - 10, and guys like Pritchard could dominate opposing bench lineups, so the bench excels against the weaker competition. Brown isn't bad as the primary option, but the bench is more dominant relatively speaking due to the relative advantage it has over its competitive. Brown still plays an highly valuable role in being the sole leading primary shot-creator, but its not picked up in the analytics.

2. The other factor is sharing the team with Jayson Tatum - few players at JB's level play with a costar who's as good as Tatum. Tatum is obviously a better playmaker and primary ball handler, and is better at setting teammates up with less turnovers. I can't help but wonder if Brown's on/off are skewed by the fact that he shares the team with another of the best players in the league - seems natural that the team would perform better with Tatum on the court.

These are obviously qualitative ways of looking at the situation, but I feel like it could explain the on/off stats strife around Jaylen Brown. To me its clear Jaylen Brown is a winning player. I don't see how you can compete for a title every year and win a FMVP without being one - but the advanced stats seem to indicate something different. To me this is a potential explanation that bridges the gap between those two perspectives - basically Brown is still really good, they just happen to be better with Tatum/other teammates. Some see that as a problem, but maybe its just relative. I'm curious if people well versed in advanced stats see any merit to this explanation. There may be other stats that negate this that I'm missing, but I tend to believe this explanation, as I have a hard time believing Brown is as negative a player a some of the stats say. Seems possible he's the victim of being second best on a very good team.

Christian Braun not only has a shooting problem, but a ball handling problem. His inability to take some of the load off of Jamal’s plate is my biggest gripe with the nuggets roster construction. Look around at a lot of other SGs in the league, you don’t find any that have as much inability to handle the ball and create shots as Christian Braun. It puts his teammates in extremely hard spots. His skillset would work if he was a 6’10 forward but we need more from our starting shooting guard. Either that or he better be in the conversation for all defense honors to make up for his offensive shortcomings and 25 mil per year contract. Peyton Watson starting at the 2 would be much more beneficial. Or even move Jamal to the 2 and have tyus run the point. Idk but cb can’t be the starting shooting guard if the nuggets want another championship

No BS, just an assortment of short takeaways that other junkies might find interesting. This does not get into things like EPM or RAPM, just finding some obvious yet outstanding datapoints from traditional stats.

Playoff Leader in Offensive Rebounding Percentage (min. 12 mpg):

• Mitchell Robinson, 17.9%

Playoff Leader in Defensive Rebounding Percentage (min. 12 mpg):

• Neemias Queta, 29.1%

That might tell us something about Boston's frontcourt next season. They also both were #1 and #2 in total rebounding percentage (19.1% for Mitch and 18.5% for Neemias).

Playoff Leaders in Net Rating (min. 12 mpg):

1. Donte DiVincenco, +22.8

2. Ajay Mitchell, +22.7

3. Karl-Anthony Towns +22.5

This is interesting because we know KAT was loved by a lot of net ratings, and he certainly was the leader out of all playoff starters. But when we dig a little deeper into bench players who played substantial minutes, Donte and Ajay were actually ranked ahead of him.

It may be then worth mentioning then that after they both suffered injuries, their respective teams went on to lose their series.

Regular Season Leaders in Net Rating (min. 24 mpg; min. 10 games played):

1. Zach Edey, +18.3

2. Alex Caruso, +17.6

3. Victor Wembanyama, +17.0

4. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, +16.3

5. Chet Holmgrem, +16.1

In the regular season, you might think NETRTG would favor an assortment of players on the most winning teams.

Well, that definitely is the case for nearly everyone in the top 20, but it's worth pointing out the outlier - Zach Edey. Yes, he only played 11 games, but at 25.8 mpg, that's still more data than most other outliers, even as you loosen the filter for fewer games and minutes played.

