A new era in the NBA is beginning, for better and for worse. A new generation scores a lot… and defends rather little.
This 2022-23 season, the list of scorers is headed by six, six! who average more than 30 points per game, with the great Luka Doncic first. Never in the three quarters of a century of the NBA had there been such a scoring outburst. Last season, only one player exceeded thirty on average; in 2021 and 2020, two players; from 2014 to 2018, a single player. The record, up to now, corresponded to the 2005-06, 1981-82 and 1971-72 seasons, when three men averaged more than 30 points: Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson y LeBron James In the first case; George Gervin, Moses Malone and Adrian Dantley four decades ago; and Charlie Scott, Rick Barry and Dan Issel more than half a century ago.
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How can you stop Luka Doncic?
How can you stop Luka Doncic?
Along with those brilliant examples, in most seasons in the big professional league, 34, nobody reached that average of 30 points. But, of course, there were also the two tremendous ones from a man of stature and faculties that no one else possessed then, Wilt Chamberlainwho came to average more than 50 points in 1962 and more than 44 the following year.
What such a review confirms for us is the unprecedented profusion of scoring explosions in this 2022-23 season. There are two components to it, one disturbing and the other encouraging. The haunting serves as proof as soon as you watch a few games this season, where the open shots have multiplied, the refs are cooperative, and the overall impression is too much like those All Star games of recent years that haven’t been played. they go from tedious target shooting exercises.
NBA stalwarts retort that all of this is a reflection of the new era in which all players, even the tallest, have worked their long shots into threats from 3-point range. And it is true, but defensive neglect is also true. So let’s put up with that patent sloppiness and enjoy the truly remarkable scoring talent and precision of that generation of players. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jayson Tatum, Trae Young, Ja Morant, Zion Williamson, Anthony Edwards, Anfernee Simons, Jalen Green and Paolo Banchero. With our Luka at the helm, of course.
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