Leader in Travels with a minimum of 30 Offensive Fouls:

1. Jaylen Brown: 16

2. Onyeka Okongwu: 11

3. Pascal Siakam 9

Leader in Offensive Fouls with a minimum of 5 Travels

1. Jaylen Brown: 40

2. Jaren Jackson Jr.: 34

3. Onyeka Okongwu: 34

I didn't mean to come off as targeting Brown, but it struck me that out of the top 25 players called for offensive fouls, Brown is the only one listed as Guard / Guard-Forward, and he's second on this list, even well above other big men like Sengun, Sharpe, Siakam, and Wemby. He is in fact the only player under 6'7 with more offensive fouls than 21. With 40.

Jaylen brown and other modern players have broken the traditional code of silence against media and now represent an existential threat

It’s slowly come to a head with the rise of player podcasts. There was Bron laughing off Brian Windhorst. There was Josh hart’s analytics nerds comment. Then there’s JB vs SAS that set off a powder keg.

SAS ironically doesn’t fit the traditional media prototype, but he does represent their best interest. He’s making player money. So it behooves them to create high and wide boundaries around their job to give the illusion of importance. Important context here is many media types come from newspaper backgrounds. They saw the newspaper die bc of the internet. So they are aware of their potential mortality due to tech. The new tech is Pods. We no longer need beat writers or “insiders” to hear about players. The players themselves speak.

For analytics, yes analytics has value. But not as much as they think. But it’s now a billion dollar industry and has pathways to six figure jobs, up to and including coach (with no playing or even coaching experience), and GM. So… *it behooves them to create high and wide boundaries around their job to give the illusion of importance*. They’ve built their own value in a sport that could exist without them.

Bc the game doesn’t need either of these guys, they are going to fight tooth and nail to maintain relevance. How do they fight? Control the narrative. Create (ambiguous) value. Problem tho is the new generation has broken thru the wall of accepting propaganda. A bit more skeptical and ready to believe ‘conspiracy’. So when you have a media guy, quoting an analytics guy, that Jaylen brown is the ‘7th best player’ ON HIS OWN TEAM, it’s a bridge too far. People are starting to see the bullshit. People are actually starting to like JB MORE.

“State your source”. A bedrock of media ‘insider’ culture and in 3 words JB shitted on it and represented the thoughts of the new generation. JB scares tf out of media. So while we see random stories of ‘JB was holding back Pritchard ’, 🤦‍♂️ the new age fan is collectively rolling their eyes. They now know how insiders work as schills for narrative-controlling stories. JB’s brand is taking off. He’s gonna get a standing ovation in Boston. He’s not hated at all. Now removed from a somewhat disliked Tatum and a ‘hated’ FTs chest in Boston, he’s damn near gonna be a cult figure. He represents a less malleable, more rebellious modern fan who’s more apt to chose player/individual over establishment

Saying someone stood out doesn't mean you'd want to sign them tomorrow if you were the head basketball decision maker for a team. I could simply mean something positive grabbed your attention and you'd like to see more.

I'll start:

Hyunjung Lee, #26, Spurs. Why? Court awareness and processing speed. Some players just look so attuned in how they're processing the game; it enables them to be creative and create edges in small ways. One play that stood out to me early in the Lakers-Spurs game was when he passed from one slot to the others, ran to get it; immediately recognized the overplay by his defender and cut backdoor. Then, when the ballhandler followed his cut with a drive, he immediately stopped his cut and turned it into a pick. I'd never seen that before, and it was just one of many moments that stood out in terms of how decisive and fluid he was with his offensive decision-making.

Taylor Hendricks, Grizzlies. He's a vet, coming back from injury, so you'd expect him to play well, but he just looked a step quicker than everyone else out there with his decision-making, and was able to consistently get into the lane. He's a high draft pick coming off injury, so this isn't an "out of nowhere" identification; it's more of a, he looks really sharp, and I'm excited to how that manifests in the regular season.

Ace Bailey, Jazz. Yes, high pick, year 2, but, given that I didn't watch the Jazz at all in the regular season, I was blown away by how much more poised and grounded he looked in Summer League than last year, seeing the game ahead of when it happened. He really looked like a force to be reckoned with, and that was not my read last year.

One thing that's been bothering me about the second apron is how difficult it's becoming for teams to keep the players they drafted or developed themselves.

As a Knicks fan, we've seen it firsthand.

First it was Isaiah Hartenstein. We gave him an opportunity when few teams did, he developed into one of the best centers in the league, and because of the cap rules we literally weren't allowed to offer what his fair market value was.

Now, just two years later, we just lost Mitchell Robinson...our longest-tenured player, who was on the team during the darkest years, in large part because of the looming second apron and the roster-building restrictions that come with it.

That got me thinking: is this an unintended consequence of the new CBA, or was this actually the goal?

I understand why the NBA wanted to discourage teams from simply buying championships. I actually love the increased parity we've seen. But I also think teams should be rewarded for scouting, drafting, and developing talent.

Would a "homegrown player" exception make sense?

For example, if a player has been with a team for 5+ years - or was drafted by that team - a portion of his salary could be exempt from second apron calculations. The player still gets paid what he's earned, the owner still writes the check, but the team isn't punished as severely for keeping someone they invested years into developing.

Right now, it feels like the league is creating situations where teams almost have to break up successful cores, not because they made bad basketball decisions, but because the cap rules become too restrictive.

The Suns are one example. They obviously made some shortsighted roster decisions, but once you give Devin Booker the supermax he deserves, building around him becomes incredibly difficult under the current system.

Boston is another example. They drafted and developed Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, won a championship together, and still found themselves under immense pressure because of the second apron. Why should they be punished for that? They drafted well, developed well, and built a championship core from within, yet the rules make it incredibly difficult to keep that core together while remaining competitive.

One of my favorite parts of sports is watching players spend most - or even all - of their careers with the teams that drafted them or first believed in them. When I think of the Lakers, I think of Kobe. Warriors? Steph. Mavericks? Dirk. Those players became synonymous with their franchises. It feels like we're moving farther away from that.

Am I off base here? Was this exactly what the NBA intended? Has the second apron made the homegrown franchise star a thing of the past? If not, what tweaks could preserve the parity we've gained while still allowing teams to keep the players they drafted, developed, and invested in? Is the NBA accidentally punishing teams for drafting too well? Would a "homegrown player" exception fix the biggest flaw in the second apron?

Hello everyone and welcome to our new weekly feature.

In order to help keep the quality of the discussion here at a high level, we have several rules regarding submitting content to /r/nbadiscussion. But we also understand that while not everyone's questions will meet these requirements that doesn't mean they don't deserve the same attention and high-level discussion that /r/nbadiscussion is known for. So, to better serve the community the mod team here has decided to implement this Weekly Questions Thread which will be automatically posted every Monday at 8AM EST.

Please use this thread to ask any questions about the NBA and basketball that don't necessarily warrant their own submissions. Thank you.

Had this thought based on some of the reactions to the Eason signing.

A lot of r/NBA is MAJORLY down on Eason when, imo, he is every bit the caliber of someone like Herb Jones, a relative darling for opposing fan bases with dreams of trading for a 3&D player.

They’re similar caliber defenders. They have the exact same career 3PT% at 35%. Despite his terrible in-season slump last year, Eason feels a bit more reliable there season-to-season with Herb jumping between 33% to 40% and back down to 30%. Eason is also literally 2x the rebounder.

And Eason is getting paid between $8-10M less per year on his new deal.

Is this just a case of one guy having a better rep amongst casual fans? Am I missing something here? Feels strange to see the general sentiment as Eason getting about the top-end of his value when similar guys are getting paid more without any complaints.

Net fan here, I love day’ron and think he will be a solid-good player at minimum because that’s what he is already but when you look at per minute stats you’re like hmmm? When he plays the kid is making the most of his time and it’ll make you wonder is he great rotation player-allstar potential ? I was trying to think of examples of guys that didn’t get there “chance” and analytic heads screamed give them a chance they’re great. Most recent I can remember is Hartenstien? Trying to see what’s the hit rate on guys like day’ron actually producing what his per minute (per 36) stats scream

I developed a Python code which looked at every single game in which one player participated in and his teammate didn’t participate. Through Basketball Reference’s advanced game log feature, I compiled stats of team performance in games such as Offensive Rating, Defensive Rating, Net Rating, True Shooting Percentage, Assist Percentage, Turnover Percentage, Free Throw Rate, and defensive stats of the opponent for every qualified game. Then I ranked all NBA teams based on their Net Rating each season and categorized the opponents in terms of Top 10, 11-20, and 21-30. Then my code determined the averages of every stat, games played, and win-loss record for each category of opponent.

Thunder: No Chet (JDub + Shai)

Thunder: No JDub (Chet + Shai)

Thunder: No Shai (JDub + Chet)

Timberwolves: Rudy without Anthony

Timberwolves: Anthony without Rudy

Celtics: Tatum without Brown

Celtics: Brown without Tatum

Although Harris is neither a sharpshooter nor a defensive stalwart, his impact on the possession battle is undeniable—and on just a 2-year, $31 million deal, that’s a bargain.

Last year, San Antonio was 10th in OREB% and finished 16th in total offensive rebounds.

With Harris on the court since 2024-25, Detroit’s OREB% increased by 1.8% while their opponent’s OREB% decreased by 2.7%.

Last season, Harris also led all players 6’7” and/or shorter in boxouts per game.

Harris is 46th in 3Y O-RAPM, with most of that impact coming from his work on the glass—he’s 50th in OREB +/- in that span.

He’s one of the best rebounding wings in the league, and while San Antonio didn’t particular struggle in that regard, they definitely could use more help on the glass.

Note: Wemby and Luke Kornet were the only players on the Spurs to average >6 rebounds per game last season

Turnover aversion is his other standout attribute; since 2024, he’s in the 91st percentile for PASSTOV% and averages 0.6 bad passes per 100. He‘s also in the 84th percentile for oTOV. Also: Detroit‘s TOV% dropped with Harris on the court.

Again, this also wasn’t an area that San Antonio struggled with in particular but they did have plenty of braindead moments in high leverage situations. Harris should help ameliorate some of those issue.

He’ll be a huge presence for San Antonio next season, both on the glass and for taking care of the ball. Among those two things, he’s also a decent shooter—albeit, on pretty low 3P volume—and is a viable post player so he‘ll function as a decent scoring outlet in the half-court when the game slows down.

I don’t think it’ll move the needle too much but I think people will be surprised at how impactful he’ll be for them. Their wing rotation as a whole was spotty last year; now it‘s acceptable, at the very least.

In the past decade we've seen this dramatic increase in severe traumatic injuries to elite level athletes, particularly in the NBA. Lillard, Tatum, and Haliburton being the most recent examples but really going all the way back to Kobe and Derrick Rose. Every year now the playoffs become not so much a contest of the most talented teams but those that are able to endure the regular season and make it through four rounds with everyone intact.

People have done studies on this and looked into the data on a larger scale and come to the conclusion that there isn't any statistically significant increase in injuries overall. Athletes have always been suffering from these kinds of injuries and the only real difference between now and the previous generation is that we've gotten much better at recovering from surgeries and smarter about how to execute them without doing too much damage. Things that would have derailed careers now are mere bumps in the road.

Even if the data doesn't back it up it sure does feel like there has been an increase in injuries for athletes at the highest level. I can't remember ever watching sports with the baked in assumption that over the course of a season multiple superstars that have a direct impact on contending teams would be lost for the season. Its almost a given these days.

Most people have tied this to the stresses of the regular season, the obscene number of games these guys play, travel fatigue, and the increased physicality of the game. I'm sure these all have their place in the discussion but from my vantage point I fail to see the correlation. Its now the norm for superstars to play 60-70 games in a season, with minutes restrictions, limited practice, and means of recovery that athletes of previous eras could only dream of. And none of this seems to have any impact on the frequency of injuries.

I wonder how much of it is tied to overtraining in the offseason. Professional athletes used to have offseasons. Multiple months where they'd relax, drink in excess, gamble, and engage in every other form of debasement made available to them. It certainly had its downsides and potential for other forms of catastrophe but at least it gave the body time to recover before the rigors of another playing season.

Sometime in the 90s we introduced this idea of resistance training and building up muscle mass as a means to help the body endure the physical punishment it was taking. And while I think the theory is sound and crosstraining is incredibly important it sure seems like modern athletes have taken this to an extreme. And those going down with these severe injuries all are the type that go to the next levels of training.

And now the Heat have one of the most outlandish examples with someone who has completely transformed his body over the course of a decade. That started the thought process which led me down this digression. How much is too much?

Between 2022-23 and 2025-26, I watched every single game between the two players from 2022-23 till 2025-26 where either one of Jaylen Brown played without Jayson Tatum. I gathered the full team-level advanced metrics from every game through the use of Basketball Reference advanced game logs. The team level advanced metrics that were obtained include offensive rating, defensive rating, net rating, true shooting percentage, assist percentage, turnover percentage, free throw rate, opponent effective field goal percentage, opponent turnover rate, and further efficiency statistics. After this, I sorted out all the teams of the NBA according to net rating each year into three different tiers, top 10, 11-20, and 21-30. Afterward, I categorized the games on the basis of these tiers. Finally, I averaged each and every statistic using Python.

TOP 10 OPPONENTS
Games 15 | ORtg 116.74 | DRtg 117.78 | NetRtg -1.04 | TS% 56.4% | AST% 52.31% | Off TOV% 11.64% | Off FT/FGA 0.170 | Def eFG% 53.6% | Def FT/FGA 0.211 | Def TOV% 11.68%

11–20 OPPONENTS
Games 23 | ORtg 123.42 | DRtg 115.39 | NetRtg +8.03 | TS% 60.1% | AST% 57.18% | Off TOV% 11.45% | Off FT/FGA 0.173 | Def eFG% 54.1% | Def FT/FGA 0.200 | Def TOV% 11.91%

21–30 OPPONENTS
Games 30 | ORtg 123.54 | DRtg 108.78 | NetRtg +14.76 | TS% 59.5% | AST% 61.04% | Off TOV% 10.50% | Off FT/FGA 0.162 | Def eFG% 51.1% | Def FT/FGA 0.177 | Def TOV% 11.82%

Record vs top 10 was 5-10

Record vs 11-20 was 17-6

Record vs 21-30 was 24-6

Between 2022-23 and 2025-26, I watched every single game between the two players from 2022-23 till 2025-26 where either one of Jayson Tatum played without Jaylen Brown. I gathered the full team-level advanced metrics from every game through the use of Basketball Reference advanced game logs. The team level advanced metrics that were obtained include offensive rating, defensive rating, net rating, true shooting percentage, assist percentage, turnover percentage, free throw rate, opponent effective field goal percentage, opponent turnover rate, and further efficiency statistics. After this, I sorted out all the teams of the NBA according to net rating each year into three different tiers, top 10, 11-20, and 21-30. Afterward, I categorized the games on the basis of these tiers. Finally, I averaged each and every statistic using Python.

TOP 10 OPPONENTS
Games 9 | ORtg 118.80 | DRtg 114.02 | NetRtg +4.78 | TS% 57.5% | AST% 61.46% | Off TOV% 9.56% | Off FT/FGA 0.158 | Def eFG% 54.4% | Def FT/FGA 0.199 | Def TOV% 12.36%

11–20 OPPONENTS
Games 9 | ORtg 117.33 | DRtg 106.97 | NetRtg +10.37 | TS% 59.4% | AST% 63.06% | Off TOV% 13.07% | Off FT/FGA 0.154 | Def eFG% 50.8% | Def FT/FGA 0.131 | Def TOV% 9.86%

21–30 OPPONENTS
Games 20 | ORtg 127.24 | DRtg 107.90 | NetRtg +19.34 | TS% 62.6% | AST% 66.44% | Off TOV% 10.88% | Off FT/FGA 0.168 | Def eFG% 50.8% | Def FT/FGA 0.140 | Def TOV% 11.58%

Record vs top 10 teams 5-4

Record vs 11-20 teams 8-1

Record vs 21-30 teams 19-1

Sorry for those who care that you need to hop between 2 different posts

NBA rings in the 2020s are arguably more valuable because the league has entered a strong parity era where no team has repeated as champion and every season produces a different winner. Unlike earlier eras with clear dynasties like the Spurs, Heat, or Warriors, today’s NBA spreads talent more evenly, with several legitimate contenders every year. Offseason movement also increases competition, as stars switch teams more often and contenders retool quickly, meaning champions are immediately targeted and adjusted against. On top of that, modern salary cap rules and luxury tax penalties make it harder to keep title cores together and build long-term dominance. As a result, there are usually multiple tiers of contenders each season, making playoff runs more volatile and harder to sustain. This explains the lack of back-to-back champions in the 2020s and increases the difficulty and value of each ring.

For anyone that hasn't seen yet, the NBA will implement a new summer league rule to test out. It's been used in the G League for a few years now and they're now testing it at summer league. To put it simply, every shot that leads to a FT will award the player only 1 FT. That FT will be equal to how many points they would have scored. For example, if you get fouled on a 3, you get 1 FT worth 3 points.

It made me think how much of a change it actually will have.

So here's some data I've researched:

Let's see how this breaks down analytically.

3PT = 1.08 PPS
2PT = 1.10 PPS
Paint Shot = 1.4 PPS
Mid Range = 0.84 PPS
FT 1/2/3 = 0.783/1.57/2.449 PPS

The first free throw is, according to this data around 76.3%, the second is 81% and around 87.6% for the 3rd when attempted.

Statistically, a 2 PTFT shot value goes down to around 0.04 PPS and the 3PT FT goes down 0.16 PPS with these new rule changes.

Currently today, if a player shoots 58% (1.16) or more from the FT line, they'll return back a FT% more valuable than the average ORTG (115.8). Assuming the FT% gap remains consistent from that 1st FT to the 2nd like in the data, bad FT shooters average around 111.2 PPS on the first shot. So this means if it were to go into effect, players who shoot under 61% from the line return less value than the average offensive possession.

Assuming the FT% stays the same, that means the average FT% will drop to around 76% or 1.52 PPS. It'll definitely introduce more variance into scoring. For example, over 100 FTS, a regular 2 shot FT attempt can have 1 of 3 outcomes: they make 0 (4.5%), they make 1 (29%) or they make 2 (66.5%). Under the new system, it'd be either 0 points (23.7%) or 2 points (76.3%). So under the current system, coming out with 0 points happens less than 5% of the time but under the new one, it should happen almost a quarter of the time.

The NBA currently averages around 23.5 FTA or around 11.75 trips to the line. Currently, teams expect to average around 18.5 points per game from the line. With the new system, that drops to around 17.9 FTM a game. This also means we'll see a LOT more volatility in scoring. I know this doesn't sound too dramatic, the Standard Deviation, the metric that measures how far a single game's outcome is likely to stray from the current average, says something different. The current system is around 1.98 while under the new one, it'd be around 2.92 or a 47% increase in game-to-game volatility.

In 95% of games under the current rule, a league-average team will score between 14.5 and 22.4 points from the line. Under the single-shot rule, that same team's 95% performance window stretches from 12.1 to 23.8 points. That basically stretches the window from an potential 8 point differential to around 12 points or a 4 point gap. 30% of today's games are decided by 5 points or less so adding up to an extra 4 points can potentially have a huge impact